Harrison County

Extension Connection
Spring-Summer, 2001

Wheat Flour Facts (January 19, 2001)

Dietary Guidelines for Americans (January 5, 2001)

There are lots of tomatoes ripening these days. Tomatoes are one of nature’s gifts. They’re delicious and juicy. They add Vitamins C and A, fiber, and the antioxidant lycopene to our diets. If you’ve eaten all the raw tomatoes you can, and you plan to can some, keep in mind the changes that have occurred over the years with tomatoes.

Once canned as a high-acid food, tomatoes have been bred to be much lower in acidity. For this reason, it’s essential to treat them as a low-acid food when canning. To safely can tomato sauce, or whole, crushed or juiced tomatoes you need to add acid whether you are using a boiling water canner or a pressure canner. Use 2 tablespoons of bottled lemon juice or ½ teaspoon of citric acid per quart of tomatoes. For pints, use 1 tablespoon of bottled lemon juice or ¼ teaspoon citric acid.

You can also use vinegar (4 tablespoons of 5% vinegar per quart) instead of lemon juice or citric acid. However, vinegar may cause an undesirable flavor.

For specific recipes and the canning procedures needed to safely can tomatoes (of any color) and tomato products, ask your local Extension center for the guide sheet, Tantalizing Tomatoes, How to Can Fresh Tomato Products, GH 1456. There are recipes for whole, halved or crushed tomatoes, Mexican tomato sauce, spaghetti sauce without meat, tomato juice, tomato sauce and tomato ketchup. There’s also one for barbeque sauce, tomatoes with okra or zucchini (hey, can two overabundant crops at once!) and chili salsa. For other salsa recipes, ask for the June issue of Taste of Harvest newsletter. And enjoy the nutritious fruits of your labor throughout the coming year.

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The cucumbers and zucchini are plentiful. My tomato plants are bent with tomatoes, soon to be ripe. The carrots are coming right along and the fruit trees will be dropping their fruit pretty soon. With the abundance of the harvest the question always is, “What am I going to do with all this produce?” If you’re planning to preserve some of your harvest, University of Missouri Extension has a whole series of guide sheets to help you. Here’s what is available:

Canning:

GH1451 Quality for Keeps: Food Preservation -- Before You Start to Can, Learn the Basics 

GH1452 Quality for Keeps: Food Preservation -- Steps to Success in Home Canning 

GH1454 Quality for Keeps -- How to Can Fresh Vegetables 

GH1455 Quality for Keeps: Food Preservation -- Fruitful Canning 

GH1456 Quality for Keeps -- How to Can Fresh Tomato Products 

GH1457 Quality for Keeps -- In a Pickle 

GH1459 Quality for Keeps -- Pack a Pickled Product 

GH1490 Quality for Keeps -- Canning Meat, Fish and Poultry 

Freezing:

GH1501 Quality for Keeps: Food Preservation -- Freezing Basics 

GH1502 Quality for Keeps -- Freezing Fruits 

GH1503 Quality for Keeps: Food Preservation -- Freezing Vegetables 

GH1504 Quality for Keeps -- Freezing Meat, Poultry, Fish, Eggs and Dairy Products 

GH1505 Quality for Keeps -- Freezing Home-Prepared Foods 

GH1507 Quality for Keeps -- Freezing Unusual Fruits and Vegetables 

GH1506 Quality for Keeps -- Freezer Problem Solver 

Drying

GH1562 Quality for Keeps -- Drying Foods

GH1563 Quality for Keeps -- How to Dry Foods at Home 

GH1564 Quality for Keeps: Food Preservation -- How to Use Dried Foods 

If you’re planning on canning low-acid foods, like green beans or tomatoes, be sure to use a pressure canner. You should have your pressure canner’s gauge checked for accuracy at your local Extension Center every year before canning.

I recently had the great good fortune to go to Boot Camp. Sound odd? This boot camp took place at America’s Second Harvest headquarters in St Joseph. Our drill sergeant was not a tough, order-shouting brute, but a kind, fun-loving teacher – the director of Second Harvest for our region, Jason Clark.

Second Harvest is part of a nationwide network of food banks and food recovery organizations. A group of 9-15 year olds, a few Extension colleagues and I joined the Second Harvest staff to see how they connect unwanted yet safe, edible food with people who need a little something to help make ends meet.

I watched as the 4-Hers inventoried a recent shipment of foods. Their painstaking effort to calculate and count every single can of applesauce and every box of dry milk showed how aware they were of the significance of this food. Some commodities are donated by the U.S. government. Food processing companies also donate seconds, product that is not top quality. The food inside the packages is fine. The packages themselves don’t meet market standards (perhaps the colors on the labels were off, or the printing on the labels was skewed).

We then filled an order. Our team gathered light boxes of fruit leathers and boxes of 6 No. 10 cans of green beans. As we went up and down the aisles to find the items, the kids took notice of the wide variety of foods available. And with 250,000 pounds of food distributed per month, there was plenty to look at.

Next we made Harvest Baskets with foods from all the food groups. Our “drill sergeant” had us think about how the foods would fit together into meals with ‘family appeal.’

Last we sorted and set out fresh produce at Harvest House. The kids followed the example of the staff as they carefully culled strawberries, grapes and peaches not fit to eat. It was worth all our hard work to see the delight of a little girl choosing her 3 items from Harvest House – berries, beans and potatoes.

If you’d like to donate food or extra produce, contact your local food pantry, or America’s Second Harvest directly at 816-364-FOOD, that’s 816-364-3663. Or contact your local University of Missouri Extension center for this or any other information.

Some folks have an attitude adjustment hour each day after work. It’s that time when they set their workday worries aside and relax. Well, during canning season we look at the altitude adjustment. And the work we’re worried about is not deadlines and customer satisfaction but the job microorganisms are doing on our food!

Research tells us the time and temperature needed to destroy harmful bacteria when canning various kinds of food. Following these procedures insures that all the food, all the way to the very center of the jar, reaches the temperatures needed to be effective. For some items, this means using pressure to reach a higher temperature. A higher pressure inside a canner will allow the water inside it to boil at a higher temperature.

But atmospheric pressure also affects this process. That’s why the U.S.D.A. and University of Missouri Extension recommend higher pressures and/or longer processing times at higher altitudes. So before you start to can, ask yourself: What’s my altitude? Some parts of the NW region of Missouri are above and some are below the 1000 ft mark, where altitude adjustments must be made. Here are some examples of altitudes around the Region:

Princeton     932 feet
Trenton        841 feet
Chillicothe    798 feet
Hamilton      994 feet
Gallatin        931 feet
Bethany       904 feet
Grant City   1134 feet
Albany         915 feet
Maysville      974 feet
Cameron     1036 feet
St Joseph     828 feet
Savannah    1115 feet
Maryville      1036 feet
Tarkio           918 feet
Oregon        1094 feet

And in Harrison County, Missouri:
Eagleville    1097 feet
Ridgeway    1057feet
Gilman City  979 feet
New Hampton  958 feet

Source: http://www.mit.edu:8001/geo 

If you’re not sure of your altitude or if you’re wondering what adjustments you have to make to safely can your produce, contact your local University of Missouri Extension center for guide sheets giving the latest researched procedures.

This is National Dairy Month and dairy’s top contribution as a healthy choice is its calcium content. But not everyone likes dairy foods. Some folks have trouble eating or drinking dairy foods. Still, we all need calcium to build bones and keep them strong. Some people just don’t get enough calcium from the foods they eat. Alice Henneman, Registered Dietician, and Linda Boeckner, Registered Dietician and Nutrition Specialist with University of Nebraska Cooperative Extension, have some great tips this month in Food Reflections Newsletter on how to take calcium supplements wisely.

As with any supplement, it’s important to read the label. There are two typical forms of calcium in supplements, calcium carbonate and calcium citrate. If you take calcium carbonate, take it with a meal. This form requires stomach acid to be present to dissolve and to be absorbed most efficiently. Between meals stomach acid may not be adequate. If you take a supplement containing calcium citrate, you can take it any time since it doesn’t need the stomach acid to work best. Your medical provider may recommend a time best for you though.

If you’re not getting Vitamin D elsewhere, it’s good to choose a supplement that also has this nutrient. It helps your body to use the calcium well.

The National Osteoporosis Foundation suggests starting out slowly, if you plan to add supplemental calcium. Start with 500 extra mg a day for a week and slowly add to that. Don’t take more than 2500 mg daily – and that’s from supplements as well as food sources. Sometimes there are side effects such as gas or constipation. Adding high fiber foods can help with this. If problems persist, try a different form.

Be sure to check for interactions with prescription or over-the-counter drugs. Your doctor or pharmacist can help with this.

Of course, getting calcium from food is still the best way. Calcium rich foods are also good sources of other nutrients not available supplements.

Source: FOOD REFLECTIONS Newsletter, University of Nebraska Cooperative Extension in Lancaster County (http://lancaster.unl.edu/food/food-reflections.shtml )

Dairy Month – Calcium Sources (June 8, 2001)

June is National Dairy Month. When I was going to school in Minnesota, National Dairy month was celebrated each June throughout the state. When you’d go into a restaurant, for example, if the server didn’t ask you “Would you like milk with that?” you got a free glass of cold milk.

But liquid milk is not the only dairy food that can provide us with that important bone-strengthening nutrient Calcium. An 8-ounce glass of milk of any flavor has about 30% of the amount of calcium most of us (aged 19-50) need in a day. (If you’re 9-18 years old or over 50 you need a little more.) A cup of yogurt scores in with a little more Calcium per serving, at 35% Daily Value (DV). One ounce of cheese offers about 20% Daily Value and a half a cup of frozen yogurt or pudding made from milk has about 10% of the daily need of calcium. Even a half a cup of ice cream has about 6%.

Dairy foods are the most obvious sources of Calcium but other foods also offer some to our daily intake. For example, calcium fortified orange juice has about 30% DV of calcium, about the same as milk. A half-cup of collards or broccoli with cheese has 20%. Broccoli by itself would contribute 6% of the average needed calcium. 2/3 cups turnip greens would have 15% and kale would offer 10% DV. Even many cereals are fortified with calcium. Check the Nutrition Facts labels to see exactly how much calcium is in the foods you eat.

Food is the best source of calcium but if you decide to take a supplement be sure not to get more than 2500 mg of calcium daily. That’s as much as two and a half times the daily value for most adults. Because of the way our bodies absorb calcium, it’s good to spread out our intake, whether from dairy foods, other foods or supplements, over the course of the day.

Week after next, we’ll look at what to consider if you plan to take a calcium supplement.

This weekend officially opens the picnic season. Whether you’re cooking out in the backyard or if you’ve gone off somewhere for a picnic, keep your family’s food safe by following these simple rules.

The simplest is “Keep cold foods colds and hot foods hot.” The other goes along with it: when it’s warm out, do not let foods sit out for more than 2 hours. (If it’s 90°F or more, limit that time to 1 hour.) And, of course, keep hands, utensils and surfaces clean.

Keeping perishable foods cold isn’t too difficult with some advance planning. For example, let’s say you plan on hamburgers with buns and cheese, carrots and other raw veggies and dip, potato salad, fruit, cookies and pop. If the pop or veggies and fruit are going to be munched on from time to time, they could go in a separate cooler. Then as warm air enters that cooler with each trip into it, the meat and potato salad can just stay cool. In a separate cooler, put the meat on the bottom and the potato salad on top. Cold air sinks so the bottom is the coolest place. Put the salad in a closed container and wrap or package the meat securely. Since the potato salad is eaten raw, be sure any raw meat juice does not contaminate it. Keep cold foods in the cooler till it’s time to eat to keep them cool and out of the Danger Zone.

Keeping hot foods hot means first cooking them to the proper temperature. For hamburger that’s 160°F on the inside. Color can be deceptive. For accuracy, measure internal temperature with a meat thermometer. Once hot foods are hot, keep them hot or serve them right away. All these precautions help prevent the growth of harmful bacteria that can sometimes be found on meat, especially ground meat.

Keeping things clean can be a challenge in some picnic spots. If water is not available, bring some along for washing hands, utensils, picnic table, and anything else that might come in contact with food. Since soap is often not available and neither are paper towels, it would be wise to bring those along for cleaning up. At very least, some waterless soap could be used.

Food Bank Wish List  (May 11, 2001)

Tomorrow the United States Postal Service will be collecting dry goods to distribute to food pantries in our area. But what can we set out that would be most appreciated? I plan to keep the Food Guide Pyramid in mind when making my selections.

From the Grain Group, choose from:

• Rice, rice mixes, noodle mixes, and macaroni and cheese mixes

• Canned pastas, dry noodles, and dry pastas

• Cold cereals and hot cereal mixes

• Infant cereals

• Flour, pancake mix and bread and muffin mix

• Graham crackers, and other crackers

From the Vegetable Group, choose from:

• Canned vegetables, canned tomato products, vegetable soup

• Spaghetti sauce

• Vegetable juices and blends

• Baby food vegetables

From the Fruit Group, select from:

• Canned fruits, dried fruits like raisins, and 100% fruit leathers

• Canned and boxed 100% fruit juices

• Applesauce

• Baby food fruits

From the Dairy Group, offer:

• Powdered milk and evaporated milk

• Instant breakfast drinks

• Canned and boxed pudding

• Infant formula

From the Protein Group, look for:

• Canned tuna, chili, salmon, and beans

• Beef stew and baked beans

• Peanut butter

And from the tip of the pyramid, check out:

• Syrup, jelly and jam

• Tea and coffee

• Mayonnaise, mustard and salad dressings

• Vegetable oils

Peggy Waldren, of the Harrison County Community Action Agency, suggested keeping in mind that many who receive these foods are children.  Look for items that are not perishable and that the children in your family would like to eat and would be able to prepare for themselves.  Later this summer, I will be letting you know how you can donate extra produce from your garden. Stay tuned.

From the temperatures lately, it’s not clear if Spring is here or not. But when I check in the garden, the asparagus is ready for harvesting and that is a sure sign of Spring.

Select spears that are firm and bright green. The tips should be tightly closed. The spears will be 6 to 12 inches tall. They need to be harvested every other day, or if the weather warms up, every day, as needed. Harvest spears by snapping them off at or near the ground. This leaves the tough, woody portion of the spear in the garden and prevents damage from the cutting knife to spears about to emerge. For best quality, harvest early in the morning while the spears are cool.

To store asparagus in the refrigerator, it’s essential to keep them moist. Do this by standing them upright in a small amount of water in the bottom of a container or wrapping the cut ends in a moist paper towel. This will keep them for a few days.

To cook asparagus, first clean thoroughly by rinsing under running water. Cut into pieces or cook whole, as desired. Bring to a gentle boil or steam. For small spears, cook about 3 minutes, for medium spears,  about 5 minutes, and for large spears, about 10 minutes. Don’t overcook or they can get pretty mushy.

There are lots of ways to fix this low calorie food. Eat them plain and savor their flavor. Or they can be served with a sauce. Throw them into any stir-fry or casserole. They are good hot in soup and cold in salad. Be creative. If there is more in the garden than you care to eat now, try freezing some. Blanch 2 minutes for small spears, 3 minutes for medium spears and 4 minutes for large ones, to stop or slow enzyme deterioration. Then cool quickly in ice water for at least as long as the blanch time. Drain, package, label, freeze and enjoy asparagus any time of the year.
Source: Growing Home Garden Asparagus G6405 and Food Preservation – Freezing Vegetables G1503

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Can I can this? Choosing Variety for End Use  (April 13, 2001)

It’s Spring and folks are getting out in their gardens to plant. Later in the year, I often get questions about problems that could have been avoided had they been considered at THIS time of year. Sometimes problems, like soggy pickles or watery canned tomatoes, can be avoided by choosing the variety of fruit or vegetable based on what you plan to do with the surplus of produce.

For example, an acid-free, burpless cucumber absorbs flavor well so it can be used for making pickles. But they lose their crispness when they’re pickled. They would do better cut up in a relish or sauce where crispness is not as important.

Cucumbers bred for slicing can also be used for pickles, but again would result in a softer pickle. They lack enough sugar needed for proper fermentation.

Waxed cucumbers also produce a very poor pickled product because the wax does not allow the pickling solution to enter the cucumber.

If it’s a nice crisp tasty pickle you want, you need to start with a pickling variety. Harvest the cucumbers when they’re about 5 inches long (for dill pickles). Picking produce at its peak, when its’ natural sugar level and microorganism level is ideal, can make the final product its’ best.

To know which variety of cucumber is best for your planned end use, check the seed packet or catalogue description. For any vegetable or fruit, decide what you want do with extra produce. Check the seed packet, catalogue or plant stake. And choose for the variety to plant based end-use, pickling, canning, freezing, drying, jam or jelly. This can help avoid some of the problems encountered later in preserving.

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We all know how important physical activity is to keeping us healthy. And yet only about a fourth of adults in the U.S. get the recommended amount of exercise each day. As busy as we are, fitting 30 minutes of exercise in most days of the week can be nearly impossible. Or is it? If that 30 minutes is at an aerobics class at a gym, it might mean 5 minutes to get there, 5 minutes to change clothes, 5 minutes for a warm-up, 30 minutes for the class, 5 minutes of cool down, 20 minutes to shower and change, and 5 minutes to get back home. That’s an hour and a quarter spent for just a half hour of exercise. It could be tough to find the time for that.

Getting moving and enjoying that movement is one of the tenets of the New You program. The program helps participants change the ‘e’ word from exercise to enjoying movement as a part of a healthy lifestyle. If you’d like to learn more about getting moving and staying active, you can contact me at 660/425-6434. Or if you have a group you’d like to have the New You program presented to in its entirety, contact me at the University of Missouri Extension office in Bethany and we can set something up.

Children have a wonderful way of enjoying movement in their everyday lives. The New You program encourages us to live in a healthy body by enjoying being active. But to be active and to make those changes in our busy lives we need some motivation.

In this day and age there are lots of styles of eating: the careful eater, the unconscious eater, the professional dieter and the intuitive eater. Starting this Monday, I’ll present "A New You – Living in a Healthy Body", that helps folks move toward the latter style.

Do any of these sound familiar? Tired of it? The New You program will address these and look into ways of becoming an intuitive eater, honoring the body’s hunger signals, respecting fullness and enjoying eating well and playing hard. If you have a group in the Green Hills area of NW Missouri you’d like to have the New You program presented to, you can contact me at the University of Missouri Extension office in Bethany at 660/425-6434.

It’s been a month and a half since New Year’s Resolutions. Now might be the time for a new start with the New You program. It’s not about diets; it’s about ‘Living in a Healthy Body.’ One thing the program addresses is myths versus reality. Here are some.

This is just a taste of the New You program. If you’d like the full course, or if you have a group in the Green Hills area of NW Missouri you’d like to have the New You program presented to, you can contact me at the University of Missouri Extension office in Bethany at 660/425-6434.

The best pest control measure is to prevent the pest in the first place. Don’t leave spills, drips and food to attract uninvited and unwanted guests.

Walking down the flour aisle can get confusing with all the different kinds of flour available commercially these days. Here are a few facts about flour to help make reading flour and bread labels easier. The terms refer to wheat flour. Wheat flour has a uniquely stretchy gluten, the protein that gives structure to bread. The gluten in wheat is particularly elastic, and so expands well to hold gases produced by yeast. Flour from other grains may have gluten, but none that by themselves produce such a light product.

Stone-ground flour refers to the process used to make the flour and does not itself add nutritional value. Stone-ground flour is often whole wheat and stone grinding can allow the whole grain to be used for flour.

Do you ever wonder what you need to do to be healthy and fit? The U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has revised the Dietary Guidelines for Americans this year to answer just that question. They’re as simple as ABC.

If you’d like more information about the guidelines, you can check them out on-line at http://www.cnpp.usda.gov/DietaryGuidelines.htm  or contact me.

For more information on these or any other topics, please contact your local University of Missouri Extension center. University of Missouri Extension programs are open to all.

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		University of Missouri Extension Harrison County harrisonco@missouri.edu Updated 12/13/06 Barb Ubben