There are lots of changes going on in University of Missouri Extension these days. As of December 31, 2002, Keith Hawxby will retire. Since November 1, 2002, Karma Metzgar has taken on the responsibilities of Northwest Regional Director. Extension staff may not be as accessible, but your questions still need practical answers. Taste of Harvest will take a break until staff is available to support it. In the meantime, here are some reliable Internet resources that may come in handy.

To find any of the guide sheets that have been referenced in past issues, go to http://muextension.missouri.edu/xplor. Type in your topic in the Search line at the top of the page or browse the topics listed.

Check out http://extension.missouri.edu/hes/nutscilinks.htm. The Human Sciences Extension/Nutritional Sciences Related Links page on the University of Missouri’s College of Human Environmental Sciences site. This page is a great clearinghouse site with lots of useful links for nutrition, food safety and food preservation. Similar links are also found at http://extension.missouri.edu/hesfn/links.

http://www.nutrition.gov is your guide to nutrition and health information on Federal Government websites. It has quick links to food facts and food safety topics, plus numerous other topics of interest.

For those interested in health, check out http://www.healthfinder.gov your guide to reliable health information.

If your interest is on how to select, use, or store fruits and vegetables (grown or purchased) check out http://aboutproduce.com. This is a commercial site but contains sometimes hard to find nutrition facts labels for numerous produce. It’s also a site with an abundance of information and recipes for using fresh produce.

Want to know what other extension services have as resources? Check out this on-line resource--http://e-answersonline.org. One caution if you are preserving foods following directions from other states, pay close attention to the elevation information—it may not be accurate for Missouri.

A general resource of a food dictionary and recipes is http://eat.epicurious.com. While this is a commercial site, the food dictionary portion has been extremely helpful in understanding terminology and different ingredients called for in recipes.

When it comes to food storage, the Food Marketing Institutes Food Storage Information site is great. After selecting food items, though, it's up to you to take care of them properly. The Food Keeper contains valuable food safety and storage advice to help you maintain the freshness and quality of foods that you purchase or produce. Check it out at http://www.fmi.org/consumer/foodkeeper/brochure.cfm.

If you home preserve food, the Penn State Home Food Preservation Database is an excellent resource. There are numerous links—even to find out the elevation of where you live to safety preserve foods! You’ll find it at http://foodsafety.cas.psu.edu/presqueryform.cfm. This site also has the link to the National Center for Home Food Preservation which can be found at http://www.uga.edu/nchfp. Depending on your computer system, you can even watch clips on how to do certain food preservation steps.

When it comes to wanting to know about calories and nutrients in food, there is nothing that matches the USDA Nutrition Laboratory Database. This site contains information from a popular extension publication from years past—Nutritive Value of Food, but is in a user-friendly look up format by food. You also can get reports by selected nutrients, and lots of other useful information. Check it out at http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp.

Then, when it comes to what’s true and what’s not, check out the Urban Legends and Folklore site at http://urbanlegends.about.com.

Here are some web sites that pertain to Horticulture and related topics.

Missouri Alternatives Center—http://agebb.missouri.edu/mac

Organic website—http://www.rain.org/~sals

Kansas State Publications and Videos Library—http://www.oznet.ksu.edu/library

Missouri Department of Agriculture—http://www.mda.state.mo.us

Weed information/pictures of weeds—http://www.turf.uiuc.edu/weed_web

USDA Agriculture Fact book—http://www.usda.gov/news/pubs/fbook97/contents.htm

University of Missouri’s Extension Home and Garden resources—http://extension.missouri.edu/main/homegarden

Tomato Problem Solver—http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/tomatoproblemsolver/index.html

American Market Service: Market News Text Reports for Fruits and Vegetables—http://www.ams.usda.gov/fv/mncs/fvwires.htm

Missouri Botanical Society: Check out Gardening Help or Horticulture—http://www.mobot.org

Natural Resource Conservation Service Plant Database: Click on Fact Sheets and search by common or scientific name—http://plants.usda.gov

As always, if you have questions, you can contact your local University of Missouri Extension Center.