April Family & Consumer Science Newsletter

I'm pretty sure from mid-March up until this very moment has been on fast-forward.

I feel like one of the cartoon characters standing on the edge of the sidewalk spinning in circles with papers flying around everywhere after someone just blew past them in a hurry. Thankfully things are slowing down for a bit and I'm getting caught back up.

April is historically known for big things: the Titanic sinking, the beginning of the Revolutionary War, and the inauguration of our first President. Keep reading to check out some other big things going on in the world of Family & Consumer Science during the month of April.

How's Your Knowledge When It Comes to Financial Literacy?

In 2000, the Jump$tart Coalition started promoting April as the Financial Literacy for Youth Month, but has been known as Financial Literacy Month since 2004. This is an opportunity to review your finances, update your information, and improve where needed.

To increase your awareness of Financial Literacy Month, here are a few fun facts:

In the U.S., one out of every five students lack basic skills of financial literacy.
29% of working women showed basic skills of financial literacy, whereas 47% of men demonstrated basic financial literacy skills.
54% of the student loan holders didn't know about their future monthly payments before taking out their loans.
According to a national survey, only 20% of adults have participated in financial education.
Women save 68 cents against every dollar that men save for retirement.

Did you know that there was an American Institute of Stress (AIS)?

The American Institute of Stress was established in 1978 by a group of health professionals. When we think about it, the term stress feels as if it has been around since the beginning of time. We use it on a daily basis and don't think another thing about it. This diagnosis or description of human reaction is fairly new, only used for the time about fifty years ago. Hans Selye was the doctor who coined this word to describe how the human body reacts to demands placed upon it. He studied endocrinology in depth and saw that over time, stress induces hormonal responses, ulcers, high blood pressure, arthritis, kidney disease, and more.

We often think of stress as having its most major effects on a person's mental health, but it can affect so much more. The diagram on the right shows where stress can stir things up in the body. Systems react to stress the same way whether the stress is coming from a physically stressor or a psychological one. The nervous, musculoskeletal, respiratory, cardiovascular, endocrine, gastrointestinal, and reproductive systems are all affected negatively by stress.

We can easily give into the feelings of stress, but we can just as easily find ways to manage them. Management techniques vary from person to person because of how each individual is affected differently by stressors, but with a little trial and error and maybe some research, you'll find the perfect fit.

...But I Boil Them For Two Hours?

As we get ready for canning season, I want to start out by explaining a few basics. One of the most common things I hear about canning, is the debate of how to properly can green beans.

Just this week, I was teaching a ServSafe class and we were talking about the common foodborne illnesses and how cooking to the correct times and temperatures is crucial to prevent such illnesses from occurring. One question I asked the group was, "when canning green beans, how do you do it in a safe method"? Silence fell over the group and all of a sudden a student spoke up and said "I water bath mine for two hours. Pressure canning only takes 30 minutes, so cooking them for two hours is safer."

Although you'd think this statement makes sense, it doesn't. In a water bath process, the water temperature can only reach a maximum of 212 degrees no matter how long the pot boils. When you add a lid and pressure, the temperature reaches 240 degrees. 240 degrees is the temperature needed to kill the botulism spores that thrive in low-acid foods such as green beans, vegetables, meats, and soups. Pressure canning is the only safe method to can green beans.

Tiny But Mighty

Many reading this might think April is a bit too early to be thinking about ticks, but this is the beginning of peak tick season. Last week while cleaning out the office shed, I had my first encounter for the year - with a brown dog tick. In our area we are likely to stumble upon one of the four ticks pictured below, especially between the months of April and September when the weather is warmest. Although these little guys are tiny they can do some major damage if infected and bite a human, and they all do something different. Click the links at the bottom of the article to learn more.

Monthly Recipe Feature

This month's recipe comes from one of my favorite resources, ChopChop Family.

Founded in 2010 by Sally Sampson, ChopChop Family is a national nonprofit organization. Endorsed by the American Academy of Pediatrics and winner of the prestigious James Beard Foundation Award for Publication of the Year, ChopChop Family includes a diverse and inclusive collection of products for children, parents, and older adults. In addition to magazines and cookbooks, the ChopChop Family brand includes the Eatable Alphabet, digital content, and cooking curricula, reaching over three million families worldwide.

With the Easter holiday coming up this weekend, and with eggs in mind, I felt this was a great one to share!

This dish got its name from the traditional addition of hot spices — but deviled eggs aren’t simply spicy anymore. Nowadays almost anything tasty is considered fair game in deviled eggs: capers, pickles, relish, mustard. If you want to make these eggs truly devilish, just add a little bit of hot sauce.

Making Healthy Smoothies at East Yancey Middle School

At the end of March, Mrs. Jordan, our 4-H agent and I were able to go into the P.E. classes for a day at East Yancey Middle School. We took over for Mr. Sink and Mr. Young to do an interactive health lesson. This involved the 4-H blender bike and an activity in multitasking putting their hand-eye coordination and brains to work. Students had to think fast and tell us which of the food groups certain items belonged to when a ball was thrown to them. The one catching the ball had to give the answers. Some were as simple as strawberries (fruit) while others were more difficult, like a Big Mac (protein, grain, vegetable, fruit, and dairy). We also discussed the fact that although some foods fall into multiple food groups, it doesn't necessarily mean they are healthy.

Students enjoyed taking turns on the bike to propel the blender full of smoothie ingredients, then sampled their creations. The overwhelming winner of the smoothie taste-test was strawberry banana.

Needing Your Certification?
I am officially certified to offer the ServSafe Manager Course and proctor the exam for those needing to renew a certification or obtain a new certification. Our first class completed the process over a two-day period including 8 hours of educational time, breaks for lunch and stretching, over an hour of review before taking the exam, and the exam itself.

A new class will be offered in the summer, probably in July. All payments are due two weeks prior to class in order to get materials purchased and delivered on time.

If you need a certification before our next class is announced, please reach out!

Earth Day and Family & Consumer Science
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FOA) defines food waste as, “discarding of food that is safe and nutritious for human consumption along the entire food supply chain, from primary production to end household consumer level.” Globally, the highest levels of food waste occur in both Europe and North America. According to ReFED, the United States “spends $218 billion a year growing, processing, transporting, and disposing of food that is never eaten.” The irony of this situation lies in the fact that currently one in seven Americans are food insecure.

This absurd amount of waste is doing some major damage to our environment. A report from the FAO estimated that, in 2007, the carbon footprint of food waste was 7% of all global emissions. A recent study by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research showed that more than 20% of all greenhouse gas emissions are produced by agricultural activities. Additionally, as the Environmental Protection Agency points out, most of the material filling our landfills is organic matter, such as food waste. When that material gets buried in the dump, it decomposes anaerobically and releases methane, a greenhouse gas 25x more harmful than carbon dioxide.

In honor of Earth Day, please spread awareness about the negative environmental impact food waste creates. By working together to reduce the amount of food we waste, we can also provide nutritious food to the millions of Americans struggling to find their next meal, while simultaneously improving the quality of our environment.