Herbal supplements are no longer just for health-food stores, according to a new report from the American Botani-cal Council trade association: Americans spent a record $335 million in 2009 on herbal supplements in “mainstream market channels” such as supermarkets and drugstores, an increase of 14%. …
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That chicken you're so casually flipping from cutting board to platter to grill and back just might be a deadly weapon. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that poultry was again the leading culprit in foodborne illness outbreaks reported to the government in 2007, the most recent year for which statistics have been compiled. Counting only the 45% of outbreaks in which a single ingredient was clearly the cause of food poisoning (rather than multiple ingredients, such as chicken salad), poultry accounted for about 17% of cases. Beef was close behind, at 16%, followed by leafy vegetables such as lettuces and spinach, at 14%. Overall, the CDC counted more than 21,000 illnesses and 18 deaths in 1,100 outbreaks nationwide; that's estimated to be only a fraction of the total cases, however, since many foodborne illnesses go unreported or are not part of a larger outbreak. Chicken, turkey and other poultry also topped the list of single-ingredient causes the previous year. About half the 2007 outbreaks were due to salmonella and other bacteria, 40% from viruses such as norovirus, 7% from mushroom toxin or other chemical agents and 1% from parasites.…
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