Page B2
April 21, 1999
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Kids’ Nutrition Q & A
Q: M y school-age children love
to snack on ready-to-eat cereal.
H ow bad is this?
A: Ready-to-eat cereals are usu­
ally fortified with vitamins and
minerals, which make them a bet­
ter choice than chips or candy.
However, too much snacking on
even a low-sugar cereal can derail
the nutritional quality o f a child’s
overall diet.
Instead o f routinely reaching
for the cereal box, consider your
children's desire to snackas a way
to supplement any nutrition gaps,
say nutritionists at the USDA’s
C hild ren ’s N utrition Research
Center at Baylor College ofM edi-
cine in Houston.
Begin by looking for the weak­
nesses in your children’s overall
diets. Then, when the snack at­
tacks hit, offer foods from those
food groups first. Do your chil­
dren turn their noses up at milk?
Offer yogurt, low-fat pudding,
string cheese, or calcium- fortified
juice. Ready-to-eat baby carrots
and a low-fat dip can fill a veggie
void, and they are just as easy to
grab as a box o f cereal. If your
children are not getting enough
fruit, offer raisins, orange seg­
ments, grapes, or make a blender
drink with frozen fruit, a touch of
sweetner, and yogurt or mineral
water. With a little ingenuity, it’s
easy to turn snack breaks into nu­
trition breaks.
Q: H ow will I know when my
infant son is ready to start solids?
A: Readiness is a developmen­
tal issue . uthough solids can be
safely started once an infant is
four months o f age, some infants
might not be ready until they’re
six months old.
Recognizing the ‘window ofop­
portunity’ for starting solids can help
make the transition easier for par­
ents as well as their infants. Accord­
ing to Dr. Judy Hopkinson at the
USDA’s Children's Nutrition Re­
search Center at Baylor College of
Medicine, developmental signs to
look for in your son include:
Being able to hold his shoul­
ders straight and back and neck
upright
-Opening his mouth fora spoon
and closing his lips around it
•Being able to hold offered food
in his mouth and swallowing most
o f it, rather than pushing it out
with his tongue
• Being able to control the posi­
tion o f food in his mouth and mak­
ing chewing movements, showing
interest in food, and beginning to
use his fingers as a ‘pincher’
•Introduce single ingredient
foods first, one-half teaspoon at a
time. Start off with baby rice ce­
real thinned to a liquid consis­
tency with breast milk or formula
and feed from a spoon. Avoid put­
ting solids in a baby bottle, which
can cause choking. Follow cereals
with strained fruits and vegetables
when your son is five to six months
o f age and offer pureed meats at
about seven to nine months. Con­
tinue to provide breast milk or
formula to your son until he’s at
least one year o f age.
Q: H ow can I p ro tect m y fa m ­
ily against salm onella fo o d p o i­
soning?
A: N u tritio n ists w ith the
USDA’s Children’s Nutrition Re­
search Center at Baylor College o f
Medic ine offer these safe food han­
dling tips to help you ‘fight bac’.
•Wash hands and surfaces of­
ten and between cooking tasks with
warm, soapy water. Always sani­
tize kitchen surfaces after work­
ing with raw poultry, fishormeats.
•Separate foods that are to be
cooked from other items in your
shopping cart and in your re­
frigerator.
-U se an ‘in sta n t r e a d ’
thermomenter to check tempera­
tures while cooking. Cook steaks
and roasts to at least 145F,ground
meats to 160 F., poultry parts to
170 F, whole poultry to 180 F, and
leftovers to 165 f.
Minimize the time foods spend
in the temperature ‘danger zone,'
Store cooked or perishable foods
in shallow containers and refriger­
ate within two hours o f purchase
or preparation. Thaw frozen foods
in the refrigerator, under cold run­
ning water or in the microwave.
Marinate foods in the refrigerator.
To discuss your food safety
questions with a USDA expert,
call the Food Safety Information
Hotline at 800-535-4555.
Q: Can fo o d coloring affect
children's behavior?
A: Parents who blame their
children’s ‘ants in the pants’ on
food colorings need to look else­
where, says Dr. Debby Demory-
Luce o f the USDA’s Children’s
N utrition R esearch C enter at
Baylor College o f Medicine.
A link between food additives
and hyperactivity was proposed
by some scientists in the 1970’s.
However, well-controlled studies
produced little evidence support­
ing the theory. In 1982, the N a­
tional Institutes o f Health (NIH)
went on record stating there is no
scientific evidence to support the
claim that additives or food color­
ing cause hyperactivity. Research
since then continues to support
their position.
Mail your nutrition questions
to: Kids ’ Nutrition Q & A, USDA/
ARS C hildren’s N utrition Re­
search Center, 1100 Bates St.,
Houston, TX 77030; or E-mail to:
cnrc@bcm.tmc.edu. although in­
dividual responses are not pos­
sible, questions o f general interest
will be answered in this column.
Training Helps Landlords
Keep Rentals Safe
The City o f Portland’s Office of
Planning and Development Review
(formerly the BureauofBuildings), in
partnership with the Portland Police
Bureau will offer an eight-hour train­
ing to help landlords keep rental prop­
erties safe and free o f illegal activity.
The first o f the Spring 1999 Landlord
Training Programs will be held on
Friday, April 16lh at Parkrose Com­
munity Center, located at 12003 N.E.
Shaver. Sign-in begins at 8:00 a.m.,
with the training starting at 8:30 a.m.
and ending at approximately 5:00 p.m.
Landlords, property managers, and
others interested in attending may call
the City’s Landlord Training Program
information line at 823-7955 for regis­
tration information. Advance registra­
tion is requested. Although the seminar
is offered free o f charge, there is a $ 10
charge for the eighth editionofPortland’s
Landlord Training Program manual.
The Landlord Training Program
was originally developed in 1989 un­
der the lead sponsorship o f the Port­
land Police Bureau and has now been
thoroughly updated and revised for
issues facing landlords in 1999 by
Portland’s Office o f Planning and De­
velopment Review. Under the original
program, over 7,000 landlords and
property managers representing over
100,000 rental units attended. Since
the program was updated in 1998 al­
most 600participants representing over
10,000 rental units have attended in
just seven trainings to date.
The program, which began in
Portland with funding from the U.S.
Department o f Justice, has becc.ne
a national com m unity policing
model, winning for the City recog­
nition as an Innovation in State and
Local government by H arvard’s
Kennedy School o f Government and
being replicated, in various formats,
by over 400 state and local jurisdic­
tions nationwide and in Canada.
The training will be presented by
the program’s original creator and
now national Landlord Training Pro­
gram Director, John Campbell of
Campbell DeLong Resources, Inc.
Living Wages for Human
Service Workers!
On Thursday, April 8“, County
Commissioners launched a cam ­
paign to raise wages for direct care
workers who serve children, the eld­
erly, the sick and disabled, the home­
less and abused, on contract with
Multnomah County. In the first step
o f an unusual advocacy collabora­
tion by local governm ent, labor
unions and community and faith-
based organizations, the hearing
kicked o ff an effort to move the
state legislature to value the labor o f
human service workers.
County Chair Bev Stein lead off
testimony with experts from the
Northwest Job Gap Study, who pegs
a living wage for a single person in
Oregon at over $ 10 per hour and for
a family o f three at over $16. Stein
was followed by testimony from
workers, clients and agency manage­
ment about the extent o f sub-poverty
employment among direct care work­
ers and it’s effect on the workers’
families, client services, and the use
o f tax dollars. Living wages advo­
cates will argue that low wages not
only force workers to rely on public
assistance (food stamps, housing sub­
sidies, ect.) but low wages produce
low morale and high turnover, caus­
ing deterioration o f client services
and inefficient use o f tax dollars.
Tim Crawl, Executive Director o f
the Oregon Rehabilitation Associa­
tion, unveiled the results o f a study
showing a 250% turnover among
local workers in non-profit agencies
serving the developmentally dis­
abled. Many in the field believe the
turnover is even worse among those
who work with the mentally ill. Any
increase in wages and benefits would
affect thousands o f w orkers in
Multnomah County. Many state leg­
islators, who must ultimately pass
living wage legislation, have prom­
ised to attend the hearing.
The County Commission is act­
ing in accord with their historic Liv­
ing Wage resolution passed last O c­
tober, which recognized that ‘em­
ployees o f non-profit social and hu­
man service agencies continue to
experience low wage and a lack of
benefits. The C ounty’s ability to
affect those wages is limited be­
cause the Oregon Legislature con­
tro ls the fu n d in g fo r th o se
contracts... Multnomah County will
seek the Support and cooperation of
the Living wage advocates and to­
gether with them will bring a strong
request to the 1999 Oregon Legisla­
ture social and human services.”
Living wage advocates face ma­
jor stumbling blocks. The state Leg­
islature is hostile to increasing social
service spending. The government
freezer is not foil, group packages so
they form an “igloo” to protect each
other. P k .: j .' v .< •
side or on a
tray so that i?
.thawing, their
juices won’t
merfood. And,
if you think .
er will be out for
several days, try to find some dry ice
(see box below,. Although dry ice
can be used in the refrigerator, block
ice is better You can put it in the
refrigerator’s freezer unit along with
your refrigerated perishables such as
meat, poultry, and dairy items.
Handling Dry Ice
To locate a distributor o f dry ice,
look under “ice” or carbon dioxide”
in the phone book.
Buy 25 pounds o f dry ice to
SALEM - The O regon House
o f R epresentatives passed an up­
dated Fam ily Leave bill W ednes­
day. It allow s w orkers, who take
fam ily leave, an opportunity to
return to their same position, if it
still exists. It does not; they m ust
be offered an equivalent position
w ith the same benefits, pay and
other term o f em ploym ent. I f an
equivalent position is not avail­
able, the em ployer m ust offer one
at another site w ithin 20 m iles o f
the em ployee’s form er job.
House Majority Leader, Steve
Harper, R-Klamath Falls, the bill’s
author, said, “this corrects a problem
employers were having in tempo­
rarily filling some positions - some­
times for as long as 24 weeks. And it
gives employees some added job
security.”
The bill, which passed by a vote
o f 35 to 24, updates the current Or­
In addition to the training on April
16lh, two other training dates for the
program are also being offered: Sat­
urday, April 24th at Providence Port­
land Medical Center Amphitheatre,
located at 4805 N.E. Glisan; and on
Friday, April 30th in the Metro Re­
gional Government’s Council Cham­
ber, at 600 N.E. Grand.
Reactions from landlords who have
completed the course are consistently
strong and positive: surveyed land­
lords and managers overwhelmingly
agree that the training increases their
confidence in screening rental appli­
cants and their ability to recognize
warning signs o f illegal activity or
chronic nuisance activity. Under the
Office o f Planning and Development
Review’s sponsorship and guidance,
landlords new to the program will
gain important insights, while land­
lords who have attended in the past
can expect plenty o f additional infor­
mation about issues crucial to the safe
and successful management o f prop­
erty in the City o f Portland.
keep a 10 cubic-foot freezer foil o f
food safe 3 to 4 days; h a lf foil, 2 to
3 days. A foil 18 cubic-foot freezer
requires 50 to 100 pounds o f dry
ice to keep food safe 2 days; half
foil, less than 2 days.
Handle dry ice with caution and
in a w ell-ventilated area. D on’t
touch it with bare hand; wear gloves
or use tongs.
Wrap dry ice in brown paper for
longer storage. One large piece lasts
longer than small ones.
The temperature o f dry ice is -
216 °F; therefore, i t may cause freezer
bum on items located near or touch­
ing it. Separate dry ice from the food
using a piece o f cardboard.
Do You Have a Child with Special Needs?
Attend the Guardianship & Fo­
rum for families o f Children with
special needs.
Tuesday. April 20“, 7:30 pm
Providence Child Center
830 NE 47“ Avenue, Portland
Topics covered: Letters o f intent,
types o f trusts, how to choose a
trustee, and the legal procedures for
appointing a guardian
Guest Speakers: Steve Smith Part­
ner o f the law firm Palmer, Feitz,
Smith and McDonald
One Johnson Retired Tmst O fiicer
from First Interstate Bank and past
Member o f the Arc o f Oregon
G A.P S. (Guardianship, Advocacy
and Planning Services)
Presented by
Providence Child Center
Public Welcome -Free Admis­
sion. For more information or to
anange special accommodations,
please call (503) 215-2442
• - « • • « ,
SPONSORS of the LIVING
WAGE CAMPAIGN
Jobs with Justice Portland New
Party Portland Rainbow Coalition •
Service Employees Union locals 49,
140 • Coalition of Black Men North­
west Oregon Labor Council (AFL-
CIO) Portland Association o f Teach­
ers • Oregon Action • PCC Faculty /
Classified Federation • Workers Or­
ganizing Committee • Oregon Public
Employees Union • Metanoia Peace
Church • Gray Panthers • Coalition for
a Livable Future • Firefighters Union •
Community Alliance of Tenants • La­
borers 483 • Hotel Employees Restau­
rant Employees 9 • AFSCME locals
88, 189, 3580, 328, 3336 • Letter
Carriers 82 • Community Develop­
ment Network (Multnomah) • Ma­
chinists 1005 • United Food and com­
mercial Workers 555 • Audubon Soci­
ety in Portland Impacting Real Issues
Together (SPIRIT)
Family Leave Bill
Passes House of Reps
Keeping Food Safe During a
Power Outage
Sooner or later, every home has a
power outage. The electricity may
have gone o ff during a snowstorm or
thunderstorm, or the refrigerator may
simply quit working. W hatever the
cause, dealing with food involved
when the unit is o ff requires a knowl­
edge o f food safety.
USDA recommends the follow­
ing guidelines:
KEEP THE FREEZER DOOR
CLOSED.
Keep what cold air you have in­
side. Don’t open the door any more
then necessary. Y ou’ll be relieved to
know that a full freezer will stay at
freezing temperatures about 2 days; a
half-foil freezer about 1 day. If your
contracts with non-profit social ser­
vice agencies allow the agencies to
hide actual wages and benefits pro­
vided to workers. Contracts also
allow increased funding to be ab­
sorbed by administration rather than
increased compensation to frontline
workers. The hearing on April 8,h
will explore ways to break through
these barriers to living wages.
'
* » 9 I t • I A F A« <9
egon Family Leave law, established
in 1995.
State Rep. R oger B eyer, R-
Molalla, Chairman o f the house Busi­
ness and Consumer Affairs commit­
tee, which heard the bill said, “this
strikes a balance between employer
and employee and offers further pro­
tections than current Oregon or fed­
eral law.”
The bill now goes to the Senate.