Expert: Mary Hughes-Cole - 3/3/2002

Question
hi.  i have several questions.
1.  how long can you leave out baked goods (cupcakes wtih cream cheese frosting, for example)
2.  where is the best place to store onions/potatoes (i've heard one shouldn't refridgerate them)
3.  what are the best (safest) baked goods to mail to friends?

Answer
Dear Kristianne,

Although I do know the answers to these questions and more, please keep in mind that I am not a scientist.  Only if you did some experiments with a microscope could you know the absolute truth about everything.  For this reason I am including for you the name of several books.  One of the authors is a scientist and studies many diseases.  Also I will include a website where there is more information than you could possibly read.  If you will go to this website you will learn so much.  Just opening this website and searching for a category for someone, I learned something very important.  That something was that all across the country people were becoming very ill eating raw sprouts.  Now that is something you wouldn't probably think would hurt anyone.  
Last night we watched on the TLC Channel about Odwalla fruit juices and how some apple juice Odwalla Manufacturing company, produced killed some young children.  This manufacturing company does not meet FDA manufacturing regulations.  We watch shows all the time that tell of impending dangers in food.  This is part of our nature to watch these shows as we are researchers.  We are by nature very inquisitive.  

Some of what I am going to tell you in this answer may not seem to pertain directly to what you have asked.  But what I want you to know is that sometimes it is important to see the big picture.  It is in seeing the big picture that we learn answers to many more questions.  So bear with me as I do my best to cover all the questions you have asked.  

What I want to impress upon you is that no one can be completely sure if something is safe to eat unless they have a microscope and are a scientist that can make an accurate determination.  I always have been very perceptive, cautious, and very clean.  By nature I would not leave anything out.  I like to put everything covered well in the refrigerator.  

When it comes to cream cheese and dairy products or cheese of any kind you are dealing with some very serious food products that require special knowledge as to how to deal with them and very particular procedures as to their proper care and storage.  Refrigeration is always a very important thing for dairy products of any kind cheese or not.  

An onion or potato is easy enough to tell if it is bad.  You just about can't tell if something like cake or cookies is bad.  The same thing holds true with nuts, fruit, fruit juices, and dairy.  It is difficult to know if meat is spoiled or has bacteria in it as well.  

The website that I am referring you to, I am sure saves lives all the time.  

Kristianne, please do not eat anything you are not one hundred percent sure is safe to eat.  The reason I say this is to help keep you, your family and friends safe.  Someone we know  young daughter just died from mysterious causes.  One look at how they lived and it was no mystery to me.  I had just talked to my husband about taking the girl in and finishing raising her.  She was being deprived of so much.  

Please do not eat food that has been left out.  Cake can be just as easily placed in plastic or Tupperware and put into the refrigerator.  When you go to eat it just heat it a little bit for a minute or two and it will be like fresh baked.  Cookies the same and any baked goods.  Covering and sealing them away from air is what preserves them.

If you keep onions you can keep them in a very porous bag out in the open on a shelf or in one of those wire baskets that are made for potatoes and onions.  I use red potatoes large and small.  Soon as I get them home or any produce home , except onions, the first thing I do is I wash them in a sink full of water with one teaspoon of Borax added to this water.  After ten minutes of soaking in this solution I let them drain and air dry, then I place them loose (only the potatoes) in the refrigerator, in the crisper.  

In my crisper which is enamel, I have borax or baking soda on the bottom of that crisper and clean paper towels or white towels over that Borax.  I have also used white clean towels or white cotton that has never been used for anything else to wrap up certain kinds of produce.  

Most of the time these days, I use Freezer, Zip lock bags, and do not zip them up after putting the produce in them.  I usually wash everything in this water with the little bit of Borax added.  You must be sure all the produce is dried before putting away in the refrigerator.  

Baked goods that are sent to friends are best if sealed up away from the air completely.  So you do not want to use a baked good that would spoil, get soggy or limp if sealed.  You can buy cans that are brand new to send goods in, and they have to be sealed completely, so that no air can get inside. Wrapping the place where the edge of the lid is, with scotch type or packaging tape will help to seal these cans.  I don't know who you are sending food to but a word of advice would be to send already packaged and sealed cookies or cakes.  Make sure any cakes have preservatives in them as well as the cookies.  Please leave this responsibility to the manufactures as they know how to package food.  At least some of them do.  If you do this yourself you are taking on a big responsibility.  If it is something you feel you must do then be very careful and go to the website I told you about for more advice and help.

 

The thing that you have to protect food from is air.  Dairy products cannot be shipped unless using special methods and dry ice.  Dairy products have to be kept under fifty degrees, all the time.  They cannot drop below this temperature at all.  Dairy products that are frozen require certain kinds of chemicals in them to inhibit particular kinds of bacteria that grow in them.  Freezing, breeds and mutates certain kinds of bacteria.  

From the day of Aristotle, who was considered the smartest man in the world during his time, it took two thousand years before mankind learned what caused bacteria to become active.  Many civilizations knew certain things were good for certain things, but they did not know why.  They also held a lot of knowledge founded of untruths.  The man who learned just how bacteria, becomes active and how it grows was a  minister with a microscope.  It was a very powerful microscope and he could actually see that as soon as air came into contact with water, food, or anything that the bacteria began to multiply very rapidly.  Even if there were just a covering over food or water the air flow was diverted enough to keep the food or water safe for a while longer.  

So it is important for us to understand that it is contact with air that spoils food in our kitchens.  Outside of our kitchens there are hundreds of reason food can spoil.  In our kitchens, it is exposure to air, light, heat and moisture that cause most of the problems.  Of course dirt or something contaminated will as well.  When I am cooking I never leave the spoon that I stirred something with sitting around with the food I stirred, on it, I always wash it immediately.  When I am cooking my kitchen stays clean.  The counters I wipe right away, and I even wash the pans right after I serve the vegetables.  The meat is the only thing that stays in the pan, usually because, for one thing it is covered, and someone might want some more.  It is usually very hot anyway and will keep through dinner.  My dishes are always washed immediately, and we wash our glasses after we drink out of them.  They are never left sitting around.  If there is not chance for bacteria to grow in your kitchen then there is little chance for it to be there to spread to your good food.

You see it is important to be particular about these things.  If you want to stay healthy and pretty all your life with no diseases in your skin or body, then clean healthy habits have to be kept all the time.  

Your wanting to learn about how to care for your food is a very good thing and you should be commended for this.  More people should follow your example. This is more important than what you eat.  If you listen to what your body craves, you will eat the right foods.  Just make them accessible.  That means lean what food you like best and buy them.  Keep them handy.  Fruit that has been washed in the Borax is the only thing I leave out and it is completely covered with clean woven cloth, so that light is at a minimum, and the air does not come into direct contact with the fruit.  I just lay the cloth over the fruit.  You can do this with one piece of a case of fruit.  Some people do this with muffins and cookies, but I think it is better to put them in the refrigerator.  

It is a long time belief that sugar and acid in foods preserve foods.  Do not believe this as it has no scientific proof.  Remember that it is how we handle our foods that make them safe.  The web site I am referring you to will help you to learn more about what kind of things preserve foods.

Many people think the refrigerator is a magic appliance that keeps food from spoiling.  All the refrigerator does is contain foods longer by inhibiting heat and moisture.  The air that flows through your house flows through your refrigerator.  If the air in your house is contaminated with chemicals or bacteria, then the food in your refrigerator will not last as long.  

Good Luck, if you have any questions please ask me, I will do my best to help you find the answer.

Here are the websites and books I promised you.

The book called, Eat Well For Optimum Health, by Dr Andrew Weil, is the best book I know about on how to learn about foods and which kinds of oils and foods contribute to good health.  You will find this book very helpful and informative.  As a researcher, I have researched thousands of books and you can take my work for it, this man knows what he is talking about.  We hear and see many books but not all of them really know the truth.  Opinion is what many are made from and not much real fact, test, or knowledge.  His book is world-renowned and the best of its kind.  

Another book concerning health and food that has saved thousands upon thousands of lives not only here but also worldwide is, The Cure For All Cancers, by Hulda Clark.  She also wrote, The Cure For All Diseases, The Cure For HIV And Aids, as well as her latest book, The Cure For All Advanced Cancers.  

Hulda  Clark, is a naturopathic doctor and a scientist, she has written several books where she explains in detain how to cook and care for yourself pertaining to disease.  She has a clinic in Tijuana, Mexico where they cure thousands of people of cancer and other diseases every day.  You might want to get one of these books, they are- The Cure For All Diseases, The Cure For All Cancers, The Cure For HIV And Aids, The Cure For All Advanced Cancers.  Her book saved my life from deadly skin cancer in 1996, after I contracted a deadly parasite from swimming in a lake.  

Her research is well in advance of most research today,  I do have many books that back up everything she has said as the truth.  One is written by Upjohn and is called Pathoparasitology.  This book shows full color slides of horrible parasites.  These parasites are the cause of all diseases according to her book, and this book.  This book and many others I have.  She explains in her books how to clean your house of all chemicals that damage the immune system, and how to build a zapper that will rid your body every day of all viruses, bacteria, and parasites.  Everyone should have this book and everyone who does exactly what she advises will keep themselves and their family free of diseases, including all the deadly ones.  Hope you find this book just as valuable as everyone else

Here is the web site you will want to research, http://www.pueblo.gsa.gov/
When you get there, it is the-
Federal Consumer Information Center Pueblo Colorado,
When you get there, click on
Food, When you get there, click on-

Can Your Kitchen pass the Food Safety Test?  
1998 528GG Free
That web site is www.fda.gov/
The phone number for the about Center is 1-888 INFO-FDA (1-888-463-6332)
When you get there, click on Food

U.S Food and Drug Administration
5600 Fishers Lane, Rockville
MD 2085 7-0001
When you get there, click on Food

Food borne Illness, Nutrition, Dietary Supplements…
Program Areas
Food Additives and Pre-market Approval
www.FoodSafety.gov
Gateway to Government Food Safety Information
When you get there, click on
Food
When you get there, click on
Food Additives and Pre-Market Approval
When you get there, it is
EAFUS A FOOD ADDITIVE DATA BASE
US Food and Drug Administration
Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition