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A supermarket in Britain has removed use-by dates in favour of the 'sniff test'

<p>Image: Getty </p> <p>Grocery chain ‘Morrisons’ is being slammed after announcing a decision to scrap “use-by” dates on milk, instead asking customers to use a “sniff test” to determine if the milk has gone bad.</p> <p>The supermarket will switch to using “best before” dates on 90% of its home brand milk packaging from the end of January, <em>The Sun</em> reports.</p> <p>The date will remain the same but Morrisons is asking customers to not automatically assume the milk is off, but instead sniff to see whether it has expired first.</p> <p>Best before dates indicate that a product will have a better quality if consumed before that day, but use by means food might not be safe to eat after that point and runs the risk of making the customer sick.</p> <p>Morrisons said the move is intended to reduce food wastage, as millions of litres of milk are thrown away each year.</p> <p>It is estimated that 48 million litres of milk are wasted due to customers following “use-by” labels.</p> <p>Research shows milk is often fine to be used days after the use-by date the supermarket said. So yes, customers are being encouraged to smell their milk to check if it has actually gone bad before throwing it away.</p> <p>A sour aroma or curdled consistency are both signs milk has been spoiled.</p> <p>Shoppers took to Twitter to complain about the decision, with many asking how they can smell the milk while in store.</p> <p>However, Morrisons said that won’t be necessary because it won’t sell milk that is near the best before date.</p> <p>One customer said: “So, Morrisons – can we open the bottle in order to sniff it before purchase? Or do we have to go home, sniff it, then bring it back if it’s off?”</p> <p>Another added: “I can open the milk whilst still in Morrisons to check then I guess?”</p> <p>Others pointed out that one of the main symptoms of Covid is losing your sense of smell.</p> <p>“Generations before us have always used the sniff test – and I believe we can too” According to Ian Goode, senior milk buyer at Morrisons.</p>

Food & Wine

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Dogs may be able to ‘sniff out’ coronavirus, study hopes

<p>Researchers are launching a trial to see whether dogs can sniff out coronavirus in humans before symptoms appear.</p> <p>Dogs at the Medical Detection Dogs charity have already been trained to detect odours of malaria, Parkinson’s disease and certain cancers – and a new study will explore whether the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-52686660">Labradors and cocker spaniels</a> can spot COVID-19 in people.</p> <p>The first phase of the trial will be led by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in collaboration with the charity and Durham University. It has been supported with £500,000 of UK government funding.</p> <p>Six medical sniffer dogs will be trained through identify the virus on odour samples collected from coronavirus patients in London hospitals. The training could take six to eight weeks, the charity said.</p> <p>“Our previous work has shown that malaria has a distinctive odour, and, with Medical Detection Dogs, we successfully trained dogs to accurately detect malaria,” said Professor James Logan, the project’s lead researcher and head of the department of disease control at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.</p> <p>“This, combined with the knowledge that respiratory disease can change body odour, makes us <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/may/16/uk-researchers-hope-dogs-can-be-trained-to-detect-coronavirus">hopeful that the dogs can also detect COVID-19</a>. If successful, this approach could revolutionise how we detect the virus, with the potential to screen high numbers of people.”</p>

Family & Pets

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Why it's so hard to sniff out a liar

<p>Why is it such a challenge to recognise deception – both on and off the poker table – even with past experience to draw on and lots of cues seemingly available?</p> <p>Most of us are proficient liars. We all lie, probably <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/enhanced/doi/10.1111/j.1468-2958.2009.01366.x/">every day</a>, about something or other. Ever answered the standard question of “how are you?” with a less-than-forthright reply?</p> <p>We understand the concept of lying <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/dev/47/1/39/">before we turn four</a>: Charles Darwin <a href="http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Darwin/infant.htm">reported his son</a>, a few months shy of his third birthday, trying to lie and there are data suggesting the behaviour can manifest from as young as <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-9507.00220/abstract">two years</a>.</p> <p>And just as everyone engages in deceptions, everyone wants to know how to tell if someone else is lying. It seems as though it should be easy – there are “<a href="http://parade.condenast.com/57236/viannguyen/former-cia-officers-share-6-ways-to-tell-if-someones-lying/">tells</a>”: sweating, eye movements, micro-expressions, changes in body posture and even changes in speech patterns, that can help us recognise a lie.</p> <p>Those signals are a type of natural polygraph. Like mechanical lie-detector tests, they rely on a set of physiological changes that occur when we lie. Telling a porky pie, even a so-called white lie, requires cognitive and emotional effort.</p> <p style="text-align: center;"><iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/p3Uos2fzIJ0?wmode=transparent&amp;start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></p> <p style="text-align: center;"><span class="caption">Someone’s lying in this video. Can you spot who it is?</span></p> <p>Lying activates our <a href="http://www.thefreedictionary.com/autonomic+nervous+system">autonomic nervous system</a>, and the more venal the lie – the more there is at stake – the more activated the autonomic nervous system becomes.</p> <p>Why is it so hard to detect a lie?</p> <h2>Pants on fire (if only it was that easy)</h2> <p>The answers are surprising.</p> <p>First, there is “noise” in the lie-detection system: there are many things that activate the human autonomic nervous system.</p> <p>Nervousness is a good example. People typically get nervous when</p> <ul> <li>they are being interrogated, about anything</li> <li>they meet for the first time someone to whom they are attracted (which, by the way, is one of the circumstances under which we are very likely to lie about something)</li> <li>the stakes are high – when much depends on what they do, or how well they do it</li> <li>there’s confrontation involved: a deadline, great expectations … even in-laws.</li> </ul> <p>When we are nervous we sweat more. We sweat a <a href="http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/sweating-and-body-odor/basics/causes/con-20014438">different type of sweat</a> and so we smell different. We fidget and our hair stands on end. We either don’t make any or make exaggerated eye contact. We change the way we speak and, without knowing it, the pitch of our voice changes.</p> <p>Those changes also occur when we are lying. So it is a myth that there exists a reliable, unique set of cues that signal someone is lying. Some behavioural cues certainly are correlated with lying, but most of those also are correlated with other behaviours too.</p> <p>Second, there is the cost to the lie-detector of a “false alarm”. Socially speaking, it’s a high-stakes game: the fear of the damage and embarrassment wrought by mistakenly calling someone out on a lie, combined with the high burden of proof involved, stack the decks against successful “prosecution”.</p> <p>Perhaps most surprisingly though, we are generally <a href="http://books.google.com.au/books?id=-4v3fSm6z7IC&amp;dq=The+liar+in+your+life:+The+way+to+truthful+relationships&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ei=_sBpU_TKNYqqkgWk54DoAQ&amp;redir_esc=y">less interested</a> than we think in actually discerning the truth. We are, very often, willing to accept as truth lies that smooth social interactions.</p> <p>Similarly, lies that are congruent with our world-views or, and especially, with our self-image will less often be “called out”. In other words, we actually are very skilled at not recognising lies.</p> <h2>I lie, therefore I think</h2> <p>Of course, the little white lies we tell to keep conversations flowing or to compliment (or at least avoid offending!) our friend/partner/boss seem hardly interesting. Juicier are the venal deceits that, when detected, leave trust shattered and lives changed. As it turns out, all lies, big or small, are tactical deceptions.</p> <p>Tactical deceptions require the liar to actively manipulate information to mislead another. They are interesting because the creation of such a deception has been interpreted as evidence that the liar has developed a <a href="http://www.iep.utm.edu/theomind/">theory of mind</a> – I lie, therefore I think.</p> <p>If that is true the implications are broad: both old world and new world monkeys have been observed in <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1691785/">tactical deceptions</a>. The same is true for other <a href="http://www.naturalnews.com/038743_primates_liars_gorilla.html">great apes</a>, and even <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0003347202930563">ravens</a>.</p> <h2>Lies, damned lies, and experts</h2> <p><a href="http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/lies-damned-lies-and-statistics.html">Mark Twain</a>, lamenting his lack of skill with numbers, stratified statistics as a worse than average form of lying.</p> <p>Nonetheless – and acknowledging there is no small opportunity for irony when a researcher asks about how often people lie – who lies and how often are open questions across the behavioural sciences.</p> <p>We do know almost everyone lies. Women and men lie on average equally often, but about <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1207/S15324834BASP2402_8#.U2nB3_mSzsQ">different things</a>. There is some evidence too that <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3998987">men are better liars</a> than women.</p> <p>Perhaps unsurprisingly, estimates of how often we lie vary wildly. That is partly because context is important. Lying is, after all, a type of social glue, and – not surprisingly – people lie in surveys.</p> <p>So the next time you pull up a chair at the casino or with mates at a poker night, remember – while you may find it hard to tell if your opponents are lying, they’re probably also finding you hard to read.<!-- Below is The Conversation's page counter tag. Please DO NOT REMOVE. --><img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important; text-shadow: none !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/25487/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /><!-- End of code. If you don't see any code above, please get new code from the Advanced tab after you click the republish button. The page counter does not collect any personal data. More info: http://theconversation.com/republishing-guidelines --></p> <p><span><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/ricky-van-der-zwan-34212">Ricky van der Zwan</a>, Associate Professor in Neuroscience and Psychology, <em><a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/southern-cross-university-1160">Southern Cross University</a></em> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/anna-brooks-93597">Anna Brooks</a>, Senior Lecturer in Cognitive Neuroscience, <em><a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/southern-cross-university-1160">Southern Cross University</a></em></span></p> <p>This article is republished from <a href="http://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/hows-your-poker-face-why-its-so-hard-to-sniff-out-a-liar-25487">original article</a>.</p>

Relationships

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“Bit of extra protein!”: Sonia Kruger makes gross cooking confession

<p>Sonia Kruger, co-host of <em>Today Extra</em>, confessed on Thursday that she gives her baking a secret kick.</p> <p>During a debate about whether it’s okay to drink expired milk, Kruger revealed that she used flour last week despite finding evidence that it was once a nest for beetles.</p> <p>She chuckled: “You know when you see a few little cobwebs on it and you think, ‘Oh, its got weevils’? But I still used it!”</p> <p>Kruger justified her choice by saying that after further inspecting the flour, she found that the insects had moved on.</p> <p>However, co-host Richard Wilkins remarked that she had just revealed that she couldn’t’ stomach off dairy but was more than happy to use flour that had evidence of beetles living in it.</p> <p>“Oh, so you're OK with weevils!” said Richard Wilkins, to which Sonia jokingly replied: 'It's got extra protein!'</p> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"> <p dir="ltr">Do you drink expired milk if it passes the 'smell test'? <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/9Today?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#9Today</a> <a href="https://t.co/Iuww8WY2x9">pic.twitter.com/Iuww8WY2x9</a></p> — The Today Show (@TheTodayShow) <a href="https://twitter.com/TheTodayShow/status/1171942487461519360?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 12, 2019</a></blockquote> <p>The mother who started the debate admitted that she gave her children full cream milk that was two days past its use-by date. She insists it’s “perfectly fine”.</p> <p>Her opinion divided milk lovers, with some saying they rigorously follow the use-by date whereas others admitted they just see whether or not the milk pasts the “sniff test”.</p>

Food & Wine

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“I owe my life to that dog”: Husky sniffs out owner’s ovarian cancer three times

<p>If you didn’t think dogs could get any better, then keep reading because you’re about to be proven wrong.</p> <p>While dogs are known to have highly developed senses, one Siberian Husky by the name of Sierra has the gift of detecting when her owner is ill.</p> <p>Stephanie Herfel, from Wisconsin in the US, discovered her pooch’s special talent after she was dealing with pain in her abdomen. It was then that Sierra did something out of the ordinary.</p> <p style="text-align: center;"><iframe src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/post.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fpermalink.php%3Fstory_fbid%3D1636991369654084%26id%3D100000297100983&amp;width=500" width="500" height="613" style="border: none; overflow: hidden;" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowtransparency="true" allow="encrypted-media"></iframe></p> <p>“She put her nose on my lower belly and sniffed so intently that I thought I spilled something on my clothes,” Ms Herfel told Journal Sentinel.</p> <p>“She did it a second and then a third time. After the third time, Sierra went and hid. I mean hid!”</p> <p>Seeking professional help, Ms Herfel was told she had an ovarian cyst and was prescribed painkillers to help alleviate the discomfort. But when she came home, Sierra hid in the closet and rolled up in fear.</p> <p>Ms Herfel didn’t think much of it, but when she went to get a second opinion, a gynaecologist delivered the terrifying news – she had stage three ovarian cancer.</p> <p>After going through a full hysterectomy and chemotherapy, Ms Herfel believed that would be the end of her tiring journey, but she was wrong.</p> <p>In 2015, a year after Ms Herfel was said to be cancer-free, Sierra once again displayed the same behaviour she did in 2013, when Ms Herfel was first diagnosed.</p> <p>A little while later it was confirmed that the cancer had returned and spread to her liver and pelvis.</p> <p style="text-align: center;"><iframe src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/post.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fpermalink.php%3Fstory_fbid%3D1958007604219124%26id%3D100000297100983&amp;width=500" width="500" height="594" style="border: none; overflow: hidden;" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowtransparency="true" allow="encrypted-media"></iframe></p> <p>But Sierra isn’t the only dog to be able to detect when something isn’t quite right in her owner.</p> <p>It is said that other dogs also share this special gift.</p> <p>“It’s almost like the dog knows what’s going on and is scared,” said Ashley Wagner, from the Wisconsin Ovarian Cancer Alliance, explained to Journal Sentinel.</p> <p>“The dog didn’t want to be near her.”</p> <p>Ms Herfel is currently working on a book that is based around the relationship she shares with her dog. </p>

Caring

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Food safety: are the sniff test, the 5-second rule & rare burgers safe?

<p><em><strong>Cathy Moir is a food microbiologist and Group Leader with CSIRO Agriculture and Food.</strong></em></p> <p>There are <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a href="https://theconversation.com/you-can-thaw-and-refreeze-meat-five-food-safety-myths-busted-51125" target="_blank">many rules in food safety lore</a></strong></span>, some that have a basis in fact, and some that are purely grounded in convenience. But it’s important to look at the evidence to see which category common rules fall under.</p> <p><strong>1. The ‘sniff’ test</strong></p> <p>Often when a food has spoiled, it will smell bad. This leads many to believe “no stench = OK to eat”. But this isn’t always the case. The microorganisms (bacteria, yeasts and moulds) that spoil food by making it smelly, slimy or mouldy might not give you food poisoning.</p> <p>But pathogenic (disease-causing) bacteria, such as salmonella, campylobacter, E.coli and listeria, which do make people sick, don’t always cause obvious changes in food when they grow. Sometimes simply being present at low numbers and then consumed is enough to result in illness.</p> <p>Having said that, this isn’t an invitation to consume obviously spoiled food. Spoilage is a good indicator food has been left too long and “bad” microorganisms, including pathogens, may also have grown.</p> <p>In order to steer clear of nasty bugs in food, observe “use by” dates, refrigerate foods that need to be kept cold (this slows down the microbes), cook foods properly (this kills the microbes) and prevent contact and cross contamination between ready-to-eat foods such as salads, with raw food such as meat that still needs to be cooked.</p> <p><strong>2. The ‘five second’ rule</strong></p> <p>Whether it’s one, three, five seconds or some other number, we’ve all heard some version of this call when someone has dropped food on the floor. But is it true harmful bacteria need a few seconds to hitch a ride on your dropped slice of pizza?</p> <p>In one <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a href="https://news.rutgers.edu/rutgers-researchers-debunk-%E2%80%98five-second-rule%E2%80%99-eating-food-floor-isn%E2%80%99t-safe/20160908#.WvEGRtVuaX2" target="_blank">peer-reviewed study</a></strong></span>, four food types were tested (watermelon, bread, bread and butter, and gummy sweets) with four different surfaces (stainless steel, ceramic tile, wood and carpet) that were contaminated with bacteria. Contact time, food type and surface all significantly affected the amount of contamination that occurred. The study found:</p> <ul> <li>time is not necessarily of the essence as microorganisms from one surface can instantaneously contaminate another. But it’s true the longer contact time the more contamination can occur</li> <li>higher moisture foods (such as watermelon) allowed transfer of more microorganisms compared to the other foods. The gummy sweets, which are likely to have the driest surface, showed the weakest transfer of bacteria from the contact surface</li> <li>the weakest microbial transfer occurred when food was dropped on to carpet compared to stainless steel, and tile in particular. The authors hypothesised bacteria attaches better to carpet as it’s more absorbent, meaning it’s less likely to transfer to the food.</li> </ul> <p>While it’s true dropped food can become contaminated with microorganisms from the floor or environment, the majority of those microorganisms in a normal home are likely to be harmless to human health.</p> <p><strong>3. Rare meat</strong></p> <p>When cooking and reheating meat, there are some simple rules to follow. Whole pieces of meat muscle such as steak, pork and lamb can be cooked on the outside, say barbequed or pan fried, so they’re still rare on the inside.</p> <p>Historically, under-cooked pork has been feared due to a parasitic worm, but this has never been seen in Australian pigs.</p> <p>Poultry and all minced, rolled, stuffed, tenderised and similar types of meat (including burgers) need to be cooked right through. This difference relates to where microorganisms are found on the meat.</p> <p>We know microorganisms live on the surface of raw meat because animals naturally harbour microorganisms. That’s why just cooking the surface of a whole piece of muscle meat is sufficient (excluding poultry), because that will kill any potentially harmful bacteria.</p> <p>When that meat is minced, rolled, stuffed, mechanically tenderised or turned into patties or sausages, the surface of the meat and what it’s carrying is then mixed through the whole product. It’s also possible for chicken tissue to be colonised by bacteria (which just doesn’t happen with other animal meat types). That’s why these types of meat products need to be cooked through to the centre.</p> <p>The best way to tell if meat is cooked is to use a meat thermometer. These can be purchased from homeware and hardware stores. Poultry and minced, rolled, stuffed, tenderised meats need to be cooked right through and to a temperature of 75°C. Insert the thermometer into the thickest part of the meat. If you don’t have a thermometer, check the juices run clear and not pink.</p> <p>What are your thoughts?</p> <p><em>Written by Cathy Moir. Republished with permission of <a href="http://www.theconversation.com" target="_blank"><strong><span style="text-decoration: underline;">The Conversation</span></strong></a>.</em><img width="1" height="1" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/92661/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-advanced" alt="The Conversation"/> </p>

Body

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How to tell if your food is off

<p><em><strong>Cathy Moir, Team leader, Food microbiologist and Food safety specialist, CSIRO, asks whether the sniff test, five-second rule and rare burgers are safe.</strong></em></p> <p>There are <a href="https://theconversation.com/you-can-thaw-and-refreeze-meat-five-food-safety-myths-busted-51125">many rules in food safety lore</a>, some that have a basis in fact, and some that are purely grounded in convenience. But it’s important to look at the evidence to see which category common rules fall under.</p> <p><strong>1. The ‘sniff’ test</strong></p> <p>Often when a food has spoiled, it will smell bad. This leads many to believe “no stench = OK to eat”. But this isn’t always the case. The microorganisms (bacteria, yeasts and moulds) that spoil food by making it smelly, slimy or mouldy might not give you food poisoning.</p> <p>Having said that, this isn’t an invitation to consume obviously spoiled food. Spoilage is a good indicator food has been left too long and “bad” microorganisms, including pathogens, may also have grown.</p> <p>In order to steer clear of nasty bugs in food, observe “use by” dates, refrigerate foods that need to be kept cold (this slows down the microbes), cook foods properly (this kills the microbes) and prevent contact and cross contamination between ready-to-eat foods such as salads, with raw food such as meat that still needs to be cooked.</p> <p><strong>2. The ‘five second’ rule</strong></p> <p>Whether it’s one, three, five seconds or some other number, we’ve all heard some version of this call when someone has dropped food on the floor. But is it true harmful bacteria need a few seconds to hitch a ride on your dropped slice of pizza?</p> <p>But pathogenic (disease-causing) bacteria, such as salmonella, campylobacter, E.coli and listeria, which do make people sick, don’t always cause obvious changes in food when they grow. Sometimes simply being present at low numbers and then consumed is enough to result in illness.</p> <p>In one <a href="https://news.rutgers.edu/rutgers-researchers-debunk-%E2%80%98five-second-rule%E2%80%99-eating-food-floor-isn%E2%80%99t-safe/20160908#.WvEGRtVuaX2">peer-reviewed study</a>, four food types were tested (watermelon, bread, bread and butter, and gummy sweets) with four different surfaces (stainless steel, ceramic tile, wood and carpet) that were contaminated with bacteria. Contact time, food type and surface all significantly affected the amount of contamination that occurred. The study found:</p> <ul> <li>time is not necessarily of the essence as microorganisms from one surface can instantaneously contaminate another. But it’s true the longer contact time the more contamination can occur</li> <li>higher moisture foods (such as watermelon) allowed transfer of more microorganisms compared to the other foods. The gummy sweets, which are likely to have the driest surface, showed the weakest transfer of bacteria from the contact surface</li> <li>the weakest microbial transfer occurred when food was dropped on to carpet compared to stainless steel, and tile in particular. The authors hypothesised bacteria attaches better to carpet as it’s more absorbent, meaning it’s less likely to transfer to the food.</li> </ul> <p>While it’s true dropped food can become contaminated with microorganisms from the floor or environment, the majority of those microorganisms in a normal home are likely to be harmless to human health.</p> <p><strong>3. Rare meat</strong></p> <p>When cooking and reheating meat, there are some simple rules to follow. Whole pieces of meat muscle such as steak, pork and lamb can be cooked on the outside, say barbequed or pan fried, so they’re still rare on the inside.</p> <p>Historically, under-cooked pork has been feared due to a <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-weve-evolved-to-fight-the-bugs-that-infect-us-75057">parasitic worm</a>, but this has never been seen in Australian pigs.</p> <p>Poultry and all minced, rolled, stuffed, tenderised and similar types of meat (including burgers) need to be cooked right through. This difference relates to where microorganisms are found on the meat.</p> <p>We know microorganisms live on the surface of raw meat because animals naturally harbour microorganisms. That’s why just cooking the surface of a whole piece of muscle meat is sufficient (excluding poultry), because that will kill any potentially harmful bacteria.</p> <p>When that meat is minced, rolled, stuffed, mechanically tenderised or turned into patties or sausages, the surface of the meat and what it’s carrying is then mixed through the whole product. It’s also possible for chicken tissue to be colonised by bacteria (which just doesn’t happen with other animal meat types). That’s why these types of meat products need to be cooked through to the centre.</p> <p>The best way to tell if meat is cooked is to use a meat thermometer. These can be purchased from homeware and hardware stores. Poultry and minced, rolled, stuffed, tenderised meats need to be cooked right through and to a temperature of 75°C. Insert the thermometer into the thickest part of the meat. If you don’t have a thermometer, check the juices run clear and not pink.</p> <p>Were you aware of this?</p> <p><em>Written by Cathy Moir. Republished with permission of <a href="https://theconversation.com/food-safety-are-the-sniff-test-the-five-second-rule-and-rare-burgers-safe-92661" target="_blank"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>The Conversation</strong></span></a>.</em></p> <p><img width="1" height="1" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/92661/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-advanced" alt="The Conversation"/></p>

Food & Wine

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According to a study dogs can sniff out cancer

<p>Any dog owner will tell you the canine species is the best in the world – dogs are loyal, intelligent and love you unconditionally. But now dog lovers have another reason to add to the list – it seems our furry friends can quite accurately sniff out cancer.</p><p>In an Italian study conducted by the Humanitas Clinical and Research Center, researchers trained a pair of three-year-old female German Shepherds to identify volatile organic compounds specific to prostate cancer. The dog’s sniffed the urine samples of 540 non-prostate individuals (some had other medical conditions, including other types of cancer) and 362 patients diagnosed with the disease in various stages.</p><p>The dog duo returned with an astonishing 98 per cent accuracy reading. One of the dogs detected every single case of prostate cancer and only hit false positives in two per cent of cases. The other dog was almost as accurate.</p><p>While further testing needs to be carried out, the study results suggest quick and accurate new ways to screen for the disease in the future. It further adds to a growing body of research that finds that dogs can smell the by-products of various types of cancer.</p><p><strong>Related links:</strong></p><p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><em><strong><a href="/lifestyle/pets/2015/06/astonished-animals/">Just what are these animals so surprised about?</a></strong></em></span></p><p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><em><strong><a href="/lifestyle/pets/2015/05/keeping-dogs-happy-when-indoors/">5 tips to keep your dog happy when indoors</a></strong></em></span></p><p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><em><strong><a href="/lifestyle/pets/2015/04/dogs-that-sleep-anywhere/">10 dogs that can sleep anywhere, in any position and at any time</a></strong></em></span></p>

Family & Pets

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