9 Innocent-Looking Habits That Can Seriously Harm Your Health
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Not washing salad
Admit it…how many times have you skipped on washing pre-bagged salads? Pre-washed salads are convenient by providing an easy way to get your daily serving of leafy greens but are they safe? Not so much.
Apart from having a lower nutritional value than fresh leaves, they can contain bacteria that cause food poisoning including E Coli, salmonella and norovirus. According to researchers at the Imperial College London, dangerous bacteria, often from contaminated manure, use microscopic hooks to attach themselves to salad leaves and cannot be washed off with a superficial rinse.
Captain’s tip: Thoroughly wash all salad leaves, including pre-washed ones in a mix of still water and a couple of drops of cider vinegar or white wine (both have antimicrobial properties).
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Toasting bread on the high setting
For many people, a delicious breakfast includes a slice of toast with their favorite spread. If you’re also a fan of toast, make sure your toast is a light-brown color, rather than dark brown or black. That’s because bread is a starchy food and over toasting, produces a chemical compound called acrylamide.
According to the World Health Organization, acrylamide raises cancer risk in people. When it comes to bread, acrylamide is found in the darker parts of the toast, so the higher the toasting setting the higher the acrylamide exposure.
Captain’s tip: According to the FDA, acrylamide exposure should be limited as much as possible. This means less fried and baked foods such as biscuits and chips and toasting bread to a golden color…definitely not dark.
