Seems some in our society today remain anxious about the food they buy and serve to their families. While it’s not a recent phenomenon, questions about food safety are bound to occur.

While some food safety problems occur on the farm, many more occur in the kitchen where food can be mishandled or poorly prepared. Keeping food safe is everyone’s business. Yours and mine.

The way we handle, store and cook food can mean the difference between a satisfying meal and a bout with E. coli or salmonella. Keeping food safe in our diet requires a few tried and true steps. Keep food clean, keep it separate, cook it completely and always chill it.

When shopping, keep eggs and raw meat items separate in your grocery cart from foods that do not need to be cooked. Avoid cross contamination.

To prevent raw meat and poultry from contaminating foods that will be eaten without further cooking, enclose individual packages of raw meat or poultry in plastic bags. Position packages of raw meat or poultry in your shopping cart so their juices cannot drip on other food.

When purchasing products labeled keep refrigerated, do so only if they are stored in a refrigerated case and cold to the touch. Buy frozen products only if they are frozen solid. Never buy something that feels mushy.

As a wise and safety-conscious shopper, it is our responsibility to keep food safe once it leaves our local grocery store or meat market. Always shop for perishables last. Keep refrigerated and frozen items together so they will remain cold.

Place perishables in the coolest part of your car during the trip home. Pack them in an ice chest if the time from store to home refrigerator will be more than one hour.

You can prevent E. coli infection by thoroughly cooking ground beef, avoiding unpasteurized milk, and by washing hands carefully before preparing or eating food.

Cook eggs to at least at 160 degrees Fahrenheit. Completely cooked, is completely safe.

Fruits and vegetables should be washed well, but washing may not remove all contamination. Keep a separate cutting board for raw meats and another for food preparation does not require cooking, such as salads. Again, this simple step helps avoid cross contamination.

Keep food chilled. Meat, lettuce and eggs should be stored in a refrigerator that is between 33 and 40 degrees Fahrenheit. Minimize the time in and out of your fridge. It is difficult to keep the temperature constant, especially if you have a family that continuously opens the door.

Never leave perishable food products sitting out on the counter. Put them in the refrigerator once you’ve served them. The rule is that if perishable food is left two hours at room temperature, it should be discarded.

While most of these tips sound simple, a common-sense approach the next time you shop and cook could ensure safer food for your family.

John Schlageck, a Hoxie native, is a leading commentator on agriculture and rural Kansas.

Ever get right to the door of the state hospital room of your suicidal, or maybe criminally insane, distant cousin and start thinking “do I really want my concealed-carry pistol now?”

Not often? That’s probably a good thing, but starting July 1, at the 32 buildings on campuses of the state’s four hospitals, you may not have to worry about that.

What’s this about? A largely forgotten portion of the state’s concealed-carry law which on July 1 will prevent anyone in authority at the state hospitals from making sure that there aren’t any guns in the buildings.

The original concealed-carry law passed several years ago had a provision that carrying guns at state hospitals, private hospitals, and on university campuses could be prohibited until July 1 of this year by merely posting a sign.

On July 1, those signs become just a decorative nuisance. The folks who run those hospitals and colleges won’t be able to prohibit concealed-carry by the general public unless there are guards and metal detectors and those electronic wands to make sure that nobody not specifically authorized to carry a gun can enter one of those buildings.

The key is that unless a hospital or school can make sure nobody has a weapon, well, everyone can have a weapon. Probably not a good idea at hospitals where there are mentally ill patients, or probably even at public colleges where, well, there are college kids.

Gov. Sam Brownback appears to have last week recalled that provision in state law, and in a budget amendment handed to the Senate Ways and Means and House Appropriations committees, he asked for $12 million for the upcoming fiscal year and $12 million the next year before he leaves office to get the guards and metal detectors and such needed to meet the nobody carries guns or everyone can carry guns provisions of state law.

Seems a little late to remember that provision, and while state universities and private hospitals have been working with little result most of the legislative session to win exemption from the lifting of the ban on concealed-carry, the wrap-up session starting this week is the first time there’s been a realization of the effect of that provision.

For the four state hospitals—Larned and Osawatomie state hospitals, the Kansas Neurological Institute and Parsons State Hospital and Training Center—Brownback asked lawmakers to appropriate that $12 million a year for the remainder of his term. Probably a little late, we’d guess, with the July deadline approaching and the Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services which runs the hospitals saying it will take maybe nine or 10 months from the day it gets the check to meet the gun screening requirements.

One fix is simple. Just remove the language from state law that requires gun-search equipment and personnel to prohibit folks from carrying guns into those hospitals—and maybe because it would just take a few more lines of type, college campuses?

This is going to be interesting for Legislature-watches. Do lawmakers continue the now signs-only no-concealed-carry ban, which gun lobbyists oppose? Or do they pony up the money for the security measures and hope that nothing bad happens until the state hospitals get their security measures in place?

Yes, it seems a little late to be considering which way to go and money for state hospitals is tight. And…of course, do workers at those state hospitals decide to get licensed to carry concealed weapons and decide they’d rather take those security door guard jobs estimated to pay $65,000 a year rather than lesser-paying jobs mopping floors and providing health-care services and feeding those hospital patients?

All of a sudden, this gun business hits lawmakers where they look first—at the budget.

See how this comes out…

Syndicated by Hawver News Company LLC of Topeka; Martin Hawver is publisher of Hawver’s Capitol Report—to learn more about this nonpartisan statewide political news service, visit the website at www.hawvernews.com