THE TIMES AND DEMOCRAT | WWW.THETANDD.COM SuNDAy, MARCH 22, 2015 — D3u uA D V I C E P L u S

Eggs can be a part of a healthy diet. However, they are perishable just like raw meat, poultry and fish. To be safe, they must be properly stored, handled and cooked.

So m e u n b ro ke n f re s h shell eggs may contain Sal-monella enteritidis bacte-ria that can cause foodborne illness. While the number of eggs affected is quite small, there have been some scat-tered outbreaks in the last few years. Currently the government, the egg indus-try and the scientific com-munity are working together to solve the problem.

Researchers say that if present, the Salmonella en-teritidus bacteria are usu-ally in the yolk or “yellow.” But they cannot rule out the bacteria being in egg whites. So eve r yo n e i s a dv i s e d against eating raw or under-cooked egg yolks, whites or products that contain eggs.

People with health prob-lems, the very young, the el-derly and pregnant women (the risk is to the unborn child) are particularly vul-nerable to Salmonella en-

teritidis infections. Chronic illness also weakens the im-mune system, making the person vulnerable to food-borne illness.

P ro p e r re f r i ge ra t i o n , c o o k i n g a n d h a n d l i n g should prevent most egg safety problems. People can enjoy eggs and dishes containing eggs if these safe handling guidelines are followed.

�Don’t eat raw eggs This includes “ health

food” milk shakes with raw eggs, Caesar salad, hollan-daise sauce and any other

foods like homemade may-onnaise, ice cream or egg-nog made from recipes in which the raw egg ingredi-ents are not cooked. These egg-based recipes should be updated to start with a cooked base or so that com-mercially prepared pasteur-ized eggs or egg substitutes are used. Use a thermome-ter and make sure the tem-perature of the cooked base reaches 160 degrees.

�Buy clean eggs from a refrigerator display case

Do not purchase eggs anywhere that are not re-frigerated. Any bacteria present in the egg can grow quickly if stored at room temperature. At the store, choose Grade A or AA eggs with clean, uncracked shells.

�Safe storage of eggs at home

Take eggs straight home and store them immediately in the refrigerator at 40 de-grees or slightly below. Store

them in the grocery carton in the coldest part of the re-frigerator, not in the door. Do not wash eggs. Washing eggs could remove the pro-tective mineral oil coating put on at the plant and could increase the potential for bacteria on the shell to enter the egg.

�Use eggs promptly Use raw shell eggs within

three to five weeks. When fresh eggs are hard cooked, the protective coating is wa s h e d a wa y s o h a rd -cooked eggs should be re-frigerated within two hours of cooking and used within a week. Use leftover yolks and whites within four days. If eggs crack on the way home from the store, break them into a clean container, cover tightly, and keep refriger-ated for use within two days.

�Freeze eggs for longer storage

Eggs should not be fro-zen in their shells. To freeze whole eggs, beat yolks and whites together. Egg whites

and yolks can also be frozen by themselves. Use frozen eggs within a year. If eggs freeze accidentally in their shells, keep them frozen until needed. Defrost them in refrigerator. Discard any with cracked shells.

�Handle eggs safely Wash hands, utensils,

equipment and work areas with warm, soapy water be-fore and after contact with eggs and egg-rich foods.

�Serve immediately Don’t keep out of the re-

frigerator more than two hours. Serve cooked eggs and egg-rich foods immedi-ately after cooking, or place in shallow containers for quick cooling and refriger-ate at once. Use within three to four days. Recipes using raw eggs should be cooked immediately or refrigerated and cooked within 24 hours.

For more information about eggs, check out fact-sheet #3507 on Home and Garden Information Cen-ter webpage at http://hgic.clemson.edu

I don’t care what they tell you: Tomato juice will not remove skunk smell from a cat. Especially a cat that likes to sleep in the bed with you. A cat that likes to walk around and rub up against you. A cat that likes to sleep under the dining room ta-ble while you eat, especially when you are having com-pany. A cat that will jump into your lap after you have j u s t c h a n ge d i n to n o n -skunky clothes for an im-portant meeting. A cat that will walk across a computer keyboard while you are try-ing to work.

Not only is the tomato juice bath a waste of time and juice, it takes three days to clean up the bathroom.

Is there anything more clinging than skunk spray? How many times have you passed a dead skunk on the road, and 30 miles later re-marked that you can still

smell it?After many other bogus

home remedies, we found something on the Internet that recommended a paste of baking soda and hydro-gen peroxide. That worked pretty well when rubbed into his wet fur, but as soon as it dried, the old fumes wafted back. We considered and re-jected a series of other op-tions — banishment, shear-ing, roll-on deodorant, the delicate cycle. Nothing seemed appropriate.

One thing was obvious: Since we couldn’t get rid of the cat, we must get rid of the skunk. I set a large Ha-vahart trap out on the front lawn. In case you’re not fa-miliar with them, they don’t hurt the woodchuck, squir-rel, chipmunk or skunk you are trying to get rid of. They just contain it in a wire cage until you can release it on the front lawn of someone you don’t like. An ex-brother-in-law, perhaps. The football coach who made you sit on the bench all through high school. The jerk who gave you that tip to buy oil stock.

Sure enough, the next morning I had a caught a huge skunk. It was re-ally kind of beautiful — long, glossy black hair, two thick white stripes running down the back. Very intel-ligent-looking. So what if it sprayed the cat and dug up big patches of lawn? I al-

most wanted to let it out and pet it.

Let it out? What is wrong with me? How am I going to get near enough to the thing to let it out without get-ting blasted? Even if it didn’t blast me, what kind of a nut would put this thing in-side his car to take it over to Coach Philby’s house in the middle of the night? What if it let fly while we were in the car? We’d never get the Blue Book value for it.

Sue explained to me that I had not thought this whole trap thing through. “You,” she said, “are an idiot.”

I called around and after a few good laughs, the neigh-bors recommended a local guy, R. Moody, who knows a thing or two about ani-mal control.

“The first thing you do in a situation like this,” he said, pausing so I could soak up his words of animal re-

moval wisdom, “is to write me a check for $100. Thank you, sir. Now get back in your house.”

We watched R. Moody through the living room win-dow. He pulled a large tarp out of his pickup and held it up in front of himself so all we — and the skunk — could see was a big blue wall mov-ing slowly towards the cage. When he was only a step away, he let the tarp fall, cov-ering the trap so the skunk could see nothing. A few quick turns of baling twine, and he loaded the trap and tarp into his truck.

“Well, I could have done that,” I told him. “I can’t be-lieve you charged me a hun-dred dollars for that!”

“No sir, that part was free. It’s the letting him go that costs a hundred dollars. Do you want your check back?”

Contact Jim Mullen at Jim-MullenBooks.com.

D E A R D O C T O R K : I overheard a colleague talk-ing about “poop pills” used to treat diarrhea. That can’t be right. Can it?

D E A R R E A D E R : Ye s , “poop” means what you think it means. Same thing as “doo-doo.” It’s gross, but it’s true. So-called “poop pills” are being used to treat diarrhea caused by bacteria called Clostridium difficile, or “C. diff.” Let me explain.

Our intestines are filled with many different kinds of bacteria. Most live hap-pily there; they don’t invade or attack the intestine that is their home. C. diff bac-teria live in our guts, but in low numbers — low because other bacteria in the in-testine out-compete them for nutrients.

So far, so good. The prob-lem starts with antibiotic

treatment. Every an-t i b i o t i c i s g o o d a t k i l l i n g some types o f b a c te -ria, while h a v i n g n o e f f e c t o n o t h e r t y p e s . A

doctor chooses a particular antibiotic based on the type of bacterial infection that is being treated.

Many people are hospi-talized for infections, such as pneumonia or urinary tract infections. Most of the antibiotics used to kill these infections also kill bacteria in the gut that compete with C. diff. However, they often don’t kill C. diff. This leaves a void that allows C. diff to multiply. Once it takes hold

in the gut, C. diff creates toxins that cause diarrhea, fever, abdominal pain and inflammation that can be life-threatening.

Treatment of C. diff be-gins by stopping the antibi-otic that triggered it in the first place. If that doesn’t work, the doctor prescribes one of a handful of antibi-otics that specifically kill C. diff. But C. diff is becom-ing increasingly resistant to antibiotics.

Ever since the discov-ery of penicillin, the obvi-ous treatment for bacterial infections has been anti-biotics. But as the problem of antibiotic resistance has grown, doctors have been experimenting with another approach. They are fill-ing the gut with the bacte-ria that are C. diff’s normal competitors. They’re treat-

ing bad bacteria with large numbers of good bacteria.

The good bacteria are abundant in feces. Trans-plants of fecal material (poop) from a healthy donor are placed into the intestine of the person who is ill. As originally used, fecal trans-plants have been, frankly, rather unpleasant. Fresh stool from a healthy donor has been thinned, and then either pumped into a tube threaded through a patient’s nose and into their intes-tine, or given in the form of an enema (a liquid injected into the rectum).

Now there’s an easier way to deliver the dose: poop pills. Researchers at Har-vard-affiliated Massachu-setts General Hospital have used capsules containing frozen fecal extracts from healthy people to success-

fully treat diarrhea caused by C. diff.

Disgusting as it sounds, the donor feces are pro-cessed so only bacteria re-mains in the pill. The pill that is swallowed is clean and odorless. It is, essen-tially, a probiotic pill. And its protective gel cover does not dissolve until it is deep in the digestive tract.

H o p e f u l l y, t h e c l e a n and odorless poop pill will prove as effective as the original ways of delivering good bacteria into the gut. They weren’t pretty, but they worked.

Dr. Komaroff is a physi-cian and professor at Har-vard Medical School . To send questions, go to Ask-D o c t o r K . c o m , o r w r i t e : Ask Doctor K, 10 Shattuck St., Second Floor, Boston, MA 02115.

Dear Annie: At least once a week, I get an unsolicited phone call from “Rachel from Cardholder Services.” This seems to be an obvious scam to get me to switch to another credit card or maybe

just to get p e rs o n a l informa-t i o n . I h a ve r e -c e i v e d these calls b o t h i n Connect-i c u t a n d

F l o r i d a . When I ask, “ W h o d o you repre-sent?” they hang up.

I am now getting calls from some in-dividual telling me his orga-nization detected a problem with my computer the last time I was on the Internet. That one is more worrisome because they are searching for access to my computer, and again, I assume it’s an il-legal call.

What agency do I contact to get help shutting down these scam artists? — B.

Dear B.: The Federal Trade Commission has already gone after “Rachel from Cardholder Services,” along with her robocall buddies. Yes, such calls are illegal, but it can be difficult to trace the callers before they have done a good deal of damage to consumers. Most of these scammers require a fee up-front, and then they take your money and disappear.

Here’s our advice: If you receive an automated call from someone you don’t know offering to save you money, HANG UP. If you are the target of a telemarketing scam, report it to the Federal Trade Commission at ftc.gov/complaint.

Dear Annie: I could have w r i t te n t h e l e t te r f ro m “Need My Sanity,” who said h e r h u s b a n d c o m p l a i n s about the lack of intimacy even though he helps around the house. But he works a high-stress job and brings it home with him. After lis-tening to him vent and com-plain, she wants a break.

I love my husband of 25 years. He is hardworking and loyal and has a good heart. But he is also hypercriti-cal, moody and quick to be-come annoyed. In public, he is outgoing and funny, but at home, he creates tension and stress. I am not intimidated by his behavior, but neither am I sexually attracted to him anymore.

I try to help him see how counterproductive his be-havior is, but it doesn’t do any good. He wants more sex because it gives him the fix he needs to be content for a day or so. But after a couple of decades of being his “medication,” the thrill is gone for me. He seldom shows warmth, just physi-cal desire.

I have two jobs and four kids, and I’m exhausted. Add to that the burden of being the emotional balance for our family, and there’s noth-ing left for me to give him as a sexual partner. He refuses to be screened for depres-sion and won’t go for coun-seling with or without me. But I’m still in it for the long haul, hoping he might even-tually mellow. — Keeping Calm and Clothed

Dear Keeping Calm: He might mellow when he re-tires, but the question then becomes whether you are willing to tolerate him for the duration. While you seem to understand the sit-uation and your part in it, a little short-term counsel-ing for you might allow you to develop a more effec-tive strategy.

ASK DR. KON HEALTH

KATHY MITCHELL

AND MARCY SUGARANNIE’S MAILBOX

SUDOKU PUZZLE IN CLASSIFIEDS

SUDOKU SOLUTION

JIM MULLENTHE VILLAGE IDIOT

CHRISTINE PATRICKATTIC TO

BASEMENT

Beware ‘Rachel’

scam calls

‘Good’ bacteria now delivered to gut in surprising new form

Shell egg safety

The sweet smell of skunkcess

PICTURE COURTESY OF THE CITY OF ORANGEBURG AND PROVIDED DR. GENE ATKINSON

MARCH 22, 2015: Alton E. Bythewood (1876-1937): Alton E. Bythewood established the first African-American funeral home in Orangeburg in 1907. Mr. Bythewood was born in 1876 in Beaufort to Daniel and Catherine Bythewood. He attended Claflin University for his preparatory and college education. In 1907 he and his partner established the Bythewood and Ballard Funeral Home at the corner of Amelia and Middleton Streets. In the early years the building burned and had to be rebuilt. By 1919 Mr. Bythewood became the sole owner and renamed it the Bythewood Funeral Home. In 1923 he enlarged the building significantly. At one time this business was considered to be one of the largest African-American funeral services in South Carolina. Today this establishment is still providing mortuary services under the same name; however, the Bythewood family no longer operates it. Mr. Bythewood also served as treasurer and manager of the Orangeburg Cemetery Association for many years. He was also state president of the Colored Embalmers Association and was one of its mainstays from the time that it was organized. Mr. Bythewood was also elected vice president of the National Colored Embalmers Association for the whole nation in 1929. In 1906 he married the former Felicia A. Sasportas, daughter of prominent citizens Thaddeus K. and Mary Sasportas. They had three children, Dr. Alton E. Bythewood, Jr., Thaddeus K. Bythewood, and Mary Lou B. Lynch. He died in 1938. Mr. Bythewood was well known as a pioneer and leader in the funeral home industry. Today the Bythewood Funeral Home is celebrating over 100 years of mortuary services to the Orangeburg community.

ORANGEBURG OUT OF THE PAST