What do I do with these expired vitamins?

Quite frankly, I haven't ever worried too much about vitamins (or medicines) going bad myself. I know that all manufacturers build in a buffer zone with expiration dates. That means that their vitamins must pass all stability and analytical tests at least to the end of their life cycle, if not well beyond. So if a vitamin passes all of it's efficacy testing on the day it expires, how can it be bad the next day? It takes quite a while for them to degrade. Therefore, I believe that they just lose effectiveness and aren't really dangerous. With that said, I am not telling anyone what to do with their expired vitamins and medicines, I am not a M.D. So if you decide to get rid of them, they should be flushed down a toilet. That is the safest way to dispose of pills, so that an animal or child doesn't find them in the trash. The following information was from: the website:
www.vitamin-insight.com/mailbag/mailbag-question-39.aspx

{Vitamins gradually lose potency as the pills become exposed to sunlight, oxygen and moisture. While they may not become toxic or harmful, expired vitamins may not provide the results you want. Vitamin manufacturers set expiration dates by performing stability tests. These tests show how much the product will degrade over time. Vitamin manufacturers then add enough of the raw nutrient to compensate for any lost potency. Furthermore, certain vitamin formulations contain fillers and stabilizers that have a recommended shelf life.}

Will old meat really kill me?

One of my readers asked a question about the dates printed on meats purchased at the supermarket. I have always been afraid to eat anything after a few days. This neurosis was probably brought on by a Mom who was meticulous about food safety. My Mom had lived with her Aunt for a while during her college years and her Aunt was a Nutritionist. She never let me eat anything that wasn't washed. I mean anything...whole fruits that you cut into like cantaloupe or watermelon, canned food that you cut open with a can opener, soda in a can. After all, the blade cuts through the dirty part and then into the clean. Sounds a little crazy right?? However, Mom is actually right, you can get all sorts of nasty things from the rind of a cantaloupe. Of course in my rebellion, I let my kids eat strawberries right out of the container in the supermarket and I've managed to keep them alive! My Mom also used all meat within 2 days of purchase or she froze it. Again, Mom was right...imagine that! So here is some info on meat expiration..Sell By, Use By, Die By:
From www.Businessweek.com :
{According to Jeanne Goldberg, professor at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tuffs University, "It's a very inexact science since those dates include a wide margin of safety."
"Date Data: The dates, for one, mean quite different things. The sell by date is more of a guide for the store to know how long it can display a product for sale. The best before or best if used by date refers to a quality or flavor of the food. Use by works more like an expiration date, similar to that on medicines, and taking them after the date is not recommended." (More on that in a later post.)
"Worse, some dates can actually be quite misleading. For instance, when you buy meat, that even if the sell-by date is five days away, the refrigerator at home usually isn't cool enough to keep meat fresh for more than two days."(Go Mom!) "Usually raw meat is kept around 30 degrees F, while the home refrigerator's temperature is set around 40 degrees F to keep other things in the fridge from freezing. So, food safety experts suggest that whether its ground meat, or a pound of steak, or chicken consumers either eat or freeze it within two days of buying.")}

Now as a scientist, I also know that if you handle that spoiled meat correctly and cook it to the recommended temperatures, that you aren't likely to get sick from it. This is because heat actually kills the bacteria, rendering it ineffective in making you sick. However, I don't recommend eating cooked spoiled food, because it wouldn't taste good! Why waste the calories. :)

How clean are dog's mouths?

For years my husband has been saying, "a dog's mouth is cleaner than a human's". Well of course I was sure this was crap and an urban legend. So at game night last night, this was brought up again after we told the story of my 80 pound black lab eating the 2.5 pound homemade meatloaf I had prepared, plus 5 oven roasted potatoes the night before. (And yes, I mean whole potatoes!) My husband admitted to eating what was left, YUCK!
So the question is fact or fiction?: Fiction-DUH? There is the reason I called it Dianaisalwaysright!

From About.com
"{If a dog's mouth is sterile how could it transmit rabies, tetanus, pasteurella or any other types of infections associated with dog bites. As we all know, dogs aren't particularly fussy about where they put their tongues or what goes into their mouth. "A dog's mouth contains a lot of bacteria," confirms Dr. Gary "Ask the Vet" Clemons. "Remember a dog's tongue is not only his wash cloth, but his toilet paper," says Dr. Gary.}"
For the rest of the history from where this urban legend came, go to http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/dogs/a/dog_breath.htm