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More Than 16.000 Pounds of Ground Beef Sold At Walmart Recalled Over E.coli Risk

Over 16,000 pounds of ground beef produced by Cargill Meat Solutions and sold at Walmart have been recalled due to concerns of a possible E. coli contamination.

The contaminated beef was produced on April 26 and April 27 and distributed to Walmart stores throughout the eastern U.S., according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

So far, there have been no confirmed reports of illness linked to the beef products, USDA said. Cargill said it launched a voluntary recall out “of an abundance of caution.”

The Pennsylvania-based food distributor became concerned of a possible contamination after discovering that “previously segregated product had been inadvertently utilized in the production of ground beef,” the agency said.

The ground beef has been sold at Walmart locations in Connecticut, Washington, D.C., Massachusetts, Maryland, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Virginia, West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Vermont and New York.

The Cargill products subject to recall include:

2.25-lbs. plastic-wrapped trays containing “93% lean 7% fat all natural lean ground beef”
1.33-lbs. plastic-wrapped trays containing four “prime rib steak burgers patties”
2.25-lbs. plastic-wrapped trays containing “85% lean 15% fat all natural angus premium ground beef”
2.25-lbs. plastic-wrapped trays containing “80% lean 20% fat all natural ground beef chuck”
1.33-lbs. plastic-wrapped trays containing four “80% lean 20% fat all natural ground beef chuck patties”
1.33-lbs. plastic-wrapped trays containing four “90% lean 10% fat all natural ground beef sirloin patties”

USDA advises consumers to throw away or return the contaminated products to the place of purchase.

Contributor: NPR

Overwhelmed? How to Reduce Anxiety in Times of Stress.

Need a break? Use these tips to press pause and de-stress.

Stress is an an unavoidable fact of life. And some of it is actually good for us, helping us develop resilience and fueling motivation and productivity. But the constant stream of somber news and a never-ending to do list can also create high levels of chronic stress that has a negative affect on our health.

In fact, as previously covered by TODAY, Americans reported their highest stress level in the 15-year history of a poll conducted for the American Psychological Association.

The good news is there are simple steps you can take to regain some calm in your life. Here are six ways to reduce stress and anxiety in five minutes or less.

1. Focus on your breathing.
According to Dr. Marlynn Wei, a psychiatrist based in New York City, rhythmic breathing is a good stress-reducing exercise that doesn’t take too much practice to start using.

Here’s how to do it:

Set a timer for three minutes.

Focus on your breath.

Take a deep breath through your nose while you count to five.

Hold your breath for five counts.

Exhale for five counts.

Repeat for the remaining time, and notice how your breath becomes deeper.

“I think that it’s easy to use and great for beginners,” Wei says. If you’re not only stressed, but tired as well, Wei recommends doing this breathing exercise while you walk. Try to time your breath with your walking pace.

“When you’re able to calm your fight-or-flight response, you reduce your cortisol levels over time,” she says. “Almost immediately, however, you will notice that your heart rate will go down and your blood pressure will go down.”

2. Take a break from your phone.
Constantly checking your phone for the latest notification can overwhelm you, according to Kristine Carlson, co-author of the book “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff,” which she wrote with her late husband Richard Carlson.

“We are so tied to our technology,” she says. “Email, text message, checking your Instagram — all of that, it’s very addictive.”

Instead, she advises, “really unplug from your email or phone” and take what Carlson refers to as a “golden pause.”

By snoozing your notifications, you create the mental space to focus on yourself and how you’re feeling. While you focus on yourself, practice breathing slowly, closing your eyes and turning your thoughts toward something you’re grateful for, Carlson suggests.

Research backs up this up: Focusing on gratitude has been shown to increase a person’s level of happiness.

3. Use an app to help you learn how to meditate.
There are many free meditation apps out there that can help you tune out for the five minutes you need to relax.

Popular apps like Headspace or Insight Timer have hundreds of guided meditation options that can help you deal with any emotion you may be feeling. Research suggests meditation can help ease anxiety and depression. Nick Allen, a psychology professor and director of the Center for Digital Mental Health at the University of Oregon, suggests you try to build a meditation practice when you’re not feeling stressed. The more you work beforehand, he says, either by yourself or with a professional, the better results you’ll see when you’re in a pinch.

4. Listen to a relaxing song.
Emmeline Edwards, Ph.D., Director of the Division of Extramural Research at the National Institutes of Health, says music therapy can also be a great way to relax wherever you are.

“The auditory cortex is connected to other areas of the brain that are connected to our reward system, motor systems, centers for motivation and emotion regulation,” Edwards says.

In fact, research shows music can help people dealing with stress-related disorders, mild depression and anxiety.

5. Have a relaxing cup of tea.
“Have a hot cup of tea, preferably with no caffeine,” Wei says. “And put the smart phone away and just spend a few minutes focusing on the flavor of tea, the temperature, noticing everything about the cup.”

This mindfulness practice helps you tune out other thoughts, helping you focus on something that’s calming. This can be a great tactic to reduce stress at work; while you can’t necessarily step away from the stressors completely, you can use a cup of tea as a signal to press pause for a moment.

6. Go outside for a few minutes.
Dr. Monique Tello, an internal medicine physician at Women’s Health Associates in Boston, Massachusetts, says that sometimes, getting outside for a quick walk or fresh air is a great option to reduce stress quickly.

“If someone is feeling very stressed and they have the chance to change their environment, get fresh air, see nature — water, trees — they should,” Tello tells TODAY. “Exercise, take a brisk walk.”

This strategy is great for people who feel restless or unable to concentrate and there are studies to support its effectiveness, she adds.

Contributor: Marguerite Ward – USA Today

5 Ways to Add Joy Into Your Meals

Whether you are happy with your size or not, whether you follow a special diet or eat what you want when you want, the basic fact of life — unavoidable, inescapable, non-negotiable — is that we all have to eat. If we are fortunate, it’s usually up to five times a day, every day.

How you choose to nourish yourself can make a big difference in how you feel, not only in your body, but about yourself and the world around you.

“I had this babysitter who was a chronic dieter,” Dr. Linda Shiue, an internal medicine physician and trained chef, told Gupta on the podcast recently. “She would eat this colorless, aroma-less food and she was sad all the time.”

That is not Shiue’s style. She is the first director of culinary medicine at Kaiser Permanente San Francisco. That’s where she founded Thrive Kitchen, a teaching kitchen for patients, so she could do more than just hand out prescriptions for chronic conditions.

She wanted to create a place where she could teach her patients to make healthy food taste good. “They think it’s deprivation and, you know, loss of joy and kind of penance even,” said Shiue, who is also the author of “Spicebox Kitchen: Eat Well and Be Healthy with Globally Inspired, Vegetable-Forward Recipe.” “It’s colorless, it’s bland, it has no texture, it has no flavor and — we’re not supposed to enjoy it.”

Similar to her cookbook, Shiue’s classes show patients how to use spices and herbs to flavor seasonal cuisine while following an eating pattern that supports health.

“As a food lover since birth, and a physician who has seen the negative effects of chronic dieting, I encourage people to reframe their relationship to food as a source of pleasure, cultural connection and well-being, regardless of weight. This can be a hard task given the pro-diet messaging that surrounds us,” Shiue said in an email.

What can you do to break out of the diet mindset and really enjoy your food? Shiue has five tips.

Stop judging food as good or bad

“Even though we, as an individual, may not even think that we care that much about that message, it’s reached all of us — it’s in all of our subconscious,” she said. “I think that most people at some point feel like, ‘Oh, I shouldn’t eat that. That’s bad for me. It might affect my weight.’”

Shiue wants to help people learn how to stop thinking that way. “There’s no room for shame on the plate,” she said, choosing her language around food carefully.

“In diet culture, people talk about ‘cheat’ days (but) I prefer to celebrate ‘treat’ days. Everything in moderation, and that means there is room for the occasional indulgence,” she said.

Don’t go on ‘diets’

Restrictive diets are counterproductive because most of us won’t be able to stick to them perfectly and forever.

“(S)tudy after study has proven that the best eating plan is the one which any given individual can stick with — a sustainable lifestyle change,” Shiue said.

“Rather than restricting, add more of the foods (that) science shows us are better for our health: lots of plants, legumes and whole grains. This will improve your health even if (you) aren’t eating ‘perfectly’ all the time, and even if you don’t lose weight,” she said.

Shiue admitted to not eating perfectly all the time and having a sweet tooth; she said she allows herself to enjoy her favorite treats — just not all the time.

Listen to your body

Eat intuitively.

“That means several things,” said Shiue said. “First, are you actually hungry, or are you feeding an emotional need, such as anxiety, sadness, or fatigue?

“How does the food make you feel after you eat? Do you feel comfortably full, or are you feeling stuffed? How is your energy level after eating?” she said. “When you pay attention to these feelings, your body will guide you to making the healthiest food choices for you.”

Also, eat mindfully, which Shiue said does not mean meditating over your food.

“It means when you’re eating your food, just focus on the pleasure of that,” she said. “Eat slowly. Chew your food. … Also pay attention to when you’ve had enough.”

Reclaim your food heritage

Healthy diets can come from a variety of ethnicities and customs, and they can contain a cornucopia of flavors and ingredients.

“A lot of people were taught that quote-unquote ‘cultural food’ … is not healthy,” Shiue said. “People are told, ‘Oh no, no: The food that you eat, that’s why you have diabetes. You have to eat this kind of standard, healthy American diet.’”

But she said that many people from different backgrounds either don’t want to switch diets, or they don’t know how or it just doesn’t work out — and, Shiue said, they really don’t have to.

“The traditional diet of every culture contains healthy foods, and should be celebrated, with pleasure,” she said.

Think beyond calories

Remind yourself that food is more than a way to simply stay alive.

“Nutrition and sustenance — that’s only one small part of food,” Shiue said. “Food is, for me, mainly pleasure. It’s a connection to myself, to my loved ones, to my culture.”

She added food is also an expression of love and caring.

“Enjoy your food,” she said.

Contributor: Andrea Kane –CNN Health

Bright Indicator Lights Ruining Your Sleep? You’re Not Alone. Here’s Why They Exist.

For thousands of years, the nighttime’s daily darkness naturally told humans it was time to go to sleep. That’s an evolutionary principle embedded into our brains — and it becomes apparent for those who can’t peacefully slumber at night because of the annoying indicator light that’s part of many household electronics.

Countless devices and appliances — from surge protectors and televisions to headphones and laptops — often have a bright light that turns on when plugged in but can’t be turned off unless the product is unplugged. It’s a pesky bedroom nuisance.

“Exposure to light at night is a completely unnatural and alien experience,” Steven Lockley, a neuroscientist at Harvard Medical School’s Division of Sleep Medicine, said in author Paul Bogard’s 2013 book, “The End of Night,” which explores the effects of artificial light on society and health.

Not only are there more of those lights these days, but many are brighter than they used to be. Some manufacturers say indicator lights can sometimes serve a practical purpose. But the one thing that’s clear is that at bedtime, people looking to get some sleep just loath those difficult-to-ignore dots of light ruining the comforting darkness needed to get some shuteye.

The solutions we come up with

For Kyle Moschen, a 27-year-old public relations professional based in Seattle, it almost looked like a starry night sky in the studio apartment he used to live in with his boyfriend, except it wasn’t beautiful like Vincent van Gogh’s famous painting, it was irritating.

Bright lights emitting from many sources — from the oven, an automatic fan, the fire alarm, an air purifier and a wireless phone charger — made it difficult for Moschen to sleep at night.

His solution: Tape those bad boys right up.

“I was looking around and I just kept noticing more and more and I felt so confused, like why are there so many lights?” Moschen told CNN. “I was like this crazy person putting these black strips of electrical tape on every little light.”

Amazon, among other retailers, stocks several different sizes and shapes of blackout, or light-dimming, stickers and sheets.

The solution looked a bit different for Jonathan King, a finance professional based in New York.

“I plug in my Logitech headphones and it’s a little blue light but I really have a hard time sleeping with any light on so I have to either wear a face mask or what I usually end up doing is putting a shirt over the headphones so I don’t see them,” King told CNN in an email.

The practical and aesthetic purposes of indicator lights

To put it simply, an indicator light just reflects the status of a device, and that varies from product to product. For example, an indicator light could show that a device is charging or plugged in and working properly. For Bluetooth devices, they’re necessary when pairing with a phone.

Those bright indicators are often LED lights. LED lighting is an energy-efficient option for manufacturing indicator lights. The light has a long lifespan and doesn’t generate excess heat — important qualities for a technology that’s used every day.

Blue LED light — a common indicator color but one particularly disruptive to sleep — was such an industry breakthrough that the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to physicists Isamu Akasaki, Hiroshi Amano and Shuji Nakamura for creating it.

Blue LED was introduced for commercial use in the 1990s. Amid a growing tech industry, blue LED offered a new, innovative color that gave consumer electronics a cutting-edge appearance.

“Sometimes those lights are on there just for aesthetic appeal, contributing to the gadget’s design, appeal and user experience,” David Loftus, president and chief executive of the Electronic Components Industry Association, told CNN.

Still, many manufacturers do without them. “A lot of times, some don’t have it because it is a very inexpensive device and the manufacturer has chosen not to spend a few pennies on putting an LED status light in it. Or, the devices are just really simple and don’t need it,” Loftus said. Manny Linhares Jr., senior director of product management at Legrand, a French electrical equipment manufacturer, said the indicator lights of Legrand’s products are essential for functional, aesthetic and safety reasons.

“As a manufacturer, adding an LED light does cost something, so to add one just to add one seems quite wasteful. So in our case, it’s used purposely to enhance the user experience,” he said.

Linhares Jr. also said the lights can be helpful as night lights.

“We aim for the subtle lights to help a customer know where these devices are when the lights are off in spaces where the occupant isn’t familiar with the room, like in hotels you at least have that subtle light glow,” he said.

Contributors: Bryan Mena, John Towfighi – CNN Health