Grilling meat right

Consumer Reports (December 2010)

(Also see video)

• Food sticks to the cooking grates and/or won't sear properly. Preheat the grill for 15 to 20 minutes. Gas grills have a tendency to burn cooler than charcoal, so it's imperative that yours be fully preheated.
• Flare-ups occur.
  Don't overcrowd the cooking surface. Keep 40 percent of the grates empty. If fatty foods such as salmon or rib-eye steaks flare up, move the items to a cooler or nonflaming section of the grate.
• Food is under- or overcooked.
  Cooking with the lid open allows heat to escape and compromises roasting. Use high heat for searing thick cuts of meat, then lower to finish cooking.
  To check doneness of meat, insert an instant-read thermometer into the sides of steaks and chops or into the thickest part of burgers and chicken to ensure proper temperatures have been reached. Cook food to at least the following internal temperatures, as recommended by the U.S. Department of Agriculture:
  beef burgers, 160° F
  beef steaks, chops, and roasts, and lamb, 145° F (medium-rare) and 160° F. (medium)
  chicken, 165° F
  fin fish, 145° F or until flesh is opaque and separates easily with a fork
  pork, 160° F
• Food tastes bland.
  To add flavor and tenderness, use a marinade made with an acid--vinegar, lemon juice, plain yogurt. But marinate for too long and the food can become mushy.
  Marinate:
  shrimp for 15 to 30 minutes
  salmon steaks, 30 to 60 minutes
  chicken breasts, at least an hour, and up to 4
  other chicken pieces for 4 hours.
  tender cuts of beef, 15 minutes to 2 hours
  ­less tender beef, 6 to 24 hours
  Always refrigerate marinating foods.
  
  Spice rubs are another great way to add flavor. Start with a base of sugar and salt and doctor it with the spices and herbs you enjoy--black pepper, chilies, cumin, and garlic and onion powder. Apply the rub just before cooking or, for less-tender cuts, up to one day in advance to intensify the flavor.
  Note: Brush on barbecue sauce near the end of the cooking time. This allows the meat to thoroughly cook without burning the sauce.
• Smoking results are poor.
  People often make the mistake of trying to smoke food on a gas grill. The results will never be good even with a smoker box, because too much smoke rushes out of the grill vents, making it hard to get true barbecue flavor.

Camping for beginners

If you have never camped before, here are a few equipment tips for you. We are assuming that you are car camping, because total noobs probably won't do well backpacking without any prior outdoor living experience.

If you can remember only one thing, remember that REI is your friend. Your very expensive friend.

Sleeping

• You can rent a tent from REI. If possible, get a a tent with at least two doors so you don't have to climb over each other. One with the option of mesh canopy is a really nice feature during the summer. It lets you see the night sky and feel the evening breeze. Not as useful for colder nights. 
• Bring ear plugs and sleeping pills. I'm sorry to dash your romantic notions, but camping is not comfortable, so it's a challenge to get to sleep and stay asleep. Your neighbors might be sleep talking (yes, happened to us) or chatting about the many wonderful qualities of tempeh.  
• To keep yourself from being awakened by very early light, wear an eye mask and select a sleeping area that will be in the shade when the sun rises; however, do not camp directly under a tree, because branches might fall on you. 
• A sleeping bag is not enough, you must also get a sleeping pad if you don't want sharp rocks and the stiff ground to keep you up. Inflatable sleeping pads can be slippery, so you can optionally buy a sleeping pad strap to keep you on the sleeping pads. If you are car camping, why not just go with an air mattress?
• To maximize your sleeping comfort, find a spot that is flat, not sloping. If the best spot has a slope, sleep with your head at the top of the slope and your feet facing down.  

Lighting

• A flashlight would do, of course, but if you want hands-free lighting, get a headlamp. The one we particularly like is Petzl Zipka Plus 2 for many awesome reasons. It's bright, incredibly compact, works as a headlamp or wrist lamp, and has a night vision option. The red light does not destroy your night vision, so you can continue looking at the night sky or navigate to the bathroom in the dark.
• Battery operated lamps for under $5. I tell you, having a little lamp in your tent is great. It makes your tent feel a bit more civilized.
• Extra battery. What's the point of all these lighting stuff, if it has no juice?

Comfort

• If you are not getting warm enough, zip up your sleeping bag, then do sit ups until you are toasty. Mummy sleeping bags are best for keeping heat. The cheap ones you get from Target or Big 5 don't do a great job, so maybe you'll want to bring thick sweats. Women tend to have colder feet, so thick socks are a must. 
• You'll pee a lot more in the evening in the great outdoors. The cooler air just makes you want to go. Try to drink less in the evening. Before you groggily head to the toilet, shake your shoes to boot out any insect that has decided to call your shoe home. To prevent this, we encase our shoes in a plastic bag. You don't really need to seal it tight. Just have the weight of the shoe close the opening.   
• Bring a bar of soap (wash your hands when handling food) and rubbing alcohol.
• Bring insect spray to keep mosquitos off. Do not spray insecticide inside your tent, especially not with you still inside! This sounds like a big Duh! but I've been with campers who did just that (or attempted to do that before they were stopped). I swear, the best comedy in life happens around new campers. 
• Bring a folding chair.
• For fun, bring water guns.
• If you are really into hiking, consider bringing hiking poles. They really are great, and useful when finding your way to the bathroom in the dark (when you are groggy).

Food 

• Do not start fire in any area not designated as a fire pit. Just don't do it. You don't know what you're doing, despite what you think. And don't bring fireworks (Yes, we have to say that, because, again, someone tried to do just that). If the forest burns, you're going to be in the hook for that. 
• If you are getting a stove, select one that has fuel on the side, instead of underneath the burner. Those stupid things have a tendency to topple, and you end up losing your food. 
• You can bring dry stuff that won't spoil without refrigeration like nuts (high energy), instant noodles, bread, cereal, dried fruits and herbs (just because you are outdoors doesn't mean you have to eat flavorless junk). For protein, bring vacuum-sealed salmon and jerky.
• You can bring canned goods, too, but they tend to be heavy (because of the water content and the container). Of course, if you are car camping, who cares about weight. You might as well bring an ice chest with fresh meat and bacon for a grand BBQ meal and superb breakfast. 

Safety

• If you are going to bear country, read up all you can about safety precautions. That's an entire article on its own.
• Don't leave food unattended.
• Bring a first aid kit and learn how to use them. This blog includes articles of first aid. Search for them.
• Don't do stupid things. If what you're about to do has the possibility of going viral on YouTube, it's probably stupid. 

Courtesy

• Do not leave anything behind, do not take anything with you. Leave the area a better place. 

I'm making camping sound so awful, but it's wonderful. Seeing the incredible night sky, breathing in fresh air, and fellowshipping with trees and animals (hopefully ones who have no plans to eat you). And for some reason, food just taste better outdoors.

Attribution: Photo, Hardscrabble B Campsite by Rob Lee.  

Protecting your online privacy

If the idea of marketeers peering at your online activities is creepy, here are a few things you can do:

• Opt out of data mining from advertising networks, such as networkadvertising.org ( the select all button is conveniently broken) and aboutads.info.
• Check what they know about you through privacychoice.org.
  I've noticed, however, that what Google lists there is different from what it lists in its own Privacy Tools.
  
• Change what Google tracks about you in the Privacy Tools.
  
• Change your Facebook settings to seal what you share tight.
  Marketeers scrape whatever information is public about you. Quite often, Facebook introduces new settings and  selects the most open option for you, so you should check news about new features. They're frequently hidden and easy to miss, even though they have huge privacy implications. Watch for settings that let your friends share information about you (like tagging you in pictures or letting third-party apps suck in your information when they play another stupid game or use a worthless app).
• Set the privacy option of your browsers.
  Chrome and Firefox allow you to request that companies not mine your data. Note that it's just a request. Companies don't have to respect your expressed wishes, but ethical companies will.
• Ghostery.com lets you download a tool that lets you see what data companies know about you.
  It has been featured by a few news organization, but we haven't tested it nor investigated it. Download at your own risk. 
• Pay a monthly fee for reputation.com to keep trackers off your browser.

Attribution: Tips from Joel Stein of Time; wording from us. Picture, I See You, from Brandi Korte.

Emergency response: Assessing the patient from head to toe

This is the last in a series of articles on what to do when you encounter an injured person and you want to help them.

After you've initially assessed the patient, you can go into greater detail.

When doing head to toe assessment, you start from the head down to the toe, looking for the following:

• Deformity
• Contusion (bruise)
• Abrasion
• Puncture
• Burn
• Tenderness
• Laceration
• Swelling

Say something like:

Hi so-and-so, my name is so-and-so and I am part of the Emergency Response Team. Respond to me verbally only. Do not move your head at any time, OK? I am going to do a head-to-toe assessment, where I am going to prod around your body. Is that OK? (Ask another person to do Cspine)

Check the following in the main body:

1. Eyes - Pupil dilating?
2. Mouth - Nothing obstructing or bleeding.
3. Fluid - Saliva or spinal fluid, which has no color. 
4. Neck
   
   • No tracheal deviation, it's central. If you injured your lungs, trachea deviates to the good lung. 
   • No medical alert necklace 
   • No jugular vein bulging out. If there is, blood flow is backing up.
5. Chest
   
   • See if entire chest is moving in unison. 
   • Intercostal bulging or depression (shirt off, if needed).
   • Check for punctures
   • Barrel hoop (underneath the nipple line, you squeeze the rib cage and see if there's pain. 
   • Another barrel hoop, this time ask them to breathe in and out.
6. Abdomen - Palpitate in each quadrant. Ask patient to tell you if they feel pain when you push down and release.
7. Pelvis - Barrel hoop; no need to do second time with deep breathing. 



Now that we are done with the core of the body, we'll move on to extremities.

1. Leg - Squeeze all the way down.
2. Feet
   
   • Take shoes and socks off
   • Take PMS - pulse, movement, and sensation. For movement, make them wiggle toes. For sensation, touch only the extremes, big toe and little toe, and ask them which one you are touching. Ignore the in-between toes, most people can't tell them apart.
3. Arms - Look for track marks, needle marks, and do PMS.
4. Back - Roll the person with at least three people. With one person on Cspine and doing the call and count (they're the one who should be ready!). Look for bruising or pooling of blood.

Emergency response: Assessing the patient

This is the second in a series of articles on what to do when you encounter an injured person and you want to help them.

After you have introduced yourself and asked the right questions, you can start assessing the patient.

Look for the following:

• Signs and symptoms
  Signs are things you can see; symptoms are what they tell you.
Note: You don't really demand, "What are your signs and symptoms?" Instead, observe. Don't get lost with medical history.
• Allergies
  Even when people say they haven't ingested their allergen, don't discount it, because sometimes things are accidentally mixed in. 
Manage their airway, keep them sitting up, keep them relaxed so their heart rate doesn't go up.
• Check vital signs.
• Do head-to-toe-assessment.
• Ask assessment questions. 

When checking for vital signs periodically, so you can track how it is changing across time. Do the the following. 

• Check for respiration every 12-20 minutes. The pulse should be within 60-90 per minute, unless they were just exerting effort. 
• Check for blood pressure every 15 minutes, but every five minutes for unstable patients.  The pressure should be 120/80 systolic over diastolic. 
• Check for skin signs. It should be pink, warm, and dry. 

Emergency response: Asking the patient

This is second in a series of articles on what to do when you encounter an injured person and you want to help them.

After you have introduced yourself and asked the right questions, you can start asking more detailed questions.

Ask the following questions:

• Medications
  What they take? When was the last time they took it? Do they want someone to go get it for them?
• Past
- Last oral intake. Ask for everything, not just meals. - Events. What lead up to the action. Even though ou asked AO, it's worth asking a second time, because sometimes more details. 




If in pain, ask the following questions:

• Onset. Ask about events leading up to the injury or trauma. 
• Provocation. "What makes your pain better or worse?" Ask both ends, not just one.
• Quality. "Describe your pain with adjectives." But don't suggest adjectives, they'll say yes to everything
• Radiation. "Where do you hurt? Where else?" Sometimes, patients tell you the most painful one and forget the others. Intensity of pain does not indicate severity. Don't ask, "Do you hurt anywhere else?
• Severity. Ask for an intensity of 1-10. 10 is the worst pain you can imagine. Don't just hear what they say, but also how they say. Sometimes they wanna act macho.

For the next article in this series, see Assessing the Patient.

Emergency response: Approaching the patient

This is the first in a series of articles on what to do when you encounter an injured person and you want to help them.

When you encounter a patient, do the following:

1. Introduce yourself.  Hi, my name is X and I am part of the Emergency Response Team. 
2. Get consent for your help. 
3. Ask what the chief complaint is. 
4. Ask the A and O questions. This is to to assess how reliable their other answers are
   
   • Name
   • Place
   • Time of Day
   • Event
5. Get their medical history.
6. Check for vital signs. 

For the next article in this series, see Asking the Patient.