Carl Winter has been called the “Elvis of E. coli” and the “Sinatra of Salmonella,” but you won’t find him headlining a lounge act in Las Vegas. Instead, the UC Davis food toxicologist crosses California – and the United States – to sing about a subject near and dear to him: food safety.

Combining science-based information with a synthesizer, Winter performs food safety music parodies such as “You Better Wash Your Hands” (from the Beatles’ “I Want To Hold Your Hand”) and “Don’t Be a Gambler” (from Kenny Rogers’ “The Gambler”). He also has created animated food safety music videos such as “Stomachache Tonight,” a parody of the Eagles’ “Heartache Tonight” that, ironically, recounts a time he got sick in Georgia while on tour...

Home cooks know the secret to peeling tomatoes is a quick dip in hot water to loosen the skins. It takes a lot of water (and heating energy) to peel three million pounds of processing tomatoes in California each year. New UC Davis research is fine-tuning a novel way of peeling all those tomatoes with almost no water — using infrared heat.

Two methods are used to remove skins in processed tomatoes — a hot water/lye dip, or steam. The dip method uses a lot of water, a lot of energy, and creates a lot of salts . . . which presents its own disposal problem. Steam treatment heats too much of the tomato, resulting in reduced yield and quality.

“The...

Last week (April 21, 2010) the Institute of Medicine issued an official report claiming that Americans consume too much salt and urging that new government standards be established for "acceptable sodium content" in foods. Two UC Davis nutrition experts disagree.

In November, Judith Stern, a professor of nutrition and internal medicine, and David McCarron, an adjunct nutrition professor, both at UC Davis, published a study in the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology that questioned the scientific logic and feasibility of broadly limiting salt intake in humans. (See journal article online.)

After examining data from sodium intake...

Several studies suggest that grass-fed beef is more nutritious than conventional grain-fed beef, says a research review published in the March 2010 issue of Nutrition Journal.

The review, written by three Chico State professors and UC Cooperative Extension livestock advisors Glenn Nader and Stephanie Larson, says the diet of exclusively grass gives beef a higher amount of Vitamin A and E precursors, boosts cancer-fighting antioxidants and reduces overall fat content.

"However, consumers should be aware that the differences in (fatty acid)...