Tuesday, September 23, 2008

How long do foods last without refrigeration?

According to Heinz,
opened ketchup does not need refrigeration and will retain its flavor
for upwards of a month. I found similar recommendations for mustard,
BBQ sauce, and other condiments. Opened jams, jellies, pickles, olives,
honey and so forth do not require refrigeration over the short-term.
All of the above items will last for 1.5 – 5 years when stored unopened
due to the seal keeping out mold spores and bacteria. Always check
canned food for contamination by looking for dents, cracks, or bulging.
If the seal appears broken in any way, carefully discard the food immediately.

Eggs may stay unrefrigerated for a time (fresh eggs longer than commercially-sold eggs). In a quote attributed to Alton Brown,
he states that unrefrigerated eggs age roughly a week’s worth of
refrigerated time in a day (depending on temperature, of course). Given
that eggs typically last 6 – 8 weeks in a refrigerator, that gives you
about a week to eat a fresh egg. A good check for egg freshness is to
see if it floats – if it does, the inner air pocket has expanded and
the egg should probably be discarded.

Read On...

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Greenspan - 'once-in-a-century' financial crisis

Former Federal Reserve chief Alan Greenspan said the United States is mired in a "once-in-a century" financial crisis. The former Federal Reserve chairman also predicted that the financial
crisis would see the failure of more major financial institutions.

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Nouriel Roubini - Americans Should Worry About Bank Deposits if Congress Doesn't Act

There is already a "slow-motion run on retail banks" occurring nationwide.

That
"run" could accelerate as people realize the FDIC fund has about $50
billion to "insure" about $1 trillion in assets at the nation's
financial institutions, says Roubini. "They're going to run out of
money" unless Congress acts soon to recapitalize the FDIC.

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Monday, September 15, 2008

The vulnerable banking market

The bail-out by the US government of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac has stopped a systemic meltdown of the banking system both in the US and worldwide. But the banking crisis is far from over.

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Irish banks are bobbing in debt-infested waters

AIB's exposure to residential property developers is around €15bn, Anglo's €7bn and Bank of Ireland's €9bn. For AIB and BOI, those loans are dwarfed by their mortgage business, but even
within the normally safe mortgage market, there is a new layer of loans that is untested in a recession. A proportion of those mortgage loans are for the "buy-to-let" market --
mortgages raised by investors who buy properties and then rent them
out, hoping that the rental income offsets the mortgage costs.

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Monday, September 08, 2008

US house prices are falling at an annual rate of more than 15%

According to one widely-reported index, US house prices are falling at
an annual rate of more than 15% in major metropolitan areas, putting
many people in negative equity.

More...