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Show FARM anaHOME; s UTAH STATU EXTENSION SKRVH'R AGUICULTl'KK HO MS? KriiNiir.ii. . By Mmry Lois Reichert Home Demonstration Agent Homemakers buying ham sometimes wish they understood the full meaning of labels such as "tendered", "ready-to-eat" and "fully cooked." As a help in understanding "ham" language, langu-age, the following explanations are sent from food specialists in the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Agri-culture. n the first place, all cured and smoked hams prepared under Federal Meat Inspection are required by a regulation put into effect in 1952 to be heated up to at least 137 F. internal temperature, or else treated by approved methods of freezing or drying and curing that will make sure no live trichinae tri-chinae remain in the meat. Thus, any cured, smoked ham marked with the round purple U S. inspection stamp does not need to be cooked by the home-maker home-maker for health safety precautions, pre-cautions, but Only for good eating. eat-ing. Much of the cured, smoked ham on the market now is safeguarded safe-guarded this way, since Federal inspection is required for all meat sold across state borders, labled "tender" (or "tendered" or "tenderized"), "?-eady -co-eat", or "fully cooked" must all have been heated beyond 137 F.- to an internal temperature of 140 at least. A "tender'' ham, while partially par-tially cooked, needs some additional ad-ditional cooking in the home kitchen to give it a well-done texture and full ham flavor. The packer's label usually offers cooking directions which are adjusted to the amount of heating heat-ing his company has given the ham. A "ready-to-eat" ham may be served without further cooking, if desired. However, some of these hams are more thoroughly cooked than others. Many home-makers home-makers prefer in any case to give this type of ham some home cooking for best flavor and texture. tex-ture. "Fully-cooked" hams have been heated in processing to the point at which they have a 'fully-cooked 'fully-cooked appearance throughout"-a throughout"-a requirement of the Federal Meat Inspection Service f6r any ham so labeled. Such hams need no more cooking unless the homemaker wishes to serve the meat hot. F-H Quite out of date is the old-fashioned old-fashioned idea of soaking clothes for hours, bleaching by the bottleful, bluing without discretion and starching stiff as a board. It isn't done because it isn't necessary and more important because it is damaging' damag-ing' to the garments. Twenty minutes soaking in 70 to 90 degree water is all that is necessary neces-sary for maximum soil removal. Over-washing is another old-fashioned old-fashioned washday habit that should be eliminated. Instead of making clothes cleaner, it tends to deposit soil after about 15 minutes washing time. Over washing clothes is really over wearing clothes. It tends to shorten their life just as an excessive ex-cessive number of washings would. Tensile strength of material is decreased with over-washing. Colors may fade or bleach and some ' fabrics may even shrink when over-washed: Clothes tend to shed more" lint if they are washed too long, and light lint will show up on dark colors or dark lint on light colors. Over-washing wastes time and consumes electricity needlessly. need-lessly. Not only does the practice prac-tice wear out your clothes before be-fore their time, but it also adds to the wear on your washing machine. |