Mexican Trucks & Labor Day Safety

Mexican Trucks & Labor Day Safety plus Food Forethought. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Northwest Report.

A new report from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Inspector General affirms that Mexican trucks are as safe as U.S. vehicles and Mexican truck drivers have better safety records than their U.S. counterparts. The report, a - Follow-Up Audit on the Implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement’s Cross-Border Trucking Provisions -- notes that in FY 2008, more than 220-thousand inspections were performed on Mexican trucks by DOT’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. During those inspections only 1.2 percent of Mexican drivers were placed out of service for a violation, as compared to nearly 7 percent of U.S. drivers who were inspected. About 21.2 percent of Mexican trucks – compared to 21.8 percent of U.S. trucks – were placed out of service for safety reasons or because they had violated some other regulation.

Today is Labor Day and that means the last hurrah of summer so better get those burgers a blazin’. If you are planning the last cookout of summer there are some precautions you should take according to the Ag Departments Food Safety expert, Diane Van.

VAN: Keep your hands, the utensils, the counter-tops clean when you are preparing the food. Make sure that you’ve washed your hands thoroughly. When you’ve cut chicken up to be taken to the grill, be sure you wash that knife thoroughly before you slice bread or slice vegetables. You don’t want the juices from the raw meat to get on to salad items or on to bread that’s not going to be cooked further.

Now with today’s Food Forethought, here’s Lacy Gray.

Digging through my recipe books the other day I came across my Grandmother’s casserole recipe collection. Now there was a woman who knew how to stretch the contents of a pantry or a pocketbook! Having survived the depression years Grandma was always on the lookout for a new and different way to cook up leftovers. Today’s economy is creating a whole new generation of frugal and creative cooks. Busy families who are carefully watching their spending dollar have rediscovered the casserole. Mom or Dad don’t have to be the only ones who can put a meal together, even the kids can get in the frig and find enough combined leftovers of meat, veggies and cheese to come up with a tasty dinner dish. Another old time favorite finding resurgence in sales despite price increases due to hikes in commodity pricing is pasta; a package of spaghetti can stretch a long way! Armed with her recipes and a refrigerator stock full of leftovers I’m sure I can come up with a week’s worth of casseroles that would make Grandma proud.

Thanks Lacy. That’s today’s Northwest Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.