Yahoo! Answers

Hey Guys,

Over the past several weeks, well over half a billion eggs have been recalled due to salmonella worries. The “bad eggs” (pun not intended) were either “destroyed,” according to various news reports, or returned to the two big farms from which they came. But what happens to the eggs that these farm hens keep laying? Do those get tossed, too?

The answer might surprise you: According to the Washington Post, many of these eggs are sold to food businesses that can pasteurize them. Pasteurizing, in which the product is heated to a specific temperature, kills the salmonella. The recalled eggs will then be “used in liquid egg products or processed foods.”

The Wall Street Journal points out that there is something very important to keep in mind here. The eggs being sold for pasteurization are not (repeat: NOT) the same eggs that have been recalled. Those were apparently destroyed, though how, exactly, remains a bit of a mystery. The eggs being sold are fresh eggs, which may or may not contain salmonella. Regardless, pasteurization kills the bacteria.

So where do the eggs end up, specifically? HealthDay explains that they’ll go in “food products ranging from salad dressings to cookie dough to cake mixes.” Consumers shouldn’t fear — “those products will be perfectly safe for consumers to eat.”

That should ease some worries. Web searches on “egg recall” remain in Yahoo!’s top 100 overall terms, and over the past week, interest in “list of recalled egg brands” has soared over 9,000%, and “salmonella symptoms” are also big in Search.

For a complete list of the recalled brands and labels, check here.

Thanks for reading,

Mike

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Earlier this month, we asked, “How do you get rid of a bad roommate?” and your answers were hilarious. Our community had some very clever ideas and solutions. Thanks for making our team laugh! Keep reading for the Best Answer we chose. We think you’ll like it!

And now, this week’s question…

You wake up. You’re feeling nauseous and you have the biggest headache. Maybe you had too much to drink at your best friend’s wedding, or perhaps you shouldn’t have stayed out singing “Don’t Stop Believing” at the karaoke bar last night. What’s your secret to curing a hangover?

Think you have a better answer? We definitely know our community has some great answers. You’ve heard their answers, now we want to hear from you! Give us a shout and tell us what you think. Just click the question below to submit your response.

Question: What’s the best way to cure a hangover?

Episode 3 Winner

Congrats to Sara for Episode 3’s Best Answer. Here’s her answer:

If you’ve ever had roommates, then more than likely you’ve experienced roommates from hell once or twice in your life. The problem with getting rid of roommates like that is that they have keys to your home, they know where you live, and they know what you do. The last thing you want to do with a roommate from hell is to make things worse than they already are. So what is a person to do? You have to get rid them but make them think that they are leaving because THEY WANT to leave. That is the trick. Now, it does take a bit of finesse and maybe a little bit of acting ability to carry this off.

The smart and funny things you can do:

1- Trash the room when your roommate’s not around. Then leave and wait for your roommate to come back. When he/she does, walk in and act surprised. Say, “Uh-oh, it looks like THEY were here again.

2- Eat lots of Lucky Charms. Pick out all the yellow moons and stockpile them in the closet. If your roommate inquires, explain that visitors are coming, but you can’t say anything more, or you’ll have to face the consequences again.

3- Keep a tarantula in a jar for three days. Then give away the tarantula. If your roommate asks, say, “Oh, he’s around here somewhere.”

4- When you walk into the room, look at your roommate in disgust and yell, “Oh, you’re here!” Walk away yelling and cursing.

5- Watch “Psycho” every day for a month. Then act excited every time your roommate goes to take a shower.

6- Have “nightmares” every night and scream loudly, remembering to sometimes throw your roommate’s name into the mix. You can even try getting out of bed to do some “sleep walking.” Never acknowledge this if your roommate asks about it.

7- If you and your roommate actually share a room, tell him or her that you must sleep with the lights on. Possible excuses include night terrors, the buggy-man, acne, you used to live in Alaska, you hate the environment, you sleep with your eyes open, etc.

8 -Become needy of your roommate. Always ask where he or she is going when your roommate leaves the room, even if it is to go to the bathroom. You can also try calling continuously and asking him or her, “Well, where are you now?” or “Are you almost home?”

The legal ways:

1- Evaluate who signed the lease. If you are the only one who signed it, this will make it much easier than if you both co- signed it. If you are both co-tenants, you can still file a complaint to your landlord – for example, stating that your roommate does not pay the rent on time!

2- Sit your roommate down and talk to him directly about the issues you have been having with him. Give him at least 30 days notice to move out and find his own place.

3- File an eviction notice to your local courthouse if your roommate refuses to move. Or else enlist your landlord to help you evict this roommate.

Get Featured

You can be the next winner and get 200 EXTRA POINTS and get recognized on our Answers Blog.  Heck, if you have a webcam and we like your video, we may even feature a video of you on our Answers Blog! We’re not the only ones that can make videos. Simply upload your video here. In submitting your video keep in mind your obligations under the Terms of Service and Community Guidelines. Also, you must be 18 in order to submit a video.

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Hey Guys,

Consider the license plate. Some plates are customized, some are just a random string of letters and numbers, and some (in California, anyway) have handprints and hearts. And, according to legend, every last one of them was made by a convict in America’s lovely prison system. Is that really true?

I can’t say definitively if every plate is made by a guest of the government, but a number of states do have prisoners manufacture license plates. In the state of Michigan, for example, prisoners do create each and every plate at the Parr Highway Correctional Facility. Overall, about 130 inmates produce over 8,000 plates every day. You can take a photo tour and see the process here.

Other states that employ inmates for the production of license plates include Nebraska, New York, North Carolina, Nevada, and Colorado.

Indiana uses prisoners to make plates, too. But the Hoosier State ran into a bit of trouble when the prisoners were put on “lock down.” No plates could be made, and there was a bit of shortage. Hey, that’s life in the big house. Oh, and it’s not like this gig pays a lot. New York prisoners earn 42 cents per hour.

Do you guys have any favorite customized license plates that you’ve seen on the road? I don’t really have a favorite, but I do remember one that was so boring I never forgot it. On a red car, the license plate read: “RED CAR.” So creative.

Thanks for reading,

Mike

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To continuing improving your Yahoo! Answers experience we have introduced a few small changes this week…

Changing time to choose a Best Answer

Based on your feedback to be able to resolve a question quicker, we have now reduced the wait time to choose a best answer from 4 hours to 1 hour.  If you now receive multiple responses within an hour you can select one of those as your Best Answer, or choose to put the question to vote at this earlier stage.

The full lifecycle of a question won’t change – questions will still be open for 4 days and up to maximum of 8 days if you extend the expiration.  This change gives you the option to resolve earlier or put to vote earlier.   If you take no action to resolve or extend the question, the question will automatically go to vote for the Best Answer.

Optional Preview screen when answering questions

Many of you have commented that to you’d prefer an answering experience without having to see your response on the Preview page first.  We are now able to offer this…

If you are signed-in with your Answers account and have answered at least one question before then when submitting your answer you can choose to Submit your response immediately without going to the Preview page first.  We’ve kept the Preview page too, so you can still see how your response will look before publishing it.

What makes Yahoo! Answers unique is the avid involvement of the community it is YOU that provides the content so continue to ask, answer and vote!

-Yahoo! Answers Team

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If you’re a mom like me, you constantly worry about developing healthy eating habits for your kids. How do you get the little munchkins to eat their vegetables? (And I am not including french fries in this challenge.) Drop us a comment and share your tips, but first check out my story about okra and a new recipe I created. (My 9-month-old baby totally loves this!)

As a kid, much to the joy of my parents, I loved okra, the vegetable that’s high in fiber, calcium, and iron: fuzzy on the outside and mucilaginous on the inside!

My introduction to okra was when I visited the exotic city of Ahvaz, Iran, in a stew called “koresh bamieh.” I next saw it in a less-exotic location — North Carolina — where I dined in a cafeteria called K+W, which served Southern-style fried okra. I remember the manager telling me “you gotta try those, honey; everyone around here loves them things. You ain’t a true Southerner if you don’t love Okra.” It actually took me a year or two to realize that okra and bamieh were the same vegetable!

I’ve started to tag all of my favorite okra recipes on Delicious, so follow me if you want to learn more.  In addition, here are some interesting facts about okra that I’ve already discovered on Yahoo! Answers, thanks to you guys.

Finally my own koresh bamieh recipe, using eggplant instead of the traditional lamb. Bon appétit or, as they say in Iran, “noosh-e jaan,”

Ingredients:

• 2 large red onions, thinly sliced
• 4 medium sized eggplants
• 10 small yellow tomatoes
• 2 large red tomatoes
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1/2 teaspoon turmeric
• 3 or 4 garlic cloves, minced
• Salt to taste
• Pinch of paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1 cup tamarind sauce (recipe below)
• 1 pound fresh whole baby okra, washed and trimmed
• Water

Preparation:

• In a large pan, take about half (2 to 3 tablespoons) of the olive oil and sauté onions on medium heat till golden. Add turmeric and garlic, then sauté for another 5 to 7 minutes.
• Place the eggplant in the pan and brown on all sides. Add salt and pepper.
• Stir in the tamarind sauce and then cook for another 10 minutes.
• In a separate skillet, heat the rest of the olive oil and sauté the okra lightly for 2 to 3 minutes.
• Add the okra to the pan and cook for an additional 10 minutes.
• Stir in paprika or water, as needed.
• Serve hot with rice, yogurt, herbs, and bread.

Tamarind Sauce:

Place eight ounces of tamarind paste, with pods, in a bowl. Cover with hot water for an hour to soften. Using a spoon, a fork, or your fingers, separate the pods from the pulp to get the juice out. Add more hot water if needed. Discard the seeds and strings. Pour the tamarind liquid in a jar and add a cube of vegetable stock. Store in a cool, dry place.

Thanks for reading!

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