Sara Nelson (Associated Press)

Is that day-old rice safe to eat? Can your three-year-old clean up the cookie dough mixing bowl? And do you really need to keep butter in the fridge?

When the topic of food preparation is on the table, it seems like everyone has an opinion. If you’ve ever gotten into an argument about these controversial food practices, then keep reading for the science-based answers that will put the debates to a halt once and for all.

Does cooking really burn off all the alcohol?

Many recipes call for a splash of wine or a dash of liquor, but how much of that alcohol actually remains after cooking? The answer depends on the cooking method and time.

According to a study by the USDA, cooking can reduce the alcohol content, but it doesn’t eliminate it entirely. For instance, simmering a dish for 30 minutes can remove about 35% of the alcohol, while cooking for an hour can reduce it by around 25%.

Longer cooking times lead to further reduction, but trace amounts can still remain. Therefore, while the alcohol content significantly decreases, it’s not entirely cooked out, so be sure to consider this if serving to individuals who avoid alcohol.

How to safely enjoy leftover rice

Meal preppers rejoice: As long as you follow proper guidelines when preparing, storing and reheating, leftover rice is safe to eat the next day. Plus, picking the proper recipe will help you avoid your rice drying out overnight. Making fried rice is a great option, as is this creamy and filling wild rice mushroom soup.

The great raw cookie dough-bate

Baking cookies with your little one is a sweet way to help them foster a love of cooking at a young age. But when they beg you for a taste of raw cookie dough, do you have to say no?

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According to the United States Center for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC, eating raw cookie dough is never safe. Raw cookie dough usually contains raw flour and eggs, which can, in turn, contain germs that make people sick. To be on the safe side, you should never eat raw cookie dough and should follow the CDC’s guidelines for baking cookies safely.

Then again, in 2016, public health faculty member and expert in health risk communication Brian Zikmund-Fisher published a CNN article stating that he and his family eat raw cookie dough regularly. Zikmund-Fisher minimizes risk by using only pasteurized eggs and ensuring that his flour is not subject to any recall notices.

“Our goal is not to minimize all risk, no matter the cost,” Zikmund-Fisher wrote. “Our goal is to maximize life…Sometimes maximizing life means letting [people] enjoy some (carefully prepared) cookie dough without shame.”

Still not comfortable digging into raw dough? An edible cookie dough recipe without any flour or eggs might be your best bet.

Should tomatoes be kept in the refrigerator or on the counter?

Experts say storing whole tomatoes at room temperature is the best way to preserve their flavor and texture. But if you’re worried about tomatoes going bad, consider keeping them in the fridge for at least a few days.

Shruthi Baskaran-Makanju of Urban Farmie says, “During late summer, when I get a bountiful harvest of fresh tomatoes, I like to store them in the fridge, especially if they’re starting to look a bit past their peak!”

While tomatoes stored at room temperature are most flavorful when eaten fresh, refrigerated tomatoes are still excellent for cooking. “They do get mushy, but I’d rather have mushy tomatoes than spoiled ones,” Baskaran-Makanju confirms. A baked tomato dish, like these baked tomatoes with parmesan, is a great way to make use of a fridge overflowing with tomatoes.

Raw chicken: to rinse or not to rinse

Chicken sashimi may be taking the internet by storm, but the average home cook still needs to follow food safety principles when handling raw chicken. So, should you wash raw chicken before cooking it?

“While washing meat and poultry to remove dirt, slime, fat or blood may have been appropriate decades ago when many slaughtered and prepared their own food, the modern food safety system doesn’t require it,” the Food Safety and Inspection Service, or FSIS, of the United States Department of Agriculture, or USDA, explains.

In fact, according to the FSIS, washing raw meat and poultry can cause bacteria to spread onto other kitchen surfaces, utensils and foods through the process known as cross-contamination. So there you have it: rinsing raw chicken is unnecessary at best and unsafe at worst. Instead, follow the FSIS’ advice on properly handling raw meat and poultry.

Has your cheese got the blues?

For many cheeses, mold is a key part of the cheese-making process: French Roquefort, Camembert, Italian Gorgonzola and many others rely on molds to help them mature. But not all mold is your friend. If your previously yellow cheese is now sporting some new green or white developments, do you have to throw it away?

Leah Ingram of Bagels and Lasagna recalls, “A long time ago, a food expert I interviewed said that it is perfectly safe to cut mold off a hard cheese and continue to eat the rest. However, they said the same is not true with soft cheese, so that’s where we draw the line.”

The USDA confirms: “Discard any soft cheese showing mold. For hard cheese, such as cheddar, cut off at least 1 inch around and below the mold spot (keep the knife out of the mold itself). After trimming off the mold, the remaining cheese should be safe to eat. Re-cover the cheese in fresh wrap and keep refrigerated.”

Can you keep butter on the countertop?

Butter was invented long before the refrigerator, so it must be safe to store at room temperature, right? According to the USDA, butter is indeed safe at room temperature, but should not be left out for more than a day or two to avoid rancid flavors. Butter bells, a 16th-century invention, can help keep butter soft.

Looking for a way to use up extra butter in a hurry? These garlic butter chicken bites make for a speedy and irresistible dinner.

Don’t leave safety up to debate

Once upon a time, tomatoes were considered deadly poison and frogs were placed in milk containers to keep milk fresh. Today’s food practices may have changed slightly, but there’s still a lot of confusion out there when it comes to food safety.

And changing cooking habits isn’t easy. You might have a hard time convincing your grandma not to thaw meat on the countertop, for example. But, as anyone who’s experienced food poisoning knows, it’s better to be safe than sorry.

So next time you’re deep in a food debate, look to government organizations like the USDA and CDC for guidance. Then, once you’ve settled things, you can move on to debating the really important questions. Pineapple on pizza , anyone?

Sara Nelson is the creator of Real Balanced, a food blog that showcases easy and balanced recipes. Since 2017, she has shared these recipes with thousands of readers and social media followers. Sara lives in Wisconsin with her family.

By Ksenia Prints, Food Drink Life

More people are opting to leave 5-star resorts and cruises behind and take a different kind of vacation, one that comes with a side of mind-altering drugs. But the legal and physical implications of this sort of travel can be murky.

For a moment, consider taking a slightly different kind of trip on your next vacation. You and your fellow travelers will explore unimaginable distances without moving much at all. You can’t take any luggage with you – unless your emotional baggage counts – or bring back souvenirs. In fact, you may not even be able to describe the journey to the folks at home.

Despite this strangeness, or perhaps because of it, many of the travelers who have turned to psychedelic vacations consider them to be life-changing experiences that are well worth the money. Others, however, point out that these retreats have an uneasy relationship with Indigenous communities – and they worry about the possible dangers of consuming mind-altering substances without proper guidance.

Why are so many tourists turning to psychedelic tourism, and what are some of the most popular substances offered at these wellness retreats? Should travelers be concerned about the safety, ethics or legality of these experiences? Keep reading to find out.

What does a typical psychedelic vacation involve?

Sia-Luna Estrella, a healer and Shamanic practitioner, knows exactly how she found her way into running psychedelic retreats. “It was a higher calling from the sacred mountain here in Cuzco,” she remembers. She felt called to move to Peru and later invited others to join her on retreats to South America, South Africa and other locations.

Estrella said goodbye to her car, job and ocean-view apartment, and embraced a fresh start. “It brought me back to the truth of who I was and what is my greatest purpose here on Earth.”

Over the years, Estrella has seen over a hundred retreat participants come and go. She doesn’t always weave psychedelics into her retreats – sometimes, she just works with cacao ceremonies and the energy of the land – but she’s quick to note the importance of treating these powerful substances properly.

Plant medicines

“We don’t think of these as psychedelics, we think of them as plant teachers and plant medicine. They have their own consciousness,” explains Estrella. She primarily works with the San Pedro cactus, a plant that contains the psychoactive substance locally known as wachuma, or mescaline.

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Mescaline is just one of several psychedelic substances that can be experienced during retreats. Peyote, another cactus that also contains mescaline, is a popular choice, as is ayahuasca, a psychoactive tea. Medicines gathered from toads can also be used, such as 5-MeO-DMT, which can also be derived from plants, and Kambo, a poisonous toad secretion that is applied to the skin through small burn wounds.

But perhaps the most familiar substance used in psychedelic retreats is psilocybin, also known as ‘shrooms – not to be confused with regular mushrooms. According to Thrillist, psilocybin can be experienced in vacations across the globe, from beachside ceremonies in Jamaica – where psilocybin is unregulated – to collaborative research projects in The Netherlands.

The recent emergence of wellness tourism is a brand-new phenomenon, but psychedelics have been used by Indigenous communities for thousands of years. Robyn Landau, writing for Trippin, noted that the growing demand for psychedelics can quickly become unsustainable, threatening to destroy traditional Indigenous practices.

Landau explains that in Mexico peyote has become scarce due to tourism, agriculture and mining. In light of the fact that the plant takes 15 years to grow, this is cause for concern. Landau suggests that travelers hoping to benefit from Indigenous medicines should take time to learn about the communities that are stewards of these remedies and how to respectfully engage with traditional practices.

Who will your fellow travelers be?

Why might someone be drawn to a psychedelic retreat? Some travelers are simply looking to try new experiences; others attend in hopes of working through bigger problems such as depression, anxiety, trauma or addiction.

In an interview with Travel Weekly, Justin Townsend, CEO and Head Facilitator at MycoMeditations, highlighted the diversity of attendees at their retreats. “A typical retreat normally consists of about 50% female, 50% male, and we get everything from blue-collar workers to white-collar workers from all kinds of professions, people from their mid-30s through to their 60s,” Townsend told Travel Weekly.

Psychedelics and mental health

In recent years, there’s been a growing conversation about the way in which psychedelics can address mental illness, as demonstrated by Michael Pollan’s 2018 book “How to Change Your Mind” exploring the subject. On the other hand, critics have also noted the risks associated with psychedelic use.

The New York Times warned that psychedelics “can cause psychosis or long-term mental health issues, particularly in patients with a predisposition to mental illness.” The same article also discusses the robberies, sexual assaults and even deaths that have occurred at psychedelic retreats.

Estrella is well aware of the dangers of misusing traditional medicines. “You see a lot of people in Western society go to the jungle for three weeks and say they’re a shaman who is qualified to work with the medicine, and that is incredibly dangerous,” she says firmly. But she also believes in the power of psychedelics to help people heal. “The medicine will help you work through trauma, limited beliefs and conditioning. If there are answers, the medicine will help you find those answers within yourself.”

Wait, is any of this legal?

Before grabbing your passport, should you call your lawyer? To give a classic lawyerly answer: well, it depends.

“In some countries, particularly in South America, psychedelic retreats can be legal or legal-ish, per my understanding,” says Marc Z. Goldgrub, a lawyer at Green Economy Law Professional Corporation. The firm focuses on psychedelics, green business and housing. Goldgrub also runs the website PsychedelicLaw.ca. Estrella confirms this answer.

“But in the US and Canada, psychedelic retreats are generally simply illegal,” says Goldrub. In these parts of North America, “there is no such thing as a 100% legal psilocybin, MDMA or ayahuasca retreat that’s totally open to the public. Though some retreats are marketed with an impressive veneer of professionalism which wrongly would suggest otherwise to those who don’t know better.”

On top of how the psychedelic substances themselves are regulated, Goldgrub explains, there may be civil liability concerns to be aware of as well. “If something bad happens to someone, practitioners can be sued under tort law.”

Final thoughts

So, is a psychedelic retreat your next vacation? Some travelers will undoubtedly be eager to experience these medicines for themselves. Others will be content to curl up with a copy of Aldous Huxley’s “The Doors of Perception” and a mug of regular tea.

One thing is for certain: as the demand for wellness continues to grow, it’s likely that psychedelic retreats will become ever more popular. Will this cause them to lose their cool factor, though? Only time will tell.

For her part, despite the sometimes challenging aspects of running psychedelic retreats, Estrella maintains a characteristic sense of calm and optimism about introducing new travelers to medicine ceremonies.

“It’s quite normal for people to feel a sense of excitement and nervousness,” she says. “But as long as they come with an open heart, then it’s an incredible experience.”

Ksenia Prints is a writer, blogger, photographer and recipe developer from Montreal, Canada. She blogs over At the Immigrant’s Table, a food blog showcasing healthy, beautiful international recipes for adventurous home cooks. She loves to highlight ethnic cuisines and immigrant cultures and adapt those recipes to gluten-free, vegan, vegetarian, sugar-free and other dietary restrictions.