Cranberry juice is a popular folk remedy for staving off urinary tract infections and the berries contain chemical compounds with potentially powerful antibacterial properties. But clinical trials that have tested cranberry products have yielded mixed results, possibly because studies tested juices and supplements with varying amounts of active ingredients. Many trials also had high dropout rates… Cranberries contain chemical compounds called proanthocyanidins that can prevent E. coli bacteria from sticking to the bladder walls, “preventing the first step in the infection process,” said Amy Howell, an associate research scientist at the Marucci Center for Blueberry and Cranberry Research and Extension at Rutgers University. Dr. Howell explained that if bacteria cannot stick to a cell, they cannot multiply and produce toxins… Most cranberry juices you will find in grocery stores contain added sweeteners or are mixed with sweeter juices. To get enough of the active cranberry ingredients, choose a drink with at least 25 percent pure cranberry juice, Dr. Howell said, and drink eight to 10 ounces a day.

As more farms open themselves up to visitors for apple picking, hay rides and some extra income, experts are advising owners to take steps to prevent accidents – be they small or fatal… Farming is one of the more dangerous occupations in the U.S. mostly due to the machinery and equipment, according the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But a growing interest in local food has led to agritourism becoming a big business, with the number of U.S. farms reporting income from such activities rising 42 percent between 2007 and 2012, according to the latest Census of Agriculture… The first key is assessing the risks, said Brian Schilling of Rutgers’ Cooperative Extension in New Brunswick, New Jersey. “If you’ve grown up on a farm you’re sort of blind to a lot of these things,” he said, advising owners to have an extension agent, emergency official or insurance agent walk the farm to identify hazards… The extension also has a safety checklist that reminds farmers to, among other things, designate areas that are closed to the public, train employees to property operate farm machinery, secure and restrict areas that contain chemicals, provide hand-washing or hand-sanitizing stations and have employees assist with parking.

For nearly three hours a day, Kate Brashares lives in transit. That’s the length of the commute between her home in Montclair, N.J., and Dumbo, Brooklyn, where she runs the nonprofit organization Edible Schoolyard NYC, an offshoot of an Alice Waters initiative to bring gardens and cooking classes to public schools… Her reward, from May through October, is returning home to eat dinner outside, off the grill, in a backyard that sprawls like a court at Wimbledon. Never mind that she can use the grill only half the year; it is her most prized cooking tool and a connection to her childhood, when, she said, “I was outside all the time.”… Although gardening “is part of my cultural heritage,” Ms. Brashares said, she fell in love with it only after joining Edible Schoolyard in 2012. At first, she tried to grow the plants she remembered from her home in London, overestimating the New Jersey climate: “They all died.” She has since enrolled in the Master Gardener Program through the Rutgers University Cooperative Extension, hoping to find illumination on the subjects of soil science and pest control.