After last week's E. coli spinach revelations, apparently carrot juice is now contaminated with botulism!

I'm sure McCain oven chips and Tropicana Twister are running a smear campaign against healthy living.

However, following the FDA's advice, avoid any bottle of Bolthouse Farm's carrot juice that has a "best before" date of November 11th or earlier.

Four people in Georgia have fallen ill with botulism, having failed to refrigerate their juice, which has caused some stray clostridium botulinum bacteria from the soil to proliferate in the bottle.

This probably means that so long as you keep it refrigerated, you'll be fine ? but when the symptoms include paralysis and death, who's arguing?

However, I'm going to use the same logic here as last week ? that fried foods and sugary drinks will kill far more people than vegetables ever will. And remember too, that Bermudian-grown spinach and carrots are exempt from these scary warnings, so there's no need to avoid them and every reason to include them in your diet.

Fortunately, although the carrot's temporary fall from grace is the latest in a long string of dramas that have made life more, err, interesting, I've now reached a Zen-like calm about anything and everything stressful.

To illustrate this properly, you need to know that my Mum is arriving this weekend ? and by now I'm usually involved in a wild-eyed, panic-stricken, cleaning frenzy.

You see last time, even when I polished the fire extinguisher and cleaned underneath the cutlery tray, there were still one or two pointed comments about the fact I had trowels and towels in the linen cupboard.

I didn't know I had a linen cupboard, I thought I had a trowel and towel cupboard, but there you go.

Now don't get me wrong, I love having my Mum to stay. But as the cleaning part actually gives me palpitations, we've taken the very grown-up step of hiring a maid.

Honestly, I'm not sure that anything else could have made me so happy. Instead of frantically but uselessly cleaning everything in sight, I've instead been making a list of Things To Clean ? which as it turns out, is my idea of domestic bliss.

You see, having just one thing taken away from me, has suddenly made everything else so much more manageable.

To top it all off, the lovely husband is cooking dinner as I write ? chicken satay stir-fry, delicious. This recipe involves making your own satay sauce, but it only takes a few minutes and it's definitely worth it. However, if you're really pushed for time, try the Ginger People's satay marinade and dipping sauce which is great too.

Chicken satay stirfry (serves two)

Satay sauce ingredients:

1 tbsp all natural, sugar free peanut butter (e.g. Down to Earth's own brand.)

Juice of half a lime

2 tbsps sesame seed oil

? tsp cayenne pepper

3 tsps honey

1 tsp low-sodium soy sauce

1 tbsp fresh coriander, roughly chopped

Other ingredients:

2 small chicken breasts, sliced into thin strips

1 yellow pepper, de-seeded and diced

1 red onion, roughly chopped 1 handful mange tout or snow peas, top and tailed

1 handful coleslaw mix (no mayo!!)

Instructions:

1. Mix together all the satay sauce ingredients

2. Slice the chicken and marinade in the sauce while you prepare the other ingredients

3. Heat a little sesame seed oil to a medium heat in a stir-fry pan (or similar)

4. Add the onion and cook till tender

5. Prepare the other vegetables

6. Add the chicken and sauce to the onions in the pan. Cook over a medium-high heat, until the chicken is cooked through (approx 5 minutes.)

7. Add the vegetables, raise the heat and stir-fry for 2 more minutes, until the veg are tender, but still crispy.

8. Serve with brown rice or a baked, sweet potatoes.

If you'd like a lower-carb option, skip the rice or potatoes and have a piece of fruit instead. The advice given in this article is not intended to replace medical advice, but to complement it.