How can you lower your odds of getting food poisoning from resistant bacteria?

It may help to buy meat or poultry that comes from animals that were never given antibiotics. According to a 2012 Stanford University meta-analysis, conventionally produced chicken and pork were 33 percent more likely than organic chicken and pork to be contaminated with bacteria that were resistant to at least three antibiotics.

But that won’t guarantee that you—or your child or parent— won’t get a bout of antibiotic-resistant food poisoning.

“As a society, we have to say that antibiotics are too valuable for treating sick people and that we cannot afford to squander them as production tools for raising animals,” says Lance Price, an environmental health scientist at George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

“We’re talking about the future of medicine. We don’t have new drugs coming up through the pipeline. And even if we did, if we abuse them the same way, they’re going to be useless again very quickly.”

Source: Ann. Intern. Med. 157: 348, 2012.

“BIG BOLD FLAVOR,” says Chili’s Web site. “House-Baked Crust. Freshly Made 9-inch Pizza. Perfectly Sized Just For You.”

Each of Chili’s four new “freshly made” pizzas may look “perfectly sized” to some people. But only if they’re in the market for an entrée that has three-quarters of a day’s calories.

Take the Southwestern Chicken Pizza. It’s “topped with chile-rubbed grilled chicken, chipotle pesto, cheddar, mozzarella, Monterey and pepper Jack, green & red bell peppers, red onion and house-made pico de gallo.”

Don’t blame the grilled chicken for the Southwestern’s 1,550 calories and 32 grams of saturated fat—more than any Pizza Hut Personal Pan or California Pizza Kitchen pizza. It’s like eating a Chili’s 10 oz. Classic Sirloin steak dinner (with Loaded Mashed Potatoes and Steamed Broccoli), with a 10 oz. Classic Sirloin on the side.

The Five Cheese, Taco, and Pepperoni Pizzas are in the same ballpark. Each is loaded with three to five different cheeses (like cheddar, Monterey Jack, and Pepper Jack), not just mozzarella.

And each comes on a thick, white-flour crust that accounts for 630 of the pizza’s calories. (It may be “house-baked,” but it looks like no one in the house knows how to make a decent crust.) Judging by the pizzas’ sodium (2,400 to 3,500 milligrams), the house does know how to wield a salt shaker, though.

“Perfectly sized just for you”? Only if you want to be a size XXL.

Tell Chili’s what you think about its Southwestern Chicken Pizza: (800) 983-4637.

Even if you could afford the calories in an individual pizza —if, say, you’re competing in a triathlon next week—your arteries would have to find storage space for the roughly 20 grams of saturated fat (a day’s worth) in a thin- or regular-crust pizza. That’s cheese for you. Make it 30 grams if you order your pie meat-heavy or deep-dish. In order to minimize the damage you could:

Ask for less cheese. Chances are, you won’t notice the difference. You can also curb the saturated fat by skipping pizzas made with multiple cheeses. For example, at California Pizza Kitchen, a Traditional Cheese Pizza has 16 grams of saturated fat, while the Five-Cheese & Fresh Tomato hits 24 grams.

Choose vegetable, chicken, or seafood toppings. To curb calories, saturated fat, and (often) sodium, stick with veggie, chicken, or seafood toppings instead of fatty meats like bacon, ground beef, pepperoni, salami, sausage, or steak.

Meat mixtures are the worst. Take California Pizza Kitchen’s The Works (pepperoni and sausage) or The Meat Cravers (pepperoni, sausage, Canadian bacon, ham, and salami). Each supplies roughly 1,350 calories, 25-30 grams of saturated fat, and more than 3,000 mg of sodium. Would you order three Quarter Pounders with Cheese for dinner? You might as well.

“Ladyfinger cookies soaked in espresso and coffee liqueur layered with Mascarpone, dusted with cocoa powder and served with chocolate shavings.” That’s how Maggiano’s Little Italy describes its Tiramisu.

And when it arrives at your table, you won’t think “big splurge.” It’s not a towering slice of cheesecake from The Cheesecake Factory or a pizza-sized cookie from Uno Chicago Grill. Tiramisu looks like, well, a mini-splurge.

Wrong.

That diminutive rectangle holds 830 calories and 28 grams of saturated fat (1½ days’ worth) plus 15 teaspoons of sugar. Gulp.

Who would guess that it’s about equal to a Pizza Hut Personal Pan Pepperoni Pizza topped with a half cup of Häagen-Dazs Coffee ice cream? Or a dozen Dunkin’ Donuts Glazed Munchkins dough-nut holes?

And we’re guessing you didn’t show up at Maggiano’s just for dessert. So those 830 calories—okay, 415 if you share your tiramisu with a friend—come after you’ve polished off your entrée (800 to 2,400 calories), which may have come after your appetizer (600 to 1,700 calories). Talk about higher math!

Despite its dainty-ish looks, tiramisu is never a light dessert. Even so, Maggiano’s version manages to top the tiramisus at other popular Italian chains like Romano’s Macaroni Grill (690 calories) and Olive Garden (510 calories).

It may be Maggiano’s Little Italy. But the menu makes for big patrons.

Tell Maggiano’s what you think about its Tiramisu: (800) 983-4637.

Why choose brown rice over white?

Researchers tracked nearly 200,000 men and women for 14 to 22 years. Those who ate at least 5 servings of white rice per week had a 17 percent higher risk of Type 2 diabetes than those who ate less than one serving a month. In contrast, people who ate at least two servings of brown rice a week had an 11 percent lower risk of Type 2 diabetes than those who ate less than one serving a month.

A separate study found that among women who already had diabetes, those who ate the most bran (around 10 grams per day) had about a 35 percent lower risk of dying of heart disease than those who ate the least bran (1 gram per day). It didn’t matter if the bran came from whole grains or was added to meals as bran itself.

What to do: Switch from refined to whole grains. Brown rice may protect against diabetes because it has more fiber, vitamins, and magnesium and other minerals than white rice, and because it raises blood sugar less than white rice does. However, other whole grains, like bulgur and whole-grain pasta, raise blood sugar even less than brown rice.

Caution: In November 2012, Consumer Reports magazine reported “troubling” levels of inorganic arsenic in almost every rice-containing food it tested, including brown rice. Rice takes up arsenic from soil and water more readily than other grains do.

The less arsenic you ingest, the better. Consumer Reports recommends that adults eat no more than 1½ to 2 cups of cooked (brown or white) rice a week. (For arsenic levels by brand, see consumerreports.org/cro/magazine/2012/11/arsenic-in-your-food/index.htm.)

You can remove about half the arsenic in your rice by rinsing it, cooking it in six parts water to one part rice until it reaches eating texture, then pouring off the extra water.

Sources: Arch. Intern. Med. 170: 961, 2010; Circulation 121: 2162, 2010; J. Environ. Monitor. 11: 41, 2009.