Keep fish fresh longer: Set it on ice in fridge

If you can’t cook fresh fish the day you buy it, here’s how to safely preserve it, according to editors of Cook’s magazine.

As soon as you bring the fish home, unwrap it, pat it dry, put it in a zip-lock bag, press out the air, and seal the bag. Set the fish on a mound of ice in a bowl and put the bowl in the back of the refrigerator, where it’s coldest. If the ice melts before you cook the fish, get more ice.

You could also set the patted-dry fish on a plate, press plastic wrap against the surface, and put frozen reusable ice packs on top. Either way, the fish should keep for one day.

Five ways to rev up your metabolism

Do you want to keep your metabolism revved up to burn fat all day long? Prevention magazine offers these tips:

•Grab a big bottle of water. Reserachers in Germany discovered that drinking 6 cups or 48 ounces of cold water a day can raise resting metabolism by about 50 calories a day, which is enough to lose five pounds. How? The increase may come from the work it takes to heat the water to body temperature.

•Breakfast jump-starts metabolism. Women who skip this meal are 4 1/2 times more likely to be obese.

•Get moving. Regular daily activity known as “NEAT” (nonexercise activity thermogenesis) — stretching, taking the stairs, even standing up to talk on the phone — can mount up to an extra 350 calories burned a day.

•Lose the second gin and tonic. When you have a cocktail, you burn less fat, and burn it more slowly than usual because the alcohol is used as fuel instead. Two martinis can lower your body’s fat-burning ability by up to 73 percent.

•Get more Vitamin D. It’s essential for preserving metabolism-revving muscle tissue, but it’s estimated that just 4 percent of Americans older than 50 get enough through what they eat. You can get 90 percent in a serving of salmon. Other sources: tuna, shrimp, tofu, fortified milk and eggs.

Proper glasses a plus for nursing home residents

Nursing home residents with proper glasses enjoy life more and are less depressed than those with uncorrected vision problems, a study has found. Obvious? Perhaps, but nursing home residents have three to 15 times higher rates of uncorrected vision impairment than seniors living independently.

Before testing their vision, researchers, led by Cynthia Owsley, an ophthalmology professor at the University of Alabama, Birmingham, scored 150 nursing home residents on scales of quality of life and depression. “Some had no glasses,” Owsley says. “Some had glasses at one time, but they got lost. And some had glasses but the wrong prescription.”

Half the residents had their vision tested and corrected with proper glasses. Two months later, both groups were retested for depression and how much they enjoyed life. Then the second group had its vision tested and corrected.

The study, in the Archives of Ophthalmology, found those receiving glasses early did better on follow-up, reporting much less difficulty reading, looking at magazines, playing cards, watching TV and reading the clock on the wall, Owsley says. “They also had less psychological distress and were more socially interactive.”

— With Journal wire reports