Tag Archives: food

Still no such thing as a free lunch

Economics, News, Politics, , , , , , , , , ,

Some moron running for senate in Georgia thinks he has a great idea to, well, I don’t really know what it would solve, but like usual, a House Representative in Georgia, who wants to rise in power, thinks it’s a really good idea to put school children to work to earn their “free lunches.” Basically, U.S.Representative Jack Kingston thinks it would be really nifty for the poor to put them to work sweeping up cafeterias for their lunch money, because somehow this would instill in them the idea that there’s no such thing as a free lunch. If you think about it, he’s advocating a legal fix to an old adage that doesn’t actually have a lot of connection to anyone’s reality.

The obvious counter to this whole situation is this belief that somehow this is going to make poor kids feel like they’ve “earned” their lunch. No kid pays for his or her own lunch at that age, or at least very few do, because no kids have their own money at that age. Their parents give them money, so they aren’t learning money management skills. They’re learning that their parents have money, or they’re learning that their parents have no money. That’s really the lesson that gets taught here no matter how some Republican Neanderthal wants to spin it.

I’ll let you in on a little secret. Well, it’s not really a secret, but I grew up dirt poor. My mom was uneducated and my dad split when I was too young to ever know him. So my mom worked crap jobs and was basically too uneducated (and proud) to take government handouts. She probably should have. It didn’t help that she was sick and then went blind in one eye. She tried and that’s really all that’s important.

So, at one point I was put on discount lunches. Somehow, even though our apartment was overrun with cockroaches on a daily basis and our neighbors were crack addicts and prostitutes, we were too well off to get full free lunches. So, my mom had to pay a certain amount of money and then got discounted lunches for me when I went to school.

Let me tell you about those discounts. They gave you a special paper card that you had to present each and every time you presented for lunch, and the system was so obviously designed to point out that you were using this card, which meant that every other kid looked at you when you were presenting it, and I can’t tell you how bad kids are at making someone feel like shit in some weird process of making themselves feel better about themselves. It was humiliating every time I had to present that card and then pay my token of the discount I was allowed to pay. There were many times when I skipped lunch because it was easier to not eat than to have to go through that process each and every time at lunch.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and predict that Representative Kingston never had to go through that experience when he was growing up. And I’ll bet that not once has one of his children ever had to go through such a thing just to get a stupid lunch meal. That sort of thing scars you for a long time, and even in my middle age these days, I have never forgot how it felt to have to present that stupid card when I was at that age.

And that’s the problem with a lot of our representatives who think they actually represent people they serve. Edmund Burke argued a long time ago that he could “represent” miners in his district even though he’s never been a miner because he knows what’s best for them. He was wrong then, and Kingston is wrong today. I’m sure there’s a special place in Goddess Hell where Kingston has to ask for a school lunch each and every day and is told that no, he must starve because there’s no such thing as a free lunch.

Strangely enough, everyone but me is an expert on diabetes

Education, Healthcare, , , , ,

If you’ve been reading my blog for some time, you know about my whole adventure with being a diabetic. For a number of years, I lived on the edge of the problem by actually going out of my way to change my lifestyle so that what I ate was copacetic with what I needed. I completely changed my eating habits to compensate for this, and as a result, I’ve had to be very careful about what I put into my body.

Having said that, no matter how much work you do at this sort of thing, there are so-called “experts” all around me who are convinced that because they saw a TV show once, knew some guy, or just happened to hear something on the news once, they know more than someone who lives through it on a day to day basis. When I first started dealing with the problem, one of the first things I did was switch from regular soda to diet soda (or pop). This started the “you know that diet soda is just as bad as regular soda, right?” commentaries. Those ranged from the totally stupid people (“just because it’s diet doesn’t mean it doesn’t have calories”) to the New Age stupid (“the chemicals in diet soda are worse for you than if you were just imbibing regular cubes of sugar”). And there’s no shutting them up either. Go to the fridge to grab a diet soda, and you’re guaranteed a five minute screed on all things bad about diet soda. Tell them to stop lecturing you, and they do it anyway, because they’re convinced they’re doing it “for your own good”. One day, I was actually lectured by a woman who felt that diet soda would one day kill me. She would have continued the lecture, but she had to take a break and go outside because it had been fifteen minutes since she last had a cigarette.

I went to work out a few weeks ago, and someone told me that my choice of exercises (the exercise bike) was a poor choice for someone with diabetes because it didn’t affect the cardiovascular system as well as some other exercise he named. The fact that I went from sitting in front of the television set to actually working out should have been an indication that criticism wasn’t necessary, but strangely enough that fact had little sway or influence.

The other day, I was in the cafeteria choosing EXACTLY the same thing I eat every day in order to constantly maintain the correct blood sugar. Someone who knew I had just come out of the hospital felt it necessary to criticize me over my choice of lunch food. I know the person meant well, but just once I wish people would just shut the fuck up and leave me alone. I choose what I eat because a) it appeals to me, and b) it works. I don’t want to hear about tofu, soy milk products, modified starches or whatever. It’s bad enough I have to change anything in my life because doctors inform me of what I should or should not do. Having some clueless wannabe interject with naive information is really annoying.

It’s Amazing How Many Products Have High Fructose Corn Syrup in Them

Economics, Politics, Uncategorized, , , , , , , , , , , , ,
She's pretty and she's eating it, so it has to be healthy, right?

I recently changed my eating habits completely, cutting out any variation of high fructose corn syrup from my diet. Now, this isn’t a post to argue the merits or deficiencies of HFCS but just to point out how hard it is to cut it out if you decide that’s something you want to do.

Some years ago, Bill Maher had an interview with two legislators and some actor/commedian (or whatever the other person was), and they were talking about high fructose corn syrup. Maher was on his kick about how bad the stuff is for you, and the two legislators (one congressman and one senator, both from opposite parties) couldn’t bring themselves to critique it AT ALL. It was so obvious that both of them were so beholden to the corn lobby that nothing that was said during this interview even gave them the ability to say anything bad about it. Maher would talk about how it was contributing massively to obesity, and both of them responded with talking points about how great farmers are. It was surreal and almost too hard to even believe.

Fastforward a couple of years, and I’ve actually been trying to cut it out of my diet completely. First thing I did was go through my refrigerator and cupboards, looking for everything that had it in it. The obvious stuff, like candy, chips and all that kind of stuff, were easy to spot. Then I found it in stuff like Spaghetti O’s. So those went into the trash can, too. Went through the fridge and found it in strawberry jelly. Found it in pudding. Then I found it in Heinz ketchup. Swish; it went into the trash can as well.

The freezer found a few items that found their way to the trash can as well. Discovered marshmellow treats had it in it. Lost those.

The next day, I went out for groceries, and wow, it was in everything. Had to buy a different type of ketchup as Heinz had nothing but HFCS in all of the choices I could find. Ended up with Hunts Ketchup instead. Jelly was a nightmare to find something without HFCS in it. Every choice I looked at had it in it, unless I bought diet, and that then meant buying a product with aspartame (another argument completely). Then I actually found a brand that advertised that it had none in it. It used actual sugar.

Frozen foods were a problem. One of my favorite sets of frozen meals is made by Boston Market. Discovered their frozen food contains HFCS. Couldn’t buy any of my favorite dishes. Ran down the aisle and found a few other items I used to like to buy. Couldn’t buy those either. Ended up buying nothing in the frozen food aisle. Figured I’d have to start living on sandwiches.

As for sandwiches, discovered that a LOT of bread contains HFCS in it. So, finally found a brand called Aunt Sallie’s or something like that. Almost didn’t buy it because I once dated a girl named Sally who was kind of crazy. When we broke up, she sent me an itemized bill for $300, saying I owed her that much for everything she ever bought during our relationship, so I paid it and figured it was a bargain to actually get rid of her before she came back at me with a knife. Did I mention she was crazy? Anyway, bought a loaf of bread of the crazy ex-girlfriend’s brand that advertised no HFCS in it. Tasted like dirt. So a few days later had to go back to the store and buy another type of wheat bread from the same company (and threw the previous loaf of bread in the trash as there was no way I’d ever eat through that loaf of dirty-tasting bread). Fortunately, the second choice of bread I bought was much better tasting (and had no HFCS in it).

I’m still making the mistake of buying aspartame products, and even though I’m debating just turning to water products only, I haven’t made that sacrifice yet. It’s not about trying to lose weight, as my weight is fine, but just getting rid of specific things that are harming my body. I’m just not ready to lose my continuous supply of diet Dr Pepper.

So, that’s been my adventure in getting rid of HFCS products. It turned out to be a lot tougher than I imagined. At work, I used to eat french fries with my meals, but unfortunately the only ketchup available is Heinz, which definitely has HFCS, so I’ve switched to a BBQ potato chip that, according to the ingredients, doesn’t seem as harmful as what I have been eating. The real unfortunate thing is that I can no longer eat at any random fast food place because it’s really hard to tell what exactly is in the products they sell. I went to a couple of their web sites, and even though they claim to give their nutritional information, some of their reporting appears inconclusive, lacking in full disclosure and dubious at best. Therefore, I have to pretty much prepare everything I eat these days in order to not be fooled into purchasing and eating more harmful HFCS crap that they use because it’s much cheaper (and they don’t care one iota about their customers, no matter how much PR they use to pretend they do).

So, that’s my story, and hopefully I’ll live to tell more.

Caveat Emptor is why American is no longer the world leader it was

Economics, , , , ,

The other day, I bought a package of 16 chicken sandwiches from Costco. It was the really good kind with cheese. Anyway, I was all happy about it, thinking that 16 sandwiches should hold me for quite some time. So merrily, I began my odyssey of eating sandwiches for various meals, convinced that I would be a chicken-eating happy camper for some time to come. The other day, I put the last chicken sandwich in the microwave, thinking nothing of it, until I realized that it was the last one. It was then that I started to think back on the recent events of my life, and realizing that unlike other people, I didn’t think about the mad affair with the twin blondes from Sweden, the narrow escape from death I had fighting ninjas who were hell-bent on keeping me from their attempt to destroy our American way of life, nor did I reflect upon my invite to the White House where President Obama asked me to fix that small problem he was having in the Middle East. No, my reflection went straight back to that purchase of 16 chicken sandwiches and my realization that I had not in fact eaten 16 chicken sandwiches since buying that package. In fact, I could only remember eating 8. It was then that I realized I had probably been cheated, fooled and/or bamboozled by yet another American greedy corporation. I had been cheated of chicken.

You see, what I realized was that this chicken selling company had done was package 8 separate chicken meals and then count each packaged sandwich as two meals. When they put the content stuff on the side of the larger package, they decided that each package included two chicken sandwiches, even though the package appeared to be one, tasted like one, and fooled me into thinking it was one. Yet, for credit purposes, they were able to put “16” on the box, counting each of those sandwiches as twice as much food as it really was. No one would know better because when you had that many sandwiches, you wouldn’t know you were down to your last one until you had already gone through more than one man could possibly count at one time. Okay, I’m being a bit ridiculous, but the simple fact of the matter is: They told me I had more food than I actually had.

And I’m pissed.

You see, this happens a lot. The soda companies have been doing this for years, and it has been driving me nuts. I am currently drinking a single bottle of diet Pepsi right now. When I read the contents on the side of the bottle, the manufacturers are actually claiming that I am drinking 2.5 servings of soda right now. They are wrong. I am drinking 1.0 servings of soda right now because no logical person on the face of the freaking planet actually shares a bottle of soda with 1.5 other people. Nor do they poor only 1.0 servings and then put the other 1.5 servings back in the fridge. No, most people open up the one bottle and chug the whole thing down as one serving. This 0.5 crap is just that. Crap.

This also happens with potato chips. Buy a package of chips and that bag of chpis that you are planning to eat alone is actually 2 or 3 servings of chips that they give you the caloric data for one serving, so you think you aren’t eating as much. But everyone knows that one person sits down and pretty much munches down the whole bag.

Somewhere down the line, people who sell us stuff stopped being honest with us. Granted, they weren’t really always that honest with us to begin with, but even further down the line they got worse. The old line of caveat emptor “buyer beware” has always existed, but at some point the honesty should have gotten better, not worse. I remember a time when if you bought something, you were guaranteed to get satisfaction from the manufacturer for the life time of the product. Not any more. Now, when you buy something, Best Buy wants to change you an extra $60 to guarantee that the item will work past the first year. In other words, you can’t trust any company concerning any product because the only guarantee you get from the manufacturer is that it was so cheaply made that you either need to insure it past a year, or you’ll have to buy a new one in a year.

This is my belief why America has lost its way in the international marketplace of products. Years back, you would mention an American product and there was a certain satisfaction that you bought something of quality. Whenever you heard “Made in China” that was an indication that you went the cheap route. Now, any product you buy today is considered the cheap route because NOTHING is guaranteed to be good. If you buy a Japanese car, expect it to accelerate and kill you. If you buy an American car, well, just expect everyone to laugh at you because American car companies haven’t made good cars in decades. Oh, we say they do because we’re all patriotic and all that flag lapel wearing kind of crap, but in reality, when someone mentions an American car, we laugh at them because American cars are generally overpriced, gas guzzlers and overpriced. America no longer stands for quality and good prices. It really doesn’t stand for anything any more.

So, I’ll probably go back to Costco and buy 16 more chicken sandwiches, but at least I know I’m really buying 8. I just like to know when I’m being cheated so I can at least live a little better with myself.

Even though they’ll probably kill me, I still love eggs

Politics, , , , , , ,

The whole egg recall thing has me worried. But not because I’m scared of eggs, or think that I’m going to die. What worries me is that there’s so much information about the whole egg thing roaming around the airwaves that I haven’t a clue about what’s really going on. Either the industry leaders are only interested in profit and don’t care if I die, or they’re great down home farmers that have my best interests at heart and this is all just some kind of overreaction. Or it’s something in between. Or none of these things. To be honest, I don’t know the details because the media has managed to ramp up the scare tactics so that I’m afraid of drinking potable water these days so that anything they say about eggs really seems somewhat irrelevant.

And that’s the problem. There is so much information that is clashing with more information that no one really knows what is real and what is made up. Everyone claims to have our best interests at heart, but after you unpack that, you start to realize that people are telling you things to maintain profits, or because they’re just nuts and want to be heard. In fact, no one really knows anything, and there’s a lot of disinformation available. There’s just no way of knowing what to trust and what not to trust.

But the simple fact still comes to light: I like eggs. I like eating eggs. I only eat them on the weekends, but it’s my one guilty pleasure. Well, aside from that other one, but I can’t talk about that one because the government is listening, and the tinfoil hat I usually wear is in the shop, so I have to be careful about what I say in public.

But I like eggs. And I want to keep eating them. I don’t know if it’s safe. I know that I need to cook them, but I wasn’t planning to eat them raw in the first place, so that’s not a problem. But even now, people tell me that it’s dangerous to eat eggs because of disease. Well, it’s dangerous to breathe as well, but for some reason I keep doing it.

What it comes down to is that at some point you have to turn out the overbearing messages and just do what you’re going to do. We can be scared of everything, like taking an airplane because of crazy terrorists armed with pen knives and box cutters, or we can just live our lives and hope that things work out. I think I’m going to try the latter, even though it might kill me.

But I like eggs much more than I like living in fear about my next meal. And sometimes you just have to compromise, like any woman who might ever agree to date me. But that’s a whole other issue.