CAT FOOD ALERT!! CAT FOOD ALERT!!

I sound the alarm because the recall has expanded to a prescription dry cat food for diabetic cats: Hill's M/D.

If you wish to feed a homemade diet until this pet food recall is over, go here or use my recipe below.

2 1/2 lbs. chicken meat (or mix of chicken and turkey--ground is easiest)
3 oz. chicken livers
4 oz. chicken hearts (or 1 1000-mg. taurine capsule, opened)
7 eggs, hard boiled and peeled
2 1000-mg. fish oil caps, poked and squeezed
6 calcium carbonate softgels, poked and squeezed (600 mg. each)
2 T. oat bran
2 T. nutritional yeast
2 T. salt substitute (NuSalt is the least objectionable to my cats)
1 One-A-Day Max pill, peeled of coating (easier to do with a potato peeler)
2 cups filtered water

Cook all meats in a deep pot--do not drain. Pour all meat w/juice into a food processor, adding remaining ingredients, and mixing until you no longer see large chunks of meat or egg white. Add water slowly, then blend into mix, until it's thin and uniform. Pour mix into medium bowl and refrigerate until solid. Mixture can then be broken up with a fork and served.


This diet is vet-engineered for a diabetic cat, but I feed it to all my cats, and none have suffered any ill effects from it--I have each one blood-and-urine tested twice yearly to check for any possible beginnings of a ramification.

Dollar Stretcher TNG--The Next Generation (L-O-N-G)

Warning: this is NOT for the black-belt frugalites. This is addressed to the up-and-comers.

In the current generation, we’re eating canned, boxed, frozen, and individually-packaged foods, and we’re having to go to extraordinary lengths to afford them—a second (or third) job, stacks of coupons, stacks of flyers, stacks on online coupon codes, decks of Special VIP Shopper cards, even online auction sites and Froogle.

If this is what it takes to get along in THIS generation, what will following generations have to do just to get by?

They will have to downshift from birth—literally. By then, all the possible combinations of coupons, in-store sales, online sales, and special shopper cards won’t be enough to afford this epidemic of affluenza called “convenience foods.” Exactly whom will they be convenient for in the future?

At that point, we’ll all be paying $3.00/gallon and more for gas (and $3.00 will seem like a discount), all sorts of new taxes will have been enacted, old taxes will have been raised beyond belief (AMT will be the new norm), inflation may or may not be lurking in the background, and conveniences will become luxuries once again. That’s right, I say “once again.”

You see, the LAST generation lived just fine without individually-wrapped peanut butter or cheese slices, frozen single-serve meals, toaster pastries, squeezable mayonnaise, and all manner of things we take completely for granted today. For them, pre-sliced bread WAS the absolute end-all do-all of convenience. Look how far we’ve gone on just one idea!

That one idea has led to millions of others in the name of shelf stability, ease of use, and ease of transport and storage. Now there isn’t a village anywhere on earth that hasn’t heard of or seen canned vegetables, dehydrated foods, sliced bread, individually wrapped cheese slices, or even bottled water. Convenience has covered the earth.

Some souls cannot afford even the lowliest of convenience foods, because they cannot even support their current way of life NOW. This same predicament awaits us in the future, but most of us have earning capacity through employment. You see, it really doesn’t matter what side of the have/have-not issue you’re on, things are eventually going to get and remain out of reach for all of us.

This is where your TNG skills are going to come in: since we have greater economic burdens to look forward to, we need to refine our acquisition skills EVEN MORE than we are today—this means going beyond the coupons, flyers, price books, and all the things you do now just to get by. This means looking deeper into the foods you eat, and deciding how and where you’re going to get the most and best nutrition for your dollar (which will probably be worth .50 in the future), while learning how to get the most food for your money as well.

To concentrate your efforts on finding bargains, you might take a look into yesteryear—a time when people all over this country had to conserve because of war, famine, and economic depression. You also might want to go past that—to a time when Victorian frugality was the norm, and people bought strong vinegar in barrels and diluted it when they used some.

Next-generation dollar stretchers won’t be burdened with coupons, flyers, and all that other stuff—instead, they will have an intimate knowledge of where the lowest price-per-unit can be found on concentrated foods. These foods will be the densest in nutrition, will take just a little to make a lot, will be the absolute cheapest per serving, and won’t come plastered with hazardous nutrition labels (that actually serve to tell us what’s NOT in the food as well as what’s in it). There won’t be any coupons, rebates, or store sales for these foods, because they’re already at rock-bottom prices.

I’m talking about dry rice, dry beans, dry whole grains, dry milk, dried meat replacements, sprouts of all kinds, and fresh produce—you know, mostly the stuff our grandparents ate. None of this stuff has nutrition labels, and all of it has more nutrition than its pre-prepared counterpart. As for bread, we don’t need it to survive, or even thrive—it’s a convenience food for civilizations that have lots more than bread to eat.

Today’s baby food also comes to mind as one of those “taken for granted” convenience foods—any pediatrician anywhere will tell you that a baby is breast or bottle-fed until teeth emerge, then soft finger-foods are given until sufficient teeth come in for chewing meats. Gerber, Heinz, Beechnut, and all the other baby food companies have been profiting from us needlessly for HOW long now?

Even meat is a convenience food when you think about it. There are a myriad of ways to get protein into our diets without having to resort to meat, but it’s a CONVENIENT way to get protein (as well as saturated fat, cholesterol, hormones, and antibiotics) into our diets—just as cereals are a CONVENIENT way to get fiber, and dairy products are a CONVENIENT way to get calcium, bread and pasta are CONVENIENT ways to get lots of carbs, and fruit juices are a CONVENIENT way to get sugar into our systems.

When you think about it, nutrients are like nicotine—the product is the same, but the delivery system is different (especially in those “stop smoking” products). Cigarettes, the CONVENIENT way to ingest nicotine, are slowly being replaced by patches, gums, and pills (which still contain nicotine). The once-pristine and concentrated food eaten in the last century has been replaced by the “patches, gums, and pills” of the food industry (canned, frozen, pre-packaged and refined into oblivion).

If we hope to continue stretching our meager dollars, made even MORE meager by the coming hyper-inflation, higher taxes, and lower wages, we need to get on the ball and eliminate all traces of pretense—this means the convenience foods people were born into thinking were the “norm” for the family. If my own mother had any clue as to what was REALLY inside those TV dinners and canned vegetables she so gladly embraced after tearing off her apron, I’m sure she‘d scream. She died never knowing about the disease and sickness brought on by the long-term use of these so-called “foods”, and I‘m sure she had no clue that the FDA never ( to this day) required any kind of research into all those additives and preservatives commonly used to see what long-term effects lurked inside each one. Now we all know—through infertility, miscarriages, and the genetic-level embedding through premature births, child diseases and health malfunctions present at birth, adult diseases now present in children, and children dying before reaching adulthood, and adults succumbing to aging and disease much earlier than previous generations.

Do your best. Do BETTER than that by your family, now and in the future with today’s dollars. Tomorrow’s dollars will only be worth beans, and dried beans at that. Start today by eating REAL foods—fresh fruits and vegetables, dried whole grains, small amounts of nuts, and dried alternative protein sources. You don’t need bread, pasta, milk, or other sick manipulations of once-whole foods. You only need to drink clean water, but a teabag (any color) in it is acceptable.

Get used to this idea of non-convenience foods, because this is all you’re going to be able to afford in the future (even with coupons, if you can find them). If you still have Depression-era, WW1, or Dust Bowl relatives alive, ask for their guidance. Scout for books dealing in this sort of food cooking and preserving. In general, you’ll need to learn to stop paper-cutting yourself to death over what you think are deals, and come back to Mother Nature—your rebate will be in the form of terrific health and spare change in the bank.

Cost-per-serving will be your new rule of thumb and unit price (if it isn’t already). The cost per serving is gotten by dividing the price of the product by the number of pyramid servings it contains, both dry and cooked if the product swells when cooked (such as beans, pasta, rice, etc.). This information will not be on any store shelf, so you need to figure this out before purchasing the product. Chances are good that if you bought the absolute best bargain per measure, you likely got the best bargain per serving, too.

It might help to consult the Food Guide Pyramid to know how much is in a particular serving, and it might also help you if you carried measuring cups around when scooping and bagging dried foods sold in bulk. Using what I call “the power of the pyramid” will show you how you can literally feed the neighborhood (or your own brood) for pennies per serving.

These same exact principles can be applied to all food products, and cost per serving, as well as nutritional content, should always be in the forefront of your mind when shopping for your family—now and in the future.

Moooove over, Bossy—A New Nutrition Game is in Town (with addendum)

While our family experimentally diets in March, I took the time to do some in-depth research into the whys and hows of what worked and what didn’t.

In previous articles, I explained how fiber is important, yet over-marketed in easy-to-eat foods such as cereals and breads, or pills and powders. I also pointed out that other sources exist, especially for those who are wheat/gluten intolerant.

Now, I’m going to tackle the scared cow (pun intended) of milk, and the over-marketing of dairy products in general, as the supposed sole source of calcium. Here’s where I’ll start: one time, my mother-in-law told me that milk was for baby cows, and she was right—cow’s milk IS for baby cows, and goat’s milk is for baby goats, and so on. Nature tells us that after a short time on the mother’s milk, there is a weaning period in which all nursing creatures learn to find food on their own. Why do humans get to be different—why do WE get to drink milk past our weaning period, and why does it get to be milk from a different source than our own?

The truth of the matter is this: we don’t need milk for calcium or anything else. We are fed marketing to make us believe that we do, and it ultimately helps to prop up a hopelessly failing dairy industry that consistently over-produces itself into oblivion. Take a look at cultures that don’t even HAVE access to milk or dairy products—their people have existed just fine for centuries, and will keep on doing so.

If you really think about it, cheese, yogurt, and all other manner of dairy products are just clever ways of preserving milk—milk that is over-produced from cows that are over-worked to begin with. Our farmers could flood the planet with dairy products and still not make a decent living without some sort of subsidy, because this is what it would take to make it pay. Milk and dairy products are CONVENIENT ways to get calcium, that’s all.

Calcium, the nutrient that only milk alone can supposedly provide, comes from so many other sources: leafy greens (both cooked and raw), nuts, beans, certain dried fruits, and a recent arrival on the scene—fortified orange juice. This is terrific news for those of us who are lactose/casein/whey intolerant. There are also “milk substitutes” on the market, such as soy, rice, and hemp milks, but these products are also fortified—they do not carry a calcium component on their own. I understand from various outside taste tests that they don’t have much of a “taste” component either.

Today’s milk has other problems too, as the regulated processes of pasteurization and homogenization have taken so many of the naturally-occurring nutrients out of it in the name of “food safety.” Furthermore, the cows are being fed processed feeds, made from cheap ingredients that aren’t particularly nutritious themselves. Then we have the various chemicals on the scene—antibiotics to counter the poor feeding practices, hormones and genetics to make the cows continually over-produce milk, and heaven only knows what genetic engineering, pesticide and fertilizer was used in the feed itself! All this stuff settles in the milk and/or muscle of the animal that consumes it, and gets into the animal that consumes the cow (meaning people).

Addendum: dairy products are responsible for gallstone formation and gallbladder problems. The cholesterol it brings into our systems gets held in the gallbladder as "reserve cholesterol" when the liver and blood run short--this compacted and compressed cholesterol is the actual "stone." All of us have stone formations of one sort or another, and this leads to organ removal--most of which is totally unnecessary. Do yourself a favor and learn how to detox your system with gallbladder flushes and liver flushes. These stones CAN be harmlessly softened and removed from the body before they become a chronic medical problem, which can take years to develop, and can take drastic measures to alleviate.

If your great-grandparents were alive today (and some still are), they could tell you stories about how great the milk was back then, and how it actually meant something to the health of individuals and the economy. It’s possible to get raw milk today in some places, but a lot of regulatory loopholes have to be skirted, and red tape abounds in the name of “health and safety” concerns.

By using more calcium-laden foods in my diet, I just freed up another chunk of refrigerator space and food budget. At one time (before our diet experiment) I was buying organic grass-fed milk for Hubby, but no more.

I’ve noticed that the calcium-laden foods are also laden with fiber, so I’ll be killing two birds with one stone of consumption. I’m not suspiciously eyeing my cereal bowls and spoons just yet—they’re still useful for soup (although I use a cappuccino mug for mine).

Doesn’t this put a whole new spin on “convenience foods”? First, we have cereals for fiber, and then milk for calcium…I wonder what’s next.

The “No-Label Diet” Diary, Weeks 1-2

Goal reminder: To eat foods commonly bought without a nutritional label, such as meats and fresh produce, and see the effects after a month. Since I have food allergies to wheat, gluten, and dairy, I excluded those from the diet, as well as nuts. This experiment was to see if better health could be achieved, and if those nutritional labels really act as “warning labels” rather than sources of information. Water and decaffeinated tea with minimal sugar were our drinks, grass-fed meats and organic free-range eggs were our protein sources, higher-TAC (total antioxidant component) foods made up most of our produce choices, and assorted raw greens (in salad form) were used for fiber and visual appeal. No physical exercise (other than what already occurs as a matter of daily life) was employed in this endeavor.

Week 1: Before commencing on this diet on March 1, Hubby and I went to the doctor for some baseline tests—weight, blood sugar, cholesterol, blood pressure, etc. Hubby’s tests came back during Week 1 indicating “fatty liver”, an indicator of too much fat being captured by the liver, and not enough being ushered out of the body. Since I allowed him to keep his Ezekiel bread, I asked him to eat more of it per day, and generally increased his non-grain fiber intake (both soluble and insoluble fiber are available in vegetation).

Hubby sorely missed his cheese, and frantically searched for my soy cheese—none was to be found. I played fair and hid mine away for the diet duration. It WAS labeled, after all!

My rheumatoid arthritis was once again acting up after being dormant for years, so I had to incorporate lower-TAC foods, include more fish, and resume my cod liver oil supplements. I, too, increased my fiber intake with more frequent salads, thinking “what’s good for the goose…” and trying to prevent a fatty liver of my own.

We both experienced a loss of stamina and energy (indicating that we were taking in too many antioxidants), so I began incorporating more foods that were lower on the TAC list. Weight loss was becoming evident, as we both had to tighten the drawstrings on our sweatpants. I had an overall “lighter” feeling. Hubby began taking milk thistle supplements to help clean out his liver faster.

Week 2: The health food store owner that runs our organic buying club noticed that our weekly orders were getting smaller in cost, and lots more produce was being ordered. She asked what we were up to, and I told her about the diet. She said she was getting fed up with having to read those “warning labels” too, and that she herself had multiple food allergies and toxin problems. Her doctor had put her on a very similar regimen, and added some sort of powdered “cholesterol-killer” (I looked it up and it’s basically fiber powder). Her doctor also suggested she switch her grains to quinoa and amaranth, and the store owner suggested I make the switch when my diet experiment is over. I checked out these grains, and they’re worse for me than plain old wild rice—too many carbs per serving.

I experienced more weight loss, judging by the frequent pants-hitching. I started getting colder easier, so Hubby took my blood pressure…116/59! I’ve NEVER had such low pressure in my life, and ran to the internet to see if I was suffering from low blood pressure. Turns out, I was right inside the new hypertension prevention parameters—I was okay. Hubby’s weight loss reversed because of the addition of grains back into his diet—but that’s okay. I’d rather have a healthy husband than a skinny husband right now.

Hubby still missed his cheese, but not as much as before. Omelettes just weren’t the same, so he quit making them. I, on the other hand, was putting scrambled eggs into my salads for extra protein, and making breakfast burritos wrapped in collard leaves. Hubby remembered the “collard leaf burritos” and decided not to join in—apparently they weren’t a hit with him. I found the lettuce leaf burritos to be way too fragile to hold the filling, so I gave up and served Hubby taco salad in a bowl instead.

Both of us were seeing less gray hair in the mirror. I experienced softer skin.

I noticed that living without bread (for me) meant not having a reason for all the things that go on it: butter/margarine, peanut butter, jelly, mayonnaise, mustard, etc., as well as a toaster. This is causing me to pause and reflect on all those things everyone keeps in their refrigerator doors, and wondering if we really need them at all. Are condiments really “condemn-ments”? And how many of us lose valuable counter space to a 1-function machine? What would a refrigerator look like WITHOUT those in-the-door shelves, anyway? It would look like those old, short, very thickly-insulated ones our grandparents had (that experts now say was the most efficient refrigerator ever built). I remember when Dad got one of these and kept it in the garage for his beer.

We both discovered lentil sprouts at the health food store, and gave them a try. This led to the addition of lentils into our diet—dry lentils in soups, and lentil sprouts in salads.

More diet diary entries at the end of the month.

The Farce That is Alternative Energy (L-O-N-G)—2007 Redux

Solar, wind, ethanol, hybrid cars…none of them is going to be our savior when the oil music stops playing. You’re wondering why? Efficiency, that’s why--energy in vs. energy out.

To oil’s benefit, it took less energy to get for the energy it gave. Even at $40/barrel, it was the cheapest source of energy, with the most output, per barrel (or even BTU). Now that cheap source is destined to come to a thin trickle, if not a screeching halt. What do we have as replacements?

Solar panels, made from petroleum, only provide us with about 10% of our current energy needs, and we’d have to line I-5 in California with solar panels just to make 6 megawatts of power (the standard used in today’s electric generation plants)—the golden rule used to measure the electric needs of an average U.S. city. Six megawatts equals ONE power plant. It takes 12 solar panels working constantly just to run 1 refrigerator, and we don’t live in the land of the midnight sun.

Note: even the current off-the-grid guru Ed Begley Jr. says his rooftop-covered solar panels are no longer enough to supply his energy needs, and succumbs to sending money to a third party “green power source” for his additional energy needs. Al Gore even spends an additional and needless $600/month in guilt money to get his power from a green source. Is “conservation” in the cards for either of these households? Not on your life! It’s so much easier to spend money to assuage guilt—theirs and others.

To use wind energy, we’d have to cover hillsides and mountain ranges with windmills to get the equivalent of that magic 6 megawatts—13,000 turbines, spinning constantly at maximum speed, equal one 555 megawatt plant (enough to run an average sized state). Turbines are purported to cause all kinds of havoc with flying wildlife, particularly bats, because of the low noise they emit while spinning...and let’s not forget appearance. Cape Cod turned down a project proposal for an offshore wind farm earlier this year because residents feared that seascape aesthetics would be ruined. Heavens!

Ethanol is a laughable story in itself—it takes 27-29% more energy to produce a gallon of ethanol than the ethanol itself will provide. When the energy it takes to plant, maintain, and harvest the crop (corn or soy), then distill and refine it to a useable state, you’re already in the hole before you even turn the key in the ignition! All this serves is to help prop up our already over-producing farm community, namely Big Farm-a (Con Agra, Cargill, and Archer Daniels Midland). We’d never eat corn again, because all the crops would be going toward wasteful ethanol production—not only our crops, but also those of other countries who can least afford to lose food sources. When it comes to a driving fuel, ethanol provides 25% fewer miles/tank than ordinary gasoline. Biodiesel has a slightly better energy return, but only slightly—and still has the same energy problems of ethanol before the key is turned.

Note: one day, Leonardo DiCaprio and his buddies will get this through their thick skulls—probably AFTER they get booted out of Hollywood and can’t find work elsewhere. Also, on the corn front—we have to import sugar cane ethanol and ethanol crops because we can’t grow enough right here at home to supply our current needs…never mind the future.

Hydrogen is almost as big a joke, simply because the largest, cheapest source for it is the moon—when was the last time we made it there? We can’t even get our shuttles back into orbit, let alone send something to the moon again! Forget trying to crack water or air—too expensive, even at its cheapest.

Note: we DID manage to get a few shuttles back into orbit, but just barely. Still, we find ourselves woefully unequipped to take advantage of the cheapest hydrogen source of all.

Then we come to the most laughable crutch of all, the hybrid car. Yes, it may use less gas and yes, it may burn cleaner, but it, too is made from petroleum products (plastics and polycarbonates). Where will these cars come from when the fields run dry? It currently takes 27-54 barrels of oil to produce one hybrid vehicle. When oil reaches $72/barrel, as it’s been suggested to in late 2006, just who is going to be able to afford THE CAR, let alone the gas for it? Remember that the Toyota Prius was unreasonable at $17,000 back when oil was $44/barrel. Imagine what it would cost when oil reaches $72/barrel.

Note: the prices have come down, but so have the mileage estimates (by some 20%)—now they are slightly better than my ten-year-old Park Avenue. I gladly sacrifice 6 miles per gallon for the spaciousness, interior conveniences, and cheap cost of insurance. My original article on hybrid cars here.

At least solar, wind, and hydroelectric energy come from free sources to begin with, but we all know what that means: unreliability. It also means that harnessing the power isn’t without costs as well—solar panels (plastic), wind turbines (fiberglass), and dams (concrete) are expensive matters relative to the efficiency of energy they’d help provide. Couple this with power loss from line transmission (from the source to your house), and the costs escalate relative to efficiencies.

Did you know that electric power starts out at 440 volts from the source, and ends at 110 volts at your home? The lost power transmission along the way to your home (mostly in heat) is 330 volts, or 75% of the original energy generated. That’s how much extra energy is required to get power from the originating source, down the power grid, to the home, and that’s why we’d have to cover the country with windmills and solar panels to replace the oil, gas, and coal that now generate our power plants.

The real answer to the looming oil catastrophe is to use less, and by that I mean FIND OTHER MATERIALS TO MANUFACTURE FROM. Plastics manufacture is the worldwide #1 user of oil—not cars or driving (driving is the #1 user in the U.S.). Until we find something else to use or shun plastics altogether, we’re headed right toward the stalled oil derricks and disaster in record time. Simply using less on a personal level won’t make a dent in the situation—we need to find other ways of manufacturing and transport without the use of oil and distillates as a country, and as a world. Ending the extremely wasteful practice of fueling cruise ships, which get a whopping 3 gallons to the mile, would be a good start.

Note: new oil deposits are being discovered every day, so the once-dreaded oil crisis is being pushed back further out over the horizon. For every cry of “crisis,” we hear another cry of “Eureka!” afterward.

Natural gas, unfortunately, isn’t an answer either, because manufacturers will make the shift to gas first, assuring quick drainage of that supply as well. When that’s gone, then where will they go? This is where they need to be thinking about now rather than later.

Studies suggest that coal may be our manufacturing answer, and it might, but getting to an adequate coal supply will be easier said than done. We sit on the Saudi Arabia of coalfields--right under Colorado--and the residents aren’t about to let us come in and dig them up so life can go on as usual.

So by this point, you’re probably wondering how you’re going to get by when the pumps run dry, and the so-called “alternatives” aren’t being manufactured any more. My advice: power down. Simply put, try to pull the plug on as many of your appliances and vehicles as possible, and learn to live without their convenience. Electricity generation (like water and kerosene) will likely be rationed, and there will probably be times of light and brownouts (much like Iraq suffers from today). Making and doing more with less won’t be enough; you’ll need to think “make something from nothing.” Remember: nearly ALL the alternatives to oil come from oil itself in some form—plastics, polycarbonates, fuel for tractors, pesticides, fertilizers, etc. Fiberglass wind turbines may be the only exception, but they do require the use of petroleum products in maintenance (gear lube, hydraulic fluids, etc.)

Note: why wait? Start finding ways to power down NOW, saving money and hassle in the end, not to mention already being accustomed to the coming eventual limited energy availability and/or anticipated astronomical costs.

As comical as this may sound, we might want to get acquainted (or re-acquainted) with horseback and bicycle riding. We might also want to get re-acquainted with hurricane lamps, cooking with fire, and an in-depth knowledge of machinery so that we may convert it from gas and diesel to hydraulic and pneumatic power. Older Boy Scout manuals (pre-80’s) will come in handy for lessons in building shelters, fires, picking wild foods, and for general emergency preparedness (I say old because the newer manuals rely heavily on pre-packaged convenience items and manufactured camping gear--affordability may be an issue to some). Books on Amish and Mennonite living may provide useful reference.

We may also want to consider living in a dwelling that’s underground, or at least partly underground, for temperature modulation. Central heat and A/C will probably be things of the past, and many areas of this country will be totally unbearable to live in without them. Caves usually have an environment at a steady 50 degrees or so, depending on depth, and it’s a reliable year-round source of modulation. Underground homes can also have this same sort of modulation, albeit at a different temperature (usually 70 degrees or so).

In short, you’ll need to do more for yourself from home to avoid expensive travel and “frivolous” spending (frivolous becoming a relative term). This means everything from telecommuting and freelancing to gardening and sewing. Currently cheap Chinese goods will become dear when transportation costs are added in---theirs AND ours (never mind the re-valuating of their currency). The car as we know it will only serve as a hauling device, and today’s SUVs will become luxurious hauling devices indeed!

Note: in the future, public entitlement programs will most likely be paid for with tax hikes in the form of tariffs on once-cheap Chinese goods, and/or a VAT tax on Medicare. We may be discovering new oil nearly every day, but new sources of tax revenue are in short supply (and getting shorter) as jobs get downsized, off-shored, or eliminated altogether. Let’s face it—minimum-wage jobs don’t bring in the revenue that union-wage ones do.

On the national preparedness front, we’re looking at nuclear plants for electrical generation (and high time, too, since the technological advent of better waste disposal means through laser use), different materials for manufacture (more fiberglass and natural renewables), and mass transit improvements (fuel changes and infrastructure upgrades). Individual businesses are even getting into the act, and I bet you haven’t even noticed it yet—through eminent domain, they’re grabbing up suburban neighborhood property for building future stores in residential neighborhoods. Why, you ask? Simple—they see the coming trend toward less driving, and want to bring their stores to you, the new bike rider, walker, and mass transit rider. They know that trips to the mall and big-box stores will be vanishing, along with discretionary dollars to spend, and this is how they intend to stay in business. Malls will eventually dry up, along with suburbia, and the next logical move for them would be to acquire old derelict properties in downtown areas to demolish or refurbish into new stores. The new walker, bike rider, or mass transit user will surely find THAT accommodating (if only they could fit a big screen TV on a bus or on the back of a bicycle). Downtowns everywhere will get much-needed renovations and remodels to make room for the resurgence of permanent residents returning…the revival of “walkable” communities will be at hand. Imagine Target as a Mom & Pop store—a store without all the trappings of suburban comfort creatures, a store that only carries what you’d need to live in an urban setting. An urban Best Buy wouldn’t carry any electronics you couldn’t fit on a bus or carry away by yourself sans cart, making for a vastly smaller store. Wally World may even have to split into two stores—one for groceries, and one for general merchandise.

The next logical move for them after that would be to go all cyberspace. Then, the store overhead would be eliminated, and we could rely on (expensive) home delivery for that big-screen TV. Shipping costs would then soar to astronomical levels due to fuel and maintenance bills for USPS, UPS, and FedEx.

Note: this too will be pushed back because of the new oil deposits—but it may come to fruition in your great-grandchildren’s time (or later).

Just close your eyes and imagine all this. It will start happening when we stop resisting the idea that oil will come to an end. We need to be thinking about other living arrangements now before this event becomes a national and personal catastrophic disaster—a long emergency with no end. It may not happen in your lifetime, but there are undoubtedly little lifetimes behind you (kids), and they will need to be prepared and versed. This is where the experience, knowledge, and sage advice of grandparents and great-grandparents will come in handy. Valuable depression-era wit and wisdom will get along nicely here, and unfortunately, that generation is disappearing faster than we realize—yet another valuable commodity wastefully slipping through our fingers.

Note: Oil will not come to an end before individual countries start nationalizing their supply, choking off deliveries, raising prices, and therefore escalating the delivery costs to the states in the process (tankers need gas too!). Politics will be our undoing on the energy front long before we actually run out of oil.

Thank God we're already somewhat ahead of the curve by being frugal and thinking before buying.

Note: Thank God most of us are being frugal and thinking carefully before buying.

The Cholesterol Shuffle

You’ve all heard the Fiber Police cries to eat your fiber…to the tune of 35 grams a day. You’ve all seen the commercials for fiber-this and fiber-that, seen the cereals in grocery stores that look and taste like they’re made from sawdust and horse food, and seen the lady on TV in her minivan trying to eat broccoli like an ice cream cone. Now I can tell you what the hue and cry is all about.

First of all, never mind colon cancer—that can be prevented just by increasing the fresh produce in your diet.

The REAL reason is cholesterol removal from the body. Here’s how I got there:

1. You eat meat and consume dairy products—these foods contain saturated fat, as well as cholesterol.

2. These foods are broken down and eventually get into your blood stream.

3. The liver, in all its infinite glory, filters your blood.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Meanwhile, how does the liver get cleaned out of all that junk it so kindly filtered out of your blood? It doesn’t, unless you consume large quantities of fiber.

Statins serve to lower our cholesterol, but they don’t really lower anything except the amount found in our blood—it all gets sent to the liver for long-term storage (a place with limited capacity). So how do we get rid of the stuff in storage?

We eat grain-type fiber—it binds with the cholesterol and saturated fat while in the digestive tract and blood stream, ushering it to the nearest exit (the bowels). Without fiber, the fat and cholesterol do nothing but move back and forth from the blood to the liver, and remain in your system until fiber comes along to bind it and send it out. This explains why your cholesterol numbers keep bouncing up and down on blood tests.

We also detox our liver—by eating more fiber from various sources, we feel fuller sooner, and are less likely to put more, new fats and cholesterol into our system.

Like a car’s oil filter and fuel filter, not much will run when the filters are clogged—the engine gets no fuel, and there’s stuff in the oil that prevent it from adequately coating pistons. In other words, the car no longer runs as efficiently as it once did, and is “sick.” There’s lots of improvement to be had by simply changing the filters—and the same goes for us humans. Unfortunately, we came with “permanent filters,” and can only clean them out unless we have major transplant surgery. Good luck finding a donor!

Unfortunately, some people come equipped with a “perpetually-clogging filter,” meaning that their liver produces cholesterol in addition to what they’re taking in through diet.

To solve this dilemma, you can increase your fiber intake, cut back your saturated fat and cholesterol intake, or both. I recommend both—only you know how clogged your liver is. Pep Boys and Napa Auto Parts can’t help you here, unless they feed you. Cutting back on your dairy intake will also help to clean out your gall bladder—important if you have a family history of stone formation (luckily, most stones are merely cholesterol deposits).

If you are dairy and wheat/gluten intolerant (like me), there are acceptable low-carb whole grain substitutes for the usual bowl of Kellogg’s Horse-Food-for-Humans or All-Bran-and-Wood-Shavings: wild rice and flax seeds. Nuts and seeds, the edible skins of fruits and vegetables, beans and legumes, and many dark, leafy salad greens are other non-grain sources of dietary fiber.

I got turned onto these little babies from my health food store: Sami’s Bakery Pita Chips --check out the fiber content per serving! When my March diet experiment is over, I intend to add these back into my regular regimen.

The reason why grains are so heavily pushed as THE source of beneficial fiber is because of the convenience—whole grains have higher fiber contents than fruits or vegetables, and it’s easy to put wheat and wheat-derived products into many foods, or create foods with wheat as the primary ingredient. If you could care less about convenience at this point (like me), and would rather cater to your food allergy/low glycemic/low carb needs, go for the antioxidant sources and whole grain alternatives.

Now you know why the Fiber Police are always out with their shrill whistles, the statin salesmen are strangely silent about increasing fiber, lots of people are sick all the time, and many liver transplants could have been avoided. Clean filters and good fuel help ensure tip-top “human engine” performance, and encourage easy weight loss—the liver no longer has fat to hang onto any more, and the body must burn other fat reserves for energy.

This Lazy Woman’s Weight Loss Method—the Experiment

Sorry I forgot to post this on or before March 1.
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As I stated in a previous article, I believe I’ve hatched a grand scheme for effortless weight loss while improving my health, food budget, and kitchen space. This plan embarked on March 1.

In the meantime, I sleuthed around trying to find ways that I could target my food purchases and eating to get the most nutrition for my money, using the aforementioned Ape Diet foods, as well as ORAC (oxygen radical absorption capacity) and TAC (total antioxidant capacity) foods. By expanding my horizons to include choices from all three lists, I made a wide and varied list to make my selections from—but then I forgot the main point of the experiment: to see what would happen if I only consumed UNLABELED foods for a month.

I fell back into the habit of making things more complicated than they have to be.

After carefully assembling all this information and analyzing it for common denominators, eliminating personal dislikes, and adding back foods with lower scores (generally manipulating data for sheer pleasure), I went back and took another look—this time for listed foods that can only be bought “labeled.”

All three sources of foods have only a handful of unlabeled foods in common: broccoli, blueberries, blackberries, raisins, plums, oranges, and strawberries. This didn’t make for a varied palette in color or nutrition, so I limited my produce choices to the unlabeled forms of foods from all three lists--if I can’t get it unlabeled, then I won’t eat it (and it’s looking pretty bad for prunes already). My drinks are water or decaf tea with sugar, and I am consuming grass-fed meats, organic free-range eggs, and organic produce. Assorted salad greens, although not on any lists, will be incorporated as a source of fiber.

Sadly, my husband cannot fully participate in this venture because he has been diagnosed with a “fatty liver”, and needs more fiber to clear it from his system. I’m conducting two experiments with one stone here by monitoring for two versions of the experiment: one WITH grains, and one without (produce and salad greens are MY source of fiber). The rest of the experiment will go on as before—no nuts, no dairy, no grains for me, and grains for Hubby. No physical exercise for either of us that isn’t already a part of our normal lives.

The month of February was spent cleaning out the kitchen of labeled foods as best I could through consumption, relocation to another storage area (out of sight, out of mind for me), or finding a new home for them in someone else’s kitchen. I’ve found that I have more cupboard space and less fridge space than before, and I’ve replaced corn tortillas and salsa for tacos (sniffing around online sites have yielded many homemade salsa recipes and collard or lettuce leaf wraps for “burritos”—I MUST have my Mexican food!). I’ll see about re-organizing the fridge, and adding back the rack I took out 5 years ago to use for over-the-tub zippy bag drying—I don’t think I’ll be using many zippy bags with this eating plan.

Before launch, Hubby and I went to the doctor’s office for a consult, a baseline of weight, blood pressure, cholesterol, glucose, and all that other stuff I’m interested in affecting with food instead of drugs, and got the results back (that’s how we found out about the fatty liver). If the Ape Diet people achieved dramatic health improvement in a mere 12 days, imagine what we accomplish in 31 days (barring any unforeseen problems—if a health problem arises due to the new eating plan, I’ll stop immediately and post the results).

The diet officially kicked off on March 1 at 12:01 a.m. Wish me luck, and join me if you care to. Final results will be posted March 31.

Ape diet foods:
ORAC foods:
TAC foods: –scroll down to lists

I leave you with this one important bit I managed to ferret out of the web: there IS such a thing as “too many antioxidants.” If you felt bad before you changed your diet, felt great for awhile, and are now feeling bad again after improving your diet, you probably need to back off the higher-rated TAC foods and incorporate some lower-rated ones. I found it mighty interesting that common salad foods are actually low in total antioxidants (lettuces, carrots, tomatoes, onions, etc.).

Skipping EVEN MORE Nickels and Dimes for Bigger Savings (Long and Updated)

Back in 2005, I was reading a book called "Getting All You Can with What You’ve Got", and noticed this sad but true little ditty: "Too many of us are guilty of nickel-and-dime thinking when we seek to save money." Then, I identified some of the places we tend to nickel-and-dime ourselves to death in futile efforts to save (way beyond coupons, rebates, and prices per unit)…sometimes without even realizing it. Since then, I updated a few to reflect other ways I’ve since discovered:

• Investing—Buy stocks direct when possible by participating in DRIPs and DSPs from companies that offer "direct-to-customer" purchase options, etc. You can also buy and sell individual stocks through an ICN (independent commission network, such as Instinet) without paying more than pennies per share in commissions, although the annual ICN membership is expensive. A site called EX24 allows members to buy and sell shares amongst themselves for small fees. Bonds, of course, can be purchased through Treasury Direct. Mutual funds, indexes, and ETFs are still another way to go.

Why pay hefty commissions and fees to anyone ever again?

• Durable Goods—Buy directly from the maker when you can, and if not, consider Amish or antique goods. For appliances and other goods, do your research on energy efficiency and reliability through independent sources other than Consumer Reports, because a conflict of interest exists between advertisers and test results. Above all, be patient when searching for the perfect durable good, because it may take some time before you find it at, or negotiate it to, your price. Figure out what you need, do the research, and keep your eyes open.

• Cars—Buy from the owner and not the dealer. Dealers are in business to make money...BIG money. They take cars in trade, offering about half what the Kelley Blue Book says they're worth, then turn around and sell them for twice what Kelley says the value is. Owners tend to stick to the Kelley numbers, which reflect the true worth of the car at the time, in the current condition. Just to be sure, do some research on Kelley and check out the car yourself—know what the car’s actually worth before buying.

Update: current day “bling” isn’t worth anything unless it’s listed in the Kelley or NADA book as a manufacturer’s option. Everything’s negotiable, so learn to negotiate!

• Gemstones—another high-margin item for retailers. Let me start by saying that diamonds in particular are NOT precious commodities—De Beers has got a stranglehold on the market. Diamonds are actually quite common for being nothing more than pressurized carbon, and huge numbers are being kept in vaults to promote the concept of scarcity. Demand for “scarcity” drives prices up, and it serves to keep prices high.

To cut down gem prices DRASTICALLY, take a gem enthusiast with a loupe to area pawnshops and estate sales, check out the inventory, and make an offer on a suitable piece (remember: you’re judging the stone, not the setting). Take your purchase for a new setting. Better yet, learn how to perform this entire process for yourself—from gem grading and valuation, through price haggling, to making new settings.

When completed, have your “new” ring appraised at another retailer—chances are very good it appraises at 250% or more than what you paid for it. Now you see the markup scheme jewelry stores use on unsuspecting customers.
As you may have already guessed, jewelry refurbishment and resale would make a dandy small business.

Another alternative: lab-grown gems and cubic zirconia make worthwhile substitutes, with much smaller price tags. Unless the intended recipient is a jewelry expert, chances are very good he/she won’t be able to tell the difference.

• Household items and clothing—Of course, you know this one...yard sales and freebies. If something isn’t given away free, then buy from the owner and not a retail outlet (such as a thrift store). Retail outlets are in business to make money, and in the case of thrift stores, most of their merchandise was free donations to start with—this means the profit margin per item is quite high (believe me, I worked in one). Regular so-called “discount” retailers buy their goods overseas for pennies per piece, and sell to us for what we think are bargains (I also worked for Target).

• Livelihood—This may be trickier to accomplish, but by all means give it a go...WORKING FOR YOURSELF. The middleman here is your employer, who is in business to make money. By pre-determining how much your service is worth to the business (by your salary or wage—regardless of your market value), then taking a cut just to cover payroll needs, the boss is effectively squelching your earning power. Consultants get paid 3-4 times your rate for the same job performed, so why shouldn’t you? Do the research before stepping out on your own (cost-benefit analysis, tax consequences, etc.).

Another method: creating passive income through rental real estate, a sideline business, etc. This creates the “third income” in a two-earner household, allowing one or both earners to back away from the grindstone a little, either in conjunction with or as a substitute for frugal living methods. Working harder doesn’t necessarily mean working SMARTER.

• Home purchase—Buy direct from the owner whenever possible. Sales commissions amount to at least 6% of your purchase price—more for hotter markets. To save even more, build one yourself (or have it built for you), because contractors buy wholesale, build wholesale, then mark up the merchandise to market value for real estate agents...and then the agents tack on their commissions...and you see where this ball's rolling.

If you have time, try checking out tax lien and deed sales—by purchasing someone else’s unpaid property tax note for a few thousand dollars from your local tax collector, then waiting a year or two (or immediately in the case of deeds), you just might wind up with the property instead of your money back plus interest. Check with your local tax collection agency for details, as some states have tax lien certificates instead of tax deeds.

Update: Another source for cheaper homes is the bankruptcy/foreclosure market—leads can be found in your local paper’s “legal notices” section (pre-foreclosure) or in a bank’s REO department (post-foreclosure). You might have to deal with courts and lenders, but the discount can be worth it. Negotiating skills are a must here—know how much that house is worth in market value AND rental value (to recoup the total ownership costs) before signing on the dotted line.

• Home mortgages—No matter how long you intend to stay in your home, an ARM is the loan type for you if you are a perennial principal pre-payer (pays excess principal every month) and interest rates are steady or high-and-falling. ARM rates will always be lower than fixed rates, and quickly dwindling principal will incur a much smaller interest charge each month than with a fixed-rate loan. The interest savings will snowball over the life of your loan. Why not make the interest rate laws of physics work for you?

Update: when interest rates are low and climbing, a fixed rate mortgage is best for initial financing, but a long-term ARM will do. When interest rates are high and falling, an ARM with an extremely short term is best, and refinancing from fixed to ARM is actually cheaper in total interest outlay WHEN EXTRA PRINCIPAL IS CONSISTENTLY APPLIED.

• Borrowing money—Instead of schlepping to your bank and filling out papers for a loan (at exorbitant interest rates), borrow against your house. The rates are a whole lot cheaper because you have collateral that isn't likely to disappear overnight or suddenly plummet in value. Second mortgage money is cheap compared to regular loan rates, and the debt erases itself when you either pay the loan off or sell the property. This is called “wholesale borrowing.” A car may disappear (theft) or suddenly plummet in value due to an accident or other damage, so it isn't suitable for a collateralized loan. The risk is reflected in the interest rates. Minimize your loan officer’s risk and your interest rate by using more durable and reliable collateral.

• Taxes—It always pays BIG TIME to know the tax code, how it applies to you, and how it could apply to you. Loopholes abound in it, and it pays to know how to use them (just like the rich and corporations do). Congress invents them, and always manages to create more loopholes than it takes away every year.

Update: Paid tax preparers and tax preparation software can easily net you 10 times (or more) what they cost to use, and what you would likely get back on your own, so don’t be afraid to use them if you have lots of deductions or are a huge saver—there are more new credits and deductions for various savings programs than ever before, and it’s hard to keep up with them all.

• Insurance as estate planning tool—Whole life policies are a way of leaving your heirs money without having the worries of probate or estate tax bills. Use term life insurance for yourself, but any excess monies meant for beneficiaries should be used to buy a whole life policy for them to borrow against (and not repay), or to be a beneficiary of, when it comes time to collect an inheritance. Repayment of borrowed principal is NOT required, because the only consequence is a lower policy face value. Since this insurance is just a wealth vehicle and not meant for actual coverage, policy face value is of no concern. Insurance proceeds are NOT taxable in any way, shape, or form, and there is no limit to the number of policies one can own. This method is a whole lot simpler (and probably cheaper) than setting up a trust of some sort.

Estate planning update: see the “Stretch IRA” method as a way to expand your Roth IRA to cover more than just your retirement needs—it can cover generations if done properly.

• Grocery shopping simplified—Throw away your coupons, rebates, price books, and your warehouse store cards too--super-sized groceries have the same effect as McMeals. Focus on buying wholesale instead of nitpicking over per-unit retail prices by going directly to the growers: farmers and ranchers. Grocery store chains buy large volumes wholesale from suppliers (who buy from farmers and ranchers), and then it all gets jacked up to make money for overhead costs and profit.

A new method: shorten the shopping list by determining what foods your family REALLY needs to acquire and maintain superior health—you’ll find that many previously-bought “touchstone” foods like dairy and grains aren’t really necessary for anything, despite what the Food Pyramid and Fiber Police have to say. By focusing on better, higher-antioxidant foods and more nutritious meats (grass-fed), you’ll make your food dollar go further than just merely preventing hunger. Think quality of food rather than quantity when determining best sources.

• Nutrition—Next time you go to a warehouse store, take a look at other people’s carts…you’ll see mostly junk food in village-sized portions. Not many are buying the healthier stuff (if you can call it that)--the produce, the eggs, and the meat.

None of your formerly-used shopping tools will help you to buy better quality food, direct from the producer...only cheaper processed foods full of questionable ingredients.

Take a look at the labels, and count the ingredients you can't pronounce or explain to a child. Nothing good ever came out of a box or can. A jar, sometimes—provided someone familiar put it in there to begin with (by canning and preserving).

The concept of wholesale food buying entails going directly to the growers and producers for your food. This way, you can ask questions like:

1. where it came from (place of origin)
2. what was used to feed and/or fertilize it
3. how long it took to get from farm to market, and did it freeze along the way
4. what alterations have been made, such as GM, hormones/antibiotics, etc.

By buying directly from the grower/producer, you cut out the entire retail level of food selling. You almost certainly will be paying less (except in the case of organics) for better quality without fuss, bother, or effort. Learn where the nearest farmer's market, u-pick farm, CSA (community-supported agriculture), or food co-op is, and start shopping at Mother Nature’s stores. Or, if you have room, go one better and grow your own!

Another method: take another look at those labels—do they serve as a WARNING rather than a source of information? Why not strive to buy foods with fewer or no “warnings” on them, like fresh fruits, vegetables, meats, and eggs? I’ve found that the fewer labeled foods I buy (within known parameters), the better my health gets. Cheese, celery, and Asian greens are known to be salt-laden (according to the USDA nutrient database), so I avoid those.

• Organics—Your money is best spent on meats, dairy, eggs, and produce you plan to eat with the skin on, or has a thin skin that can be penetrated by chemicals. Pre-packaged food items defeat the purpose of buying organic because shelf and/or freezer life must be extended with some kind of chemicals, and a lot of these foods defeat the purpose of eating organically, such as toaster pastries—junk food is junk food, no matter how well it’s disguised.

Growing your own produce, hunting your own meat, and fishing your own fish comes in handy for drastically cutting costs.

• Health Care—A published medical study discovered that an apple a day DOES keep the doctor away (as long as it’s a high TAC one—Washington Delicious or Granny Smith), suggesting that most of us really need a corrective eating plan instead of more pills.

Get more bang for your food buck by making it cover your future health care costs as well as your hunger. Fresh is best, and direct-from-grower is as fresh as it gets these days. Granted, you shop for food more often (at least weekly), but the payoff is worth it! Raw, well-washed veggies (organic or not), high on the TAC antioxidant list, are where the nutrients are, and fish or eggs contain the highest level of protein when compared to other meats. Focus on these foods, and lose or minimize the rest. Spending more wisely with food quality in mind is a "different" sort of investing—in your HEALTH future.

Streamlining and improving your food choices will lead to more cupboard and refrigerator/freezer space, more time and money for other things, weight loss (which leads to less spent on clothing, less closet space needed, and less laundry), and improved health. Better nutrition also leads to more energy, less stress, slowed aging, and less susceptibility to sickness, both obvious and hidden (blood pressure, cholesterol, etc.)

Convenience foods cost us in many ways, and they really aren’t so “convenient” after all—especially when you discover that you really don’t need any of them!

• Social Security—Why depend on Uncle Sam to save you in your golden years, when you can make better use of the savings vehicles Congress gives you?

There is one little-known tidbit called “self-directed pensions” that will allow you to leapfrog your retirement savings beyond the usual standard stock-and-bond offerings. Self-directed IRAs (both Roth and traditional), held at designated independent trustees’ offices, allow you to take advantage of a Congress- and IRS-approved law that allows you to invest your retirement money in real estate tax liens or deeds of trust, real estate options on land or residential rentals, discounted mortgages, land lease limited partnerships, and vacant land or lots.

The only things you CANNOT legally invest your IRA money in are:
--collectibles (wine, art, stamps, coins, cars, sports memorabilia, etc.)
--a business which you own more than 5%
--any investment where your IRA would be used as collateral for a loan (such as a mortgage).

If you buy real estate to keep (using your Roth IRA) through tax liens or deed sales, and hold the property for appreciation until retirement age, you can legally take “a house” as a distribution, making it a personal asset and no longer an IRA-held asset—and no taxes incurred until you sell (hopefully after two years to take advantage of new sales rules). Even those taxes can be forestalled with a property exchange or keeping the property proceeds under $250k for singles and $500k for couples.

If the real estate isn’t a keeper, then the property gets fixed up (using IRA money) and sold, with sales proceeds go directly back into the IRA account (through the trustee). The whole process gets repeated over and over—this is a way to make a $2k-$10k investment in someone’s back taxes and tax-forfeited property (through the trustee using your IRA money) into an $80k-$100k market-value investment in a short time.

If you wind up buying the tax note (lien) and the current property owner redeems it quickly, you’ve at least made better returns than bonds or CDs pay out.

If you decide to use the funds from your traditional IRA to perform such maneuvers (outside the independent trustee), taxes will be incurred the moment you take distribution of any money or property that comes from this IRA account.

It makes more sense to build up your Roth account and make it self-directed—more investing opportunity with less tax hassles later. You lose the traditional IRA deduction (up to $800), but make up for it with the Savings Credit (up to $2000).

With all this retirement fund opportunity available, who needs to rely on a Social Security check now, considering the shaky state of the system’s future, and the lousy options we're given to deal with it?

Update: there are so many things that can be done with a Roth IRA, for your own retirement as well as future generations—look into the “Stretch IRA” information as a way of funding your own grandkids’ Social Security shortfalls and program evaporation.

• Organization-Use the 80/20 Principle in your life: keep the most effective 20%, and shed the marginal 80% (corporations call this more with less…sound familiar?). Get 80% of the stuff done in 20% of the time. Get 80% of your nutrients with 20% of the food (and spend only about 20% of what you used to in money and preparation time). Do 80% or more of your shopping at one location, without regard to loss leaders or per-unit pricing. Do 80% of your living with 20% less space, money, and material goods. Less is more.

How I Create (and Re-Create) My Own Kitchen Convenience

There are so many other things to do in this world, and some of them far more interesting than domestic drudgery. Here’s how I avoided a lot of the dinner drudgery back in 2005:

• Be Prepared

I prepared for meals well in advance by cooking and freezing meal components in dual serving-sized portions (since there’s only two of us here). I also prepared to defrost the night before (meaning when dinner is done, tomorrow’s frozen components go into the fridge tonight).

• Choose Freezer-Friendly Meal Components

I froze meats, rice, potatoes (more on this later), and frozen veggies in zippy bags and plastic containers two portions at a time. A meal gathering from the freezer would consist of a meat bag, a veggie box, and a starch box. All go from the freezer to the fridge after tonight’s dinner for tomorrow’s dinner. I referred to the Food Guide Pyramid for portion sizes when determining the amount of food product to be frozen.

• Pre-prepared Accompanying Elements

I am referring to salads here—I went to a farmer’s market for my organic produce, spent an hour or so cutting up the greens and veggies, and put them in two separate large-size plastic containers. When I needed a salad, I could just reach into the fridge, grab the containers, grab a (clean) handful or two from each container, toss them in a large mixing bowl, stir up, and my salad was made. The salad components lasted about a week when put in fridge containers with a paper towel on top of the greens or veggies, lid applied, then flipped upside down. Water was the enemy of greens, and the paper towel absorbed most of it—I changed the towel out every day.

The toaster oven had a timer, and operated quite well with little supervision—no more standing over a hot skillet. The defrosted grains and veggies went into the same pot (or microwave dish) for re-heating, saving time, energy, and dirty dishes. A veggie-cutting mandolin found in a thrift store (I found two with all the parts) was employed for the veggie portion of your salad preparation forays. I found my salad greens useful on taco night.

• How I Froze Those Potatoes

I found some freezer containers that were big enough to hold potatoes plus enough liquid to completely cover so the potatoes are submerged. Either whole or cut up, I put the potatoes in the container(s), cover with a flavored liquid such as broth (salted water will do) until completely submerged, and froze. Any part of the potato that wasn’t submerged in the liquid turned black.

When ready to use, I simply defrosted and dumped into a pot. My cooking liquid was what the potato has been freezing in. This is why I recommend a flavored liquid such as broth. I will admit I haven’t tried these potatoes baked, as I figure the liquid in the potatoes would only add to the already long cooking time for baked potatoes.

• Last Notes

Pasta is not a freezer-friendly component. Nor are a lot of sauces (cheese sauce is one, however).

Since discovering a nearby farmer’s market with organic produce, I cut WAY back on buying frozen veggies.

I only peeled veggies where it’s necessary (to remove eyes, scars, etc.).

I employed a toaster oven instead of a microwave.
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Fast-forward to 2007: I’ve found a NEW way to be “kitchen-convenient”, and it’s even more streamlined than the last method.

• Streamline the pantry
Since the article above, I’ve discovered that I now have certain food allergies, separate from my husband’s allergies, dislikes, and individual health concerns. Employing the “what’s good for the goose…” method, I, too, included low-sodium, low carb, and low sugar items into my own food choices, creating a common denominator of foods we can both eat—no more separate special items for either of us.

• Minimize food losses
Instead of buying large quantities of food and running the risk of discovering new allergies, a last-minute corporate relocation, a power outage, or a new health condition that requires either different food or avoidance of existing food, I only buy what we can consume in a week. I’ve had too many white elephants in the pantry and refrigerator to go back to 3-month stock-ups, and can no longer afford to throw away or give away food because of a sudden life change.

• Make food really count for nutrition
By deleting the foods that were causing our health to be somewhat less than excellent, the shopping list was greatly shortened, space was regained in the pantry cupboards and freezer, and far less money was spent on food than before, even though no coupons or other “cheap food tricks” were employed. Focusing on foods that really count did more for me than all the things I used to do trying to save money on inferior foods in the past—now we eat grass-fed meats, true wild salmon in season (summer months), fresh organic “rainbow” fruits and vegetables in season, drink tea and water, and that’s it. Nothing on this earth says we have to eat grains, nuts, or dairy products.

My supplement bill went way down as a side effect of this food change. Budget-wise, we really did manage to come out ahead in spite of the initial impression of spending more for higher-quality foods. Each item costs more, but fewer items are bought, and these foods do more for your health, life, and budget than all the rest—less is more yet again.

So-called “bargain food” is a bargain for a reason: more food for your money usually means lower quality in the end, and is more marketing campaign than actual nutrition. You are what you eat, and you get what you pay for—these phrases have never been truer than with pre-manufactured and Big Farm foods We are being led to the Big Farm-to-Big Pharma slaughter with these so-called “bargain foods.”

As far as the toaster oven, peeling veggies, and freezer go, I had to replace Old Faithful (the toaster oven) last month because the thermostat quit working (replacing was cheaper than fixing). The only thing I used the big oven for was meat loaves and turkey, and I now make meat loaf “patties” and eat turkey parts with New Faithful. I don’t peel anything except broccoli stalks, and my freezer now holds large bags of ice because I live in hurricane country and want to be prepared for the worst (I’m working on weaning myself away from this). Since adapting to new life parameters, I’ve really shrunk down our “food footprint” so to speak—fewer foods, less money spent on them in total, even less hidden sickness than before (cholesterol level, blood sugar, blood pressure, etc.), less cupboard and freezer space tied up with marginal foods, less time spent trying to decipher nutrition “warning” labels, even less prep and cook time, less storage prep time, fewer food storage contraptions, fewer pots and pans to deal with it all (and the storage of those too), and far fewer dirty dishes to contend with. The electric company keeps asking me what my secret is for such a low energy bill, and I keep telling them: fluorescent bulbs, car windshield shades in sunny windows, and a toaster oven.

Me slave away in the kitchen for meals? Not on your life! It’s meat in the toaster oven, higher-antioxidant salad components mixed and in the fridge, and the 5:00 news on TV while I wait for the *bing!* Then I do it all again for breakfast, lunch (if hunger strikes), and dinner the following days. Hubby takes “pre-leftovers” for lunch at work as before (I pack his lunch using some of what we’re having for dinner).