“Let’s watch a movie.”

“Let’s watch ‘Dancing With the Stars.’”

We all watch too much and actively participate less. We need to get off of our butts and participate more. It takes exertion and so much practice, but we’ll be better people for it.

A few decades ago and prior ─ say, prior to 1930 and the evolution of film ─ I’m sure few people thought of backpedaling to a simpler lifestyle; most looked forward to “progress.” Life was hours devoted to subsistence with only brief moments of entertainment available to preserve one’s sanity. Gout was the “disease of kings.” I’m not sure today is any better. We have so much more time to “watch,” and less time required to “subsist,” but we’re also getting fatter, lazier, and today gout is a poor man’s affliction. Understand I’m no Brad Pitt, myself, and I too could probably drop 15 pounds without making my physician blink. A few of us still face a daily grind of hard physical labor, but even traditional heavy labor professions such as stevedore, miner, maid, farmer, and construction worker have been eased with modern technology. Almost all of us are rather sedentary today. We need to get out more.

Last week, on my way to my day job, I walked through a quiet vehicular traffic-limited canyon in my neighborhood and was amazed to see a number of joggers that early in the morning. They were participating; I was the watcher. It made me feel guilty, especially since my employer provides a locker room with showers. I used to ride my bicycle to and from work through that canyon. But then the weather turned cold, giving me an excuse to get lazy again.

When was the last time you participated in an aerobic activity, not because you felt guilty and “had to” like going to the gym, but simply because it was fun? The other night, we participated in a ballroom dance competition with 26 other couples, each couple performing a two to three-minute solo routine before an audience. The audience was “watching,” but we dancers were “participating.” I suspect our three minutes in a slow Foxtrot on that dance floor perhaps burned maybe 300 calories and a few ounces of sweat between the two of us, and then only because I was in white tie and tails while my partner wore a circle skirt that weighed a hefty five pounds. But the two hours of excitement in the dressing room backstage with the other dancers prior to our routine probably ignited a thousand more. And then you have to tally the calories in those countless hours we practiced for those three brief minutes.

In my very biased opinion, I estimate we placed third from the bottom in that competition. Latin dances are popular because they look sexy, and unless you’re Fred and Ginger, a Foxtrot can look rather sedentary. But a Foxtrot also looks easy ─ it’s not ─ so I’m hoping one or two in our audience told themselves, “Hey, I can do that,” and are beginning to think about participating instead of just watching. I don’t care if they dance; I just care that they don’t watch so much. “Do your own thing,” I remember hearing when I was growing up. Hmm! It’s April, time to start riding my bicycle to work again.

The chain offers pizzas in sizes “medium,” “large,” and “family.” But “mediums” aren’t on the posted menu, and somehow you just have to know mediums are available to order one. With a homemade green salad, a “medium” pizza provides my wife and me with two complete meals, thanks to refrigerators and microwave ovens. I always order a medium. And when I order, the smiling fresh-scrubbed high-schooler opposite the cash register always tells me I can get a large pizza “for only a dollar more.”

“No thanks,” I say, and stick with my medium. For as long as I can remember, I’ve seemed to be the only person carrying a middling “medium”-sized pizza out of that place.

For some reason, all pizzas carry a heavy caloric load. Our preference is the “gourmet vegetarian” because of the kick the artichoke hearts lend. And by ordering a meatless medium, we figure we keep the excess calories and fat to a minimum. And yes, we skip the “dessert pizzas” and other nonsense such as the two-liter plastic jugs of a diabetic’s nightmare. Now this chain has begun trumpeting its new “lite” crust pizzas for their lower calorie counts. Apparently, removing a “gh” and adding only an “e” to “light” knocks off a few calories.

Last night I decided to try one. “I’d like a medium gourmet vegetarian on a “lite” crust, please,” I asked high-schooler, expecting the “for only a dollar more” reply. Instead, she told me that the “lite” crusts come only with the large and family sizes. I was very polite and did not laugh outright in her face. But I’m sure she could see the cogs and sprockets begin to spin and whir inside my brain. Let’s see (spin, whir), lower calorie crust, but you have to get the larger size (spin, whir, spin, whir), equals, at best (spin, whir) more calories than a “regular” crust medium-sized. Still being polite, I decided to not walk out of the place and instead, ordered my usual medium gourmet.

But on the way home, I thought perhaps it’s time to do away with store-bought pizza, including the “organic” kinds in my local organic grocer’s freezer, and start making my own. A good friend’s wife is, if not a gourmet chef, at least one in training, and perhaps she can provide me with a great crust. The rest should be easy. I’ve done paella; pizza can’t be any harder.

 Are we? I get suspicious when fully a fourth of the “natural foods” ─ what a term ─ section of my local supermarket (owned by an enormous national chain) displays shelf after shelf of packaged supplements and vitamins. Plus the also national and enormous “natural and organic and otherwise” grocer across the street devotes more space to supplements and vitamins than anything else, save perhaps the “ready to eat” delicatessen section and ─ arguably ─ produce. Don’t get me started on the “cleansing” products. Somebody’s buying this stuff. I’m beginning to wonder if “eating healthier” isn’t just an excuse to dine at Cheesecake Factory, Red Robin, etc. as long as we swallow vast quantities of lycopene, ginko, etc.

 In last week’s newspaper there was an announcement that another national “lower cost” natural and organic and otherwise grocer is opening up a couple of blocks away. I’ll check this grocer out, but I’m not “excited,” expecting instead to find yet again those long stretches of supplement aisles. I’m not anti-supplement, mind you. My skin does not appreciate winter’s lack of sun and moisture, so Lucy has me on Vitamin D and Omega-3. Plus, I ingest medically-prescribed grams of niacin each day (thank you science for niacinamide). And I know women, especially, can always use a little additional calcium. I pray some of you will tell me you get enough calcium, thank you very much, without having to ingest a pill.

 I just wonder if perhaps we have succumbed to a pill mentality when a good diet would suffice, say, ala Nathan Pritikin. Of course Pritikin died at the relatively young age of 70, and recalling him I chuckle because I seem to remember him bragging on perhaps “60 Minutes” about his life-extending dietary habits. He seemed to have a more reasoned approach ─ anything in moderation ─ to diet than others such as Robert ─ “no noodles for you” ─ Atkins. Of course, when I say “anything,” I mean anything of reasonable nutritional value without the salts and fats our 21^st Century bodies somehow can’t seem to live without. Maybe Pritikin is one reason why I’m such a fan of Michael Pollan and the farmers he wrote about in “Omnivore’s Dilemma.”

Complain and thou shalt receive.

Last May, I Backpedaled about clothes irons, particularly about Mom’s ancient GE that ironed the family wardrobe for years. This past Christmas, I received as a gift from an old friend, in its original box, a General Electric “Steam & Dry Iron,” Cat. No. 93F50X, 120 Volts, 1100 Watts, AC Only, 3 Pounds, and built in Bridgeport, (not China, amazingly) Connecticut, USA. I plugged it in, and I’d be damned, the thing began to heat. The cord is haphazardly taped in places with adhesive tape, but I’ll repair that with electrician’s tape. Tomorrow, I’ll fill it with distilled water and try it on a week’s worth of shirts. Bet you won’t be able to tell any difference between a cotton button-down ironed on the ancient GE and a cotton spread ironed on the new Kenmore. Thank you, LuAnn for appeasing the iron devils that haunt my soul.

First off, I want to make it clear that I am no novice wine-maker. I have been an avid consumer of all brands of wine-making kits through the years, and am very proud of the clever labels I produce on my trusty Okidata 320 printer. But about a year ago, something happened that inexorably destroyed my standing as a responsible home-wine-maker.

It all began quite innocently, as these things always do. I am fortunate to live in a community spotted by fellow wine-making enthusiasts, and we often get together and swap war-stories about our craft. Or, I should say, got together, for those pleasant evenings discussing the merits of various brands of grape-juice concentrates, or manufacturers of camden tablets, of the exact number of drops of Liquid Oak to add per carboy, are gone forever, seeing as I am now a pariah.

But, as I said, it began quite innocently. A friend of mine, an avid home-wine-maker, invited me to a grape picking in Temecula, not far from where we live in Southern California. I gave my enthusiastic consent, and spent a glorious day under the desert sun snipping supple clusters of Cabernet Sauvignon off the well-tended vines. Quite eye-opening it was too, for in all my years of making wine, this was the first time I had ever seen the raw product, the actual grape, as it were, in its natural state. It was a welcome reminder that the source of my chief pleasure actually grows from the ground, and must be harvested.

I ended up with, as my share, 45 five-gallon buckets of grapes. Riches! However, the promised destemming machine was not delivered to the harvesting site, and I was forced to transport the grapes as they were, still on the stem, uncrushed. I arrived home that night, tired, hungry, and a little disgruntled about the lack of the promised machine. And here is where I committed my first sin: I succumbed to my weariness, and went to bed without properly treating the freshly picked grapes. In fact, I did not treat them at all.

Of course, the tradition of treating grapes is rooted in misty antiquity. No one really knows why it’s done ─ at least I don’t ─ but we do it because it’s “the way.” Here in our community we make a proper ritual of it, just like in days of old. We nominate a Sulfite Virgin who, dressed in a bikini, dances on tiptoe while splashing various sulfite solutions into the expectant maws of our five-gallon food-grade macerating buckets. Old Emmy Crabtree has been our Sulfite Virgin for the last seven years ─ she’s the only female we know who can claim convincingly that she’s a virgin, although, at 89 years young, it’s not really clear whether she’s actually a virgin or just forgetful. In any case, she’s great fun, and very accurate at chucking camden tablets into buckets.

I arose the next morning with the intention of properly sulfating my grapes, but fate, alas, intervened, and I was called away on a matter of utmost urgency, and did not return until the evening of the following day. My grapes, of course, were ruined. With a heavy heart, I purchased some plastic trash barrels down at the local general store, wherein I dumped my worthless grapes, planning to have the stalwart garbage collectors remove them in the ensuing weeks. I confess I exhibited some childish pique at this point, for, as I dumped the grapes into the 50-gallon bins, I punched them and crushed them, sometimes jumping up and down in the bins with both feet (bare, for I did not want to ruin my Ferragamos), taking out my rage on the innocent grapes. Thus spent, I covered the grape-filled trash bins and left them in the dark recesses of my garage.

Happy to put my abject failure behind me, I promptly forgot about the trash bins, and for a fortnight, pushed their memory from my mind. But the time came when I had to deal with them, and one trash-day, girding my loins, I descended into the garage intending to drag the first two bins down to the curb. My curiosity, however, got the best of me, and I gingerly lifted the lid of one of the bins and peeked inside. What I saw horrified me. The grapes had acquired a life of their own and were foaming vigorously. The heady smell of wine filled my nostrils. The
grapes had released their juice, and it had somehow taken on the color of the grape skins ─ deep red, jewel-like, and clear. I was compelled to taste this juice and plunged a plastic cup deep into the bowels of the bin. I drank.

No doubt about it. It was wine!

Sure, it lacked that kerosene after-taste of my best home-wine-making efforts, but it was wine, nonetheless. What freak of nature made this happen? I pondered the question, and came to the conclusion that some vestigial yeasts must have been present in the garbage bins I purchased. These yeasts must have interacted with the sweet grape juice, and some kind of freaky unnatural fermentation must have occurred. What were the chances of that?

And here is where I committed my second sin: instead of disposing of this monstrous must, I treated it as though it were a perfectly legitimate wine, punching the cap down for several more days, then racking it, racking it again, and, finally, bottling it.

My third sin, perhaps the greatest, came almost a year later. At one of our jovial wine-tastings, I produced a bottle of my monstrous abomination. My fellow-wine-makers tasted it and were seduced by its unnatural fruitiness and robustness. They peppered me with questions
about acid content, sulfating method, sugar content, alcohol content, food-grade dyes and flavorings, brand of yeast, etc., etc., and,
finally, I had to admit with shame that I had done nothing to the grapes except stuff them into garbage bins. My friends ─ my former friends ─ were appalled and disgusted. The next night, a group of angry men wearing black cowls and bearing torches descended upon my garage and destroyed my stash of unnatural wine. Emmy Crabtree no longer speaks to me, and the local children ring my doorbell and run away.

But there’s one thing about being made a pariah ─ it makes it easy to go on being a pariah. I mean, how much more reviled can I be? The answer is ─ none more. So, this year, I bought a lug of Temecula Zinfandel. The fruit is rich, sweet, and covered with some kind of white powdery film. I’m hoping my trusty trash bins still have some of that magical yeast in them.

Because, you know what I did with these grapes when I brought them home and dumped them into the bins?

Nothing.

How many gram calories does it take to increase the temperature of one gram of water by one degree Celsius? How much exertion does it take to burn off the food calories found in a typical restaurant breakfast? The first answer is one; the second answer you probably don’t want to know unless you depressingly know already.

We went to San Francisco to attend a dance last week, and ate breakfast one morning at an International House of Pancakes (IHOP) conveniently close to our hotel. I worked one summer at an IHOP during my high school years as a minimum wage busboy and dishwasher. Food was free and being a growing boy, I liberally sampled the restaurant’s menu choices. Outside of the hot fudge sundaes I made for myself, I can’t remember much of the menu expect for the pasta dinner “Spaghetti Man” ordered every Wednesday night when he dined at the restaurant. I haven’t eaten at an IHOP much since. 

Interestingly (and unabashedly honest), that San Francisco IHOP listed calorie counts for each food item on its menu. Sharp-eyed Lucy was the first to notice when her crepes registered in at 700-800 calories. Oops, upon hearing her exclamation, my eyes darted away from the menu choices of my usual breakfasts (1,200+ calories) to something a little more reasonable. I ordered a chicken fajita omelet (surprisingly registering at “only” 900 calories) excusing myself with the knowledge that I would be burning off plenty of those little caloric “water heaters” at the dance that night. Then, of course, our waitress passed a small plate of hash-browned potatoes my way, perhaps an additional 300-400 calories. I figured I’d be dancing a lot that evening, even though I’d be skipping lunch and worrying about the calories the dance’s dinner would add. 

The trick was to avoid eating the entire plate full of food, something I was regrettably able to achieve. I walked out of that IHOP leaving behind a three-quarters eaten meal, with a full belly but with a still hungry psyche. The IHOP menu was a revelation. Breakfast omelets, pancake dishes, and salads registering in at 1,200-plus calories when FDA values recommend 2,000 calories per day for the average slob like you and me. 

Knowing we’d get a banquet dinner that night at the dance, we spent the rest of the day touring areas of Marin County, the Golden Gate, and Haight-Ashbury without another bite to eat until we couldn’t stand it any longer and bought crackers, cheese, and beef jerky late that afternoon in preparation for the dance. Apparently, we’d burned the IHOP calories off by hiking. We’d burned them off because we knew we had to in order to fit into our dance clothing. But I wonder how many people don’t think about fitting back into their pre-(name your chain restaurant here) clothing.  

After four hours of aerobic dance, we ate breakfast the next morning at a small French bistro adjacent to our hotel. The menu had no calorie counts (I had the French version of a breakfast sandwich), and I’m unsure whether IHOP posted its counts voluntarily or whether Federal law required it to by its national presence. Either way, I give IHOP (or the government) credit for displaying those counts.

But that’s not the type of cruise I’m writing about. I prefer a “backpedaler’s” cruise, a bicycle to view the scenery and landmarks. The landmarks don’t require a side tour; they come with the scenery. The gym comes with the bicycle; the bicycle is the gym. Scrumptious meals are ever-present wherever you happen to stop since after bicycling you’re probably starving and whatever you eat is delicious. And eat as much as you wish since bicycling has already taken care of caloric excess. And at night, whether in a campground or a motel, you will be very relaxed, if not exhausted.

You will have to think, however, since you are the cruise planner And you’ll also have to think about your route ─ can’t bicycle from Miami through the Panama Canal to Los Angeles with Disney cruise’s Mickey Mouse. That’s not too difficult, however, provided you avoid large expanses of water. Plus, you’ll have to arrange accommodations. The internet and a cell phone with unlimited long distance calling makes that an easy, inexpensive task.

Bicycle panniers can hold enough gear for a week provided you’ve arranged for bedding and meals at each day’s destination.

A problem is getting your bicycle to the start of your cruise. We’ve transported two bicycles and enough gear for a week inside a Toyota Camry. Granted, the wheels and seats had to be removed, but they were quickly replaced once we reached our starting point.

We’ve also flown to our starting point to save a few days of travel time. Bicycles can be shipped ahead to friendly bike shops, but that costs about as much as renting. This past summer, we rented two nice hybrids for about $150 for three days, including a bike rack for our rental car.

Although our first and last night’s accommodations were free at a borrowed home, which included a borrowed car, our one week bicycle, boating, and camping “cruise” of the Central California coast cost $1,000, and we did not spend conservatively. I estimate $1,500 tops if two additional motel nights and a rental car were included. Remember to not pack your Tux and Ball gown. They’ll not be needed.

“But if you have a dishwasher, why do you have to wash the dishes before you put them in the dishwasher,” I’d ask my friend.

“I don’t know,” he’d reply, “my parents just say I have to.”

I could never figure that out. By the time I was out of college, working full time, and able to afford a home with a dishwasher, I simply scraped the larger collections of carbon molecules from each plate, set the plates in the dishwasher, and 30 minutes later had a set of perfectly clean dishes. I never pre-washed a dish unless, say, a plate coated with egg yolk or pasta sauce had been fermenting in the sink for a couple of hours. I just assumed that in the 15 to 20 years between the time of my friend’s pre-washing and my experience with a dishwasher the mechanical technology of dishwasher engineering had grown by leaps and bounds.

Dishwashers are one of those appliances that, in my book, once you have one there’s no going back to life before you had one. I can backpedal quite comfortably, but I have my limits. Turns out what cleans those dishes so well isn’t so much engineering as chemistry! Phosphates are what gets today’s dishes clean so easily.

Phosphates down the dishwasher drain and into ground water also promote the growth of algae which decreases oxygen supply for fish. Man mucks with nature once again, and nature always seems to lose. That’s one reason Oregon and Washington banned phosphates in dishwasher detergents July 1. See the following SeattlePI story, www.seattlepi.com/local/6420ap_wa_dishwasher_soap.html.

Like other offspring of small families, Lucy and I have a nice collection of “Grandma’s” china, silverware, and glassware, which, of course is never placed in the dishwasher. It’s washed by hand, for heaven’s sake! Our everyday plates are restaurant quality, and can take just about anything. But our cheap discount store brands of everyday glassware begin to cloud up within a month or two of purchase, almost as if they hadn’t been rinsed properly. I learned that phosphates’ abrasiveness also cause that clouding, probably why Grandma’s wine glasses are never touched by phosphates. We have very soft water, by the way; water hardness, a common alibi, is not the reason for the cloudiness.

We can’t have company over for dinner looking at their water glasses like Socrates must have looked at that cup of hemlock, so a couple of weeks ago we purchased new daily use glassware. And we also purchased phosphate-free detergents. The new detergents don’t work as well as the old better-living-through-chemistry brands, but at least now our glassware can remain clear, as will our consciences the next time we visit the fish in a lake. See the following Detroit Free Press comparison of phosphate-free detergents, www.freep.com/article/20100701/NEWS05/7010389/New-detergent-falls-short-for-some-buyers. And I’m now pre-washing dishes like my old grade-school friend did.

My daughter-in-law has her own ideas for homemade dishwasher detergent, a combination of borax and baking soda, plus vinegar for the rinse cycle. I haven’t tried this yet, but I expect I will eventually. My problem is once I start the dishwasher I usually disappear; I don’t stand around waiting for the rinse cycle to notify me that it’s time to add vinegar.

Backpedaling has its drawbacks. It almost always requires more work on one’s part. But doing one’s best to avoid phosphate-based detergents also helps our global home and also one’s wallet.

It’s been so long since I’ve made a car payment that I hope I don’t need anti-depressants when that inevitable day comes along and I have to purchase a new car.

And I’ll probably buy the next one brand new, as I did my current car, since I’ll be able to keep track of all maintenance applied to it. Sure, my dad always preached against buying cars new. “You’ll lose hundreds of dollars ─ probably thousands, today ─ just by driving it off of the lot,” he’d tell me. But that’s true only if I expect to sell it in a couple of years. Me, I drive my cars straight into the junkyard. When I purchased my current car, I could almost see the salesperson wince as he expected me to ask him how much he’d give me for a trade-in on my previous car. Having been taught to be polite, I never broached the subject. I ended up donating it to a charity and taking the tax deduction.

That was in 1994. I made my new car’s final payment three-and-a-half-years later, and I’m still driving it daily. During its first six years the car clocked about 15,000 miles per year on its odometer. Then I moved closer to my day job, and now drive it about 3,500 miles each year.

I know we tend to buy cars for the “sex appeal.” When I was shopping for my small commuter’s special, one salesperson offered to sell me his “low-mileage, fully loaded with sunroof and leather” model for a steep discount ─ what I ended up paying for my brand new car ─ and I had to laugh. “I was buying a car to get to my job,” I told him, “not to attract women.” And I believe “sex appeal” is a major reason why we tend to buy ─ or lease ─ new cars every three years or so. Thus, we’re always making car payments. Excuse me, I’m not! My car is not sexy by any means. Lucy convinced me the other day to get it repainted, a cheap paint job that will cost me what the car is probably worth. It’ll look great on the outside when I get it back from the shop, but then I’ll still have the shredded headliner and knob-less window cranks to deal with, but I can live with those considering how cheap the car’s monthly cost is. And a several hundred-dollar paint job is a hell of a lot cheaper than new wheels.

What did it take to keep that car running all these years? Oil changes were key. Rummaging through my pile of maintenance receipts, I see I had the oil and filter changed every 3,000 miles during those first six years. A slippery engine is a happy engine. Today, I’ve slacked off and now get the oil changed every six months.

I change the anti-freeze every other year, make sure the transmission oil ─ I drive a “stick” ─ and differential oil are at capacity, and check the other fluids such as brake hydraulics regularly. I check tire pressure every couple of months. I’m the only one at the gas station who has his car’s hood up during refueling. Look around the next time you get gas; I’m not kidding.

I’m no longer a mechanic. I performed a lot of car maintenance in my younger days when cars were sexy and I was stupid, including an engine rebuild. But today I’m tired, I’m smarter, and Lucy’s the only sexy one in my life. I pay professionals to change my car’s oil. I don’t let the “Speedy-Lube” guy talk me into buying expensive synthetics. As long as I’m getting the oil changed regularly, I don’t need the extra protection ─ and extra price. And I’ve found a mechanic who’s more concerned about my car and my repeat business than he is about his profits on oil changes. That’s key! However, if I couldn’t afford him, I’d willingly crawl beneath my car once again, wrench in hand.

When I bought my car, I bought it for the drive train. I’d owned three other models of that particular brand, including one with an identical drive train that I finally gave away (see above) with 200,000 miles on its odometer. That’s key also!

Buy the car that suits you and your budget. And ask around before you buy. Prior research is key too. I learned that from a tow-truck driver several years ago. He told me which two domestic and foreign cars he tows most. “Ask any tow-truck driver,” he said, “they’ll tell you.” Those are two brands I would never, ever consider, especially since neither are particularly cheap, and the foreign brand can get quite pricey.

Find a quality brand you can trust. Then keep the fluids changed and topped off. Find a good mechanic. Quality means parts of the car that you never considered maintaining will continue to perform. My car’s air conditioning still works after 16 years. Be your car’s best friend, but spend your money on whom you love.

I decided to upgrade to a better quality appliance and purchased a Rowenta for three times the price of the Black and Deckers. And three years later, the Rowenta began leaking water almost as fast as I could fill it. Ironing on a soaking wet ironing board is a basic lesson in futility, and the Rowenta soon ended up at the county dump. 

By his time, I had become a member of Consumers Union and used my membership to research irons. Black and Deckers, according to Consumers Union, were inexpensive and good for, yes, about one year. Rowentas, for three times the price, lasted three years before they tended to mimic the great flood, a net cost savings of zero, not counting the repeated trips to the cheap irons store. 

I eventually chose a specific model of Kenmore because it was highly rated. The iron weighs more than the Black and Decker and the Rowenta combined ─ not necessarily a bad thing ─ and so far has performed flawlessly. However, it’s only several months old. I’m keeping my fingers crossed. 

When I was growing up, Mom had one of those old irons with the braided power cord ─  a General Electric, I believe ─ that ironed the family tablecloths, napkins, sheets, shirts, skirts, what have you, until I moved away to attend college. She may still have it all these years later. As much as I like my new Kenmore, I doubt its lifespan will equal that old GE. 

My ironing board’s manufacturer must also be a subsidiary of Black and Decker or Rowenta. The board’s made of  some cheap, thin, waffled metal that quickly developed a noticeable depression in the middle of it. It’s nowhere near the quality of Mom’s or the hand-me-down board that came with my old hand-me-down iron. 

A simple clothes iron and an ironing board! What has happened to quality in our purchases? Have manufacturers gotten so callous that they can expect to sell us cheap goods that we can expect to replace in only a year or two? Or have we gotten so callous that we just don’t care that we can’t purchase quality consumer goods and expect them to last for most of the rest of our lifetimes? 

By the way, I found a quality ironing board. Now I’m just waiting for payday do I won’t have to pay for it with credit.

One of my common gripes about trying to eat healthier is how expensive it can be. Organic and minimally processed foods cost more. Plus growing one’s own takes a good deal of time, especially when one also has to punch a corporate time clock eight hours a day. How can we eat healthier at lower cost?

Every Sunday, the local newspaper gets plopped on my front porch, containing 10-20 pages of “money-saving” coupons.

“You’ll save the price of the subscription just by the value of all the coupons you get each week,” the newspaper peddler entreats me as I pass his booth at the local grocery store. “I already subscribe,” I reply, and quickly calculate that I would need to redeem $17.50 (delivery tip included; the deliverer’s good. Pow! Right on the porch before 6:15 a.m.) in coupons each month to pay for my subscription. 

But look at the coupons one gets! This past Sunday, I received coupons for overly salty condensed soup, some corn sweetener-centric candied yogurt, disposable toddler training pants, and dog food I wouldn’t feed my dogs. One coupon brags “real ingredients make really great potatoes,” but the potatoes (and “real” ingredients ─ mostly salt; read the label) come in that almost eternal shelf-life box. Then, there is one for a major label frozen vegetable with “the great taste of sauce.” I’d love to ask a saucé chef about that one. Twenty pages of this stuff; I could go on and on. 

Thinking back to my stubborn second son, and the struggle to toilet-train him, I just may have bought those training pants 21 years ago had they been available. The other items ─ no thank you.

 There are healthier alternatives for coupons out there, but you have to use the web to find them. A favorite is Organic Valley, www.organicvalley.coop. Coupons are limited to dairy and eggs, but Organic Valley of LaFarge, Wis. was given a four-star rating by The Cornucopia Institute, a major plus for a nationally distributed company. More widely known national organic dairies received zero- or one-star ratings. 

Another great site is OrganicFoodCoupons.com. This is a website produced by a family of six (including the Chihuahuah) that offers links to a multitude of organic products ranging from cereal through wines. Once you click on those individual links, coupons can be sometimes hard to find, but at least the site provides a handy digest. And it also has a brief tutorial of ways to locate and print online coupons. I bookmarked this site. 

Of course, like me, you may occasionally mistype a URL and stumble, instead, upon a place like www.organiccoupons.org. Similar in appearance to the above site, its first link, however, is to “Automotive and tools.” Sorry, but about the only thing organic about our cars is that they love to consume massive quantities of carbon. 

Many websites feature coupons for major national “organic” brands such as Dean Foods labels Horizon, Alta-Dena, etc. (see How Difficult Is It, Sept. 2009, Backpedaling) that I tend to dismiss, and you probably should too unless your parent or spouse owns the company. If you’re going to spend a premium amount even with coupons, familiarize yourself with what you’re actually buying. Think about it. You can often get a better price/quality ratio with a lesser coupon or even without a coupon.

There are so many websites out there offering organic product cupons. I did a simple browser search for “organic food coupons,” and found pages of links to sites. Like everything else, however, caveat emptor.

See you next month ─ promise!