Calories count

Marion Nestle’s simple rules

From The 3-C’s (Consumers, Consumption, and Confusion) by Mark Douglas

February 27, 2009

I love Marion Nestle and continue to find her quick and concise thoughts useful.

Here is the latest from her about some recent research results — Duh! (Marion’s precise word, not mine). Too funny.

Examining food budgets - Part 2

Spending to save?

From The 3-C’s (Consumers, Consumption, and Confusion) by Mark Douglas

February 17, 2009

Be forewarned: as always, my writing tends to be overly “train-of-though” (some would say a train-wreck of grammar) and is therefore often “enhanced” with typos and questionable punctuation — don’t hesitate to have fun making fun of it ... everyone else does ;).

Last week I started a series of posts based on some spending statistics that I have continually heard about, but never quite fully appreciate. These are meant to not to be judgements on the specific choices of others, but to challenge all of us to think about how we budget our money — in good times and in bad — and how those decisions effect both the food we eat and the healthier lives people generally strive to achieve.

Continue reading Examining food budgets - Part 2 »

Examining food budgets - Part 1

A few household statistics

From The 3-C’s (Consumers, Consumption, and Confusion) by Mark Douglas

February 12, 2009

Author note: be forewarned, I am a fiend for typos and questionable punctuation — don’t hesitate to have fun making fun of it ... everyone else does ;).

Over the last months there has been much discussion about irresponsible actions by the likes of Wall Street, the housing industry, consumers ... and the list just goes on. I continue to wonder how this all really effects the thinking of the average person in both the short run and long-term as it relates to food.

The word budget is part of every discussion it seems — and this is probably a good thing for people to start noticing again — but, do we really know how to put into some kind of context? Are we actually examining our own habits? Making the hard choices ourselves that we are asking of others? Is economic recovery really possible if it is measured purely by consumer spending?

Continue reading Examining food budgets - Part 1 »

Life as a Dog?

Treats optional

From The 3-C’s (Consumers, Consumption, and Confusion) by Mark Douglas

February 2, 2009

Completely unrelated to food, but loved these pictures of Calla, the dog, on the blog of one of our newer Culinate members Laura.

Check out the photos of the dog at the “beach”. Simple pleasures are such fun to watch!

Death penalty for Chinese food scandal?

From The 3-C’s (Consumers, Consumption, and Confusion) by Mark Douglas

January 22, 2009

Although I think what the company execs did in China is truly deplorable, but the death penalty? Check out this article from the BBC Chinese milk scam duo face death.

I guess these corporate execs won’t be showing up on other boards in the future, but what about the government officials who were responsible for the oversight and the actual coverup to keep it under wraps until after the Olympics?

Sadly, I think this could be a great incentive for more coverups in China. The next war is going to be on the food front, eh?

Cutting consumption... great post by Kelly

From The 3-C’s (Consumers, Consumption, and Confusion) by Mark Douglas

November 6, 2008

Here is a great story about quality vs. quantity.

Meat quality over quantity

Less can deliver so much more — again, perhaps cutting consumption be a good thing for a “consumeristic society” like ours?

Whole Foods - Unit pricing confusion on purpose?

From The 3-C’s (Consumers, Consumption, and Confusion) by Mark Douglas

October 20, 2008

With all the talk about the economy possibly going into recession (seriously we have been there for a while, but that is another story) I have begun again to look more carefully at unit pricing in the grocery store. You know, those hard to read tiny little labels on the shelf with the secondary, and ultra-tiny print, per Oz. or per Gallon prices printed on them.

This in turn, reminded me of a pet peeve of mine with some grocery stores’ confusing use of unit pricing on products sold. Are stores intentionally deceptive, or just sloppy at printing the price tags? I just don’t know, but Whole Foods just brought this issue back front and center with me yesterday ... I will get to that thought in just a moment.

Continue reading Whole Foods - Unit pricing confusion on purpose? »

Can I manage the Winter garden all by myself?

By Mark Douglas

October 7, 2008

My house is part of a house split into two. There is a large front yard that has been turned into a wonderful garden with blueberries, garden beds with peas, tomatoes, etc. all due to the hard work of my neighbor Hilda. She does a wonderful job of setting things up, choosing what will grow each year and I just get to harvest and eat.

The rub is that she and her husband Bill spend their winter in Melbourne, Australia, and she has been trying for several years to get me to run the garden area throughout the winter. The real challenge will be, “what to grow?” Oregon is fairly friendly in the winter, but I think I need some help. If blueberries grew in the winter, boy wouldn’t that be great (and easy).

Continue reading Can I manage the Winter garden all by myself? »