Another media myth

It's expensive to lose weight. And usually, if you read the entire article, someone explains that it is processed food that is expensive, not fresh or frozen.

It's January so newspapers are promoting their diet plans which probably have tie-ins with processed food companies, TV reality shows, and pharmaceuticals. News articles will also encourage coupon use, because they print them (they are ads that exercise your scissor muscles). Coupons cover up price increases and introduce the 15th type of Ritz cracker.

It's not expensive to eat fresh food, or even food labeled "organic," although that probably doesn't make a lot of difference, except to increase the cost slightly. The advantage to your health of not buying food fertilized or contaminated by sewage is probably huge, but by the time you get down to the minuscule, unmeasurable amounts of herbicide and pesticides on commercially grown food, which is where we are today with our health gate keepers who want to return American women to long food queues like Europe, the cost and health benefit is pretty small. You have a much better chance of getting Grandma's genetic links to cancer and heart disease than developing problems from eating too much fish or chicken on hormones. News flash. If you live long enough, everyone gets cancer or their heart gives out.

Anyway, today for lunch I took out about 5 spears of tender, fresh asparagus, rinsed them, and arranged a few "baby" (peeled) carrots from a bag, (always, always rinse) on a glass plate and zapped in the microwave uncovered for 1 minute. Add a dollop of low fat sour cream, a little salt and pepper, and enjoy. Then I had my sliced apple and 1/2 cup of walnuts, because I missed breakfast due to exercise class. The entire lunch/breakfast probably didn't top $2. You couldn't make and eat a bagel sandwich with potato chips for less than $4.

One thing mentioned in the USAToday article on dieting that I agree with is that half of all food dollars are spent eating out or take out. Combined with my morning coffee and our Friday date night, that's certainly true for us. However, I count about half of that as "leisure and entertainment."

Real food is cheaper

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The Correct Thing

I have a book from my grandparents' library titled, "The Correct Thing in Good Society," by Florence Howe Hall (Boston: Page Company, 1902). It also gives advice on what is not correct. For instance, if you are providing a luncheon for your lady friends, it is not the correct thing

for the butler to wear evening dress

for the hostess to be disappointed or troubled if her guests fail to do justice to an elaborate lunch, since "dieting" has become so general that it bids fair to overthrow the elaborate and indigestible ladies' lunch

to talk gossip or scandal at a ladies' luncheon

to serve chocolate alone after an elaborate luncheon

to omit providing each guest with a silver butter knife

for guests to "grab, gobble and go," taking leave before the luncheon is over

for the guests to carry off the decorations.

I've let my butler go--just too many slip ups at my luncheons, like forgetting the butter knives.