2013-02-21 Thu

Diet

Like some people I am becoming health-conscious in a way I could not have foreseen when I was a teen. My diet is considered healthy in terms of shopping habits.

I shop the "L", and if you think of your chain supermarket you'll see that means shopping along one side (fruit and vegetables), along the back row (dairy and milk) and avoiding the aisles (packaged and processed foods) altogether.

So an article on nutrition labeling in last weekends Toronto Star caught my eye; most of it I already knew: "less fat" doesn't necessarily mean it's good for you. Indeed, it is bad for your syntax and semantics. "less fat THAN WHAT?" we should ask; the label poses more questions than it supplies answers. And when did you last see a produce advertised as "More fat"?

Cheese with 33% fat is better for me than cheese with 45% fat is better for me than cheese with 65% fat is better for me than ... But the best cheese for me is a very little cheese, maybe a one-inch slab cut off a big block, and consumed with leafy-greens and salt-less crackers.

And so to the article.

The writer makes the point that anything that needs to tell you how good it is, probably isn't all that good to begin with.

The point is made that broccoli doesn't have a label. OK, you don't like broccoli? You just haven't cooked it right, but substitute "strawberries" or "peaches" or "carrots" or "green beans".

Got me thinking; excepting for labeling for weight and price and perhaps country of origin, could I make a decent meal from unlabeled foods?

Could I live for a day on unlabelled foods?

A week?

Let's see!

Clear Thinking

The first westbound streetcar stop east of Dundas/Spadina.

Simple translation:

"A Starbucks coffee for Canadians who do not think they like Starbucks coffee."

A less-offensive (to Canadians, at least) version:

"A Starbucks coffee for Canadians who think they do not like Starbucks coffee."

Makes you think ...

Second Use For Everything (SUFE)

I buy cheap laundry powder at No-Frills; comes in a carton about the size of a small car. I've been decanting it into empty 4-litre water bottles that someone on my floor tosses into our floor's recycle bin. Lately I realized that it's a terrible waste of a potential food-container.

I launder by soaking my clothes in a 24-litre pail to which was poured about ½ cup of cheap powder. Water is the universal solvent, as any chemist worth his NaCl will tell you, also that any soap or detergent is merely a wetting agent.

Soaked for 20 hours, I drain the buckets, and take them to the laundry room, where what would be a normal cycle of wash followed by rinse becomes two rinse cycles, removing every trace of dirt and cheap laundry detergent from my clothes.

Dawned on me that folks buy liquid laundry detergent and toss the bottles in the waste bin. Laundry detergent bottles, rinsed and dried, would be better harbours for laundry powder than drinking-water bottles, which are idea for storing rice, sugar, and so on. (Easier pouring and measurement!).

Here's a turfed bottle "empty" of detergent, right?

So I start to rinse out a cast-off laundry bottle in the kitchen sink, and realise that water is the universal solvent, and any soap or detergent is merely a wetting agent. That's unused detergent I'm flushing down the drain.

Here's the same bottle getting worked up into a lather.

So from now on

1: I don't buy dishwashing detergent

2: I use rinse-out laundry detergent for dishes (which I always rinse in fresh water after washing anyway)

3: I drive the superintendent batty by dropping a laundry-detergent bottle, empty, into our floors recycling bin every day.

There are but six apartments on this floor ...

Books

"Bookends" is a book-store within a library, the Toronto Reference Library, Yonge Street 100 yards north of Bloor. Books are 10c, 50c, and a dollar. A few books are more than a dollar, but you have to look hard to find them.

Here's today's haul:

All four books in excellent condition. The music CD is still shrink-wrapped.

Here's the track list, if you're interested.

I got the lot for $5.

China

On my way to "Bookends" I found "Hockridge", www.hockridge.com and fell in love.

You will find the 113-year old store on the west side of Yonge street, three doors south of Irwin, hence between Wellesley and Bloor-Yonge.

Here is the store front; you will walk inside and be trapped for twenty minutes, at least, overpowered by the sight and colour of the wares. I've popped in there three times; no hard sell; just cheerfulness and a warm welcome back.

It's way better than any porcelain museum I've seen.

For one thing you don't have to walk between exhibits; you are part of the exhibits.

Take your wallet; you don't have to spring $450+ for a dinner set, but you'll surely find a smaller item that will thrill one of your beloveds.

Second Use For Everything (SUFE)

My fingers are cracked open with what look like paper-cuts; my fault for walking around without gloves.

So I've been wringing my hands with hand-lotion and wearing my favorite gloves for a fortnight.

Today the wind was (mumble) giving us a wind-chill factor of (mumble-mumble) so I hauled out a cardboard carton marked "Winter". Shoulda done it two months ago.

That's my favorite pair on the right, woolen, soft, easy to fart around with the controls on my cell-phone while I'm listening to podcasts.

The other pair are effective. Both pairs came from recycle bins and have been laundered.

The blue pair have Velcro straps which insist on hooking up as soon as I take off my gloves, making it impossible to get them back on without first wedging the straps open.

Which made me think about a third winter glove, one with a huge Velcro square.

I think I'll detach the Velcros and use them, with glue, as devices to "hook" my mini PC-speakers to the wall, or to the side of my little desk.

Yes; that's a tube of Polysporin pushing its way into the picture.

Second Use For Everything (SUFE)

Candle-wax we love, us SUFEers; we melt it down, clarify it, then wonder what to do with the "plates" of wax.

Wonder no more.

Melt each plate individually (taking care) on the stove.

I had to snap each plate into quarters to fit it in my melt-pan, you can see the faint outline of a quadrant in the shot above.

I take a washed, rinsed and dried 500 ml cream carton, slice the top to make a hinged lid, and pour a melted plate into the carton.

Add enough cold water to make a ¼ inch layer of water atop the solidified wax, pop the container in the freezer for a half-hour, by which time the next melted cake (any colour!) will be ready for storage.

The two blocks on the left came from one ice-layered cream carton; the block on the right pretty-well had filled a single cream carton.

You can use well-cleaned paper coffee cups as well as cream cartons.

Second Use For Everything (SUFE)

So there's this as-new Hoover Duros (model S3950, I think) canister vacuum cleaner, looks as-new, in the recycling room.

I plug it in, power on, hear "vroom!", power off and unplug and lug it upstairs.

This is better vacuum cleaner than I own, or than the one I am selling on Craig's List. My friend is mad because it's better than her vacuum cleaner!

What's wrong with it?

THE BAG IS FULL!

I think the owner bought/received it as new and it came with three bags.

The owner did what the manufacturer suggested, and threw out the first bag when it was full.

The owner did what the manufacturer suggested, and threw out the second bag when it was full.

Now the third and final bag is full; there are no more empty bags, and the owner doesn't have a clue about how/where to obtain new bags.

OF COURSE the manufacturer wants you to toss the bags when they are full; that way the manufacturer can sell more bags.

I don't subscribe to that theory.

I cut open the bag for ease of emptying and re-seal it with small but strong paper clips.

Here you can see that I've cut off the top of the bag, the heavily-glued part. If you have patience, you can carefully unroll the glued portion, very carefully, and you'll end up with more capacity in your re-used bag than I, but since emptying the bag will be as easy as squeezing three clips, who cares?

Here you can see that, lacking paper clips and wanting to prove a point, I've stapled the bag closed with about seven regular staples from the office desk.

For safety's sake (I was demonstrating this) I added made another roll-over fold of the bag and applied a second set of staples.

LOOK! There's the part-number for new bags. Get on the internet or the telephone and have some delivered to you by mail.

Yes of COURSE the foam air filter was clogged; that probably helped convey the impression that this vacuum cleaner really didn't suck. A quick rinse under the tap solved that problem.

Now for the test!

I sprinkled some of the silvery-crud (Christmas decorations, spray-painted onto a bunch of dead twigs) onto the dark brown hardwood floor. I have splinters in my tongue because no vacuum cleaner can get these up.

I vacuumed with the Hoover Duros.

Voila! (or BINGO!) if you prefer.

Sparkles-be-gone.

And no, I didn't cheat by photographing another part of the floor, or by the trick employed in Free Ice Cream ).

Vermicomposting

The latest drop-through (gravity fed) tower continues to compact slightly. Although I have added some (uncovered) food scraps, the upper surface has fallen to two inches below the rim.