This Old Economist: Four astute predictions

I love wee blurbs that quote big numbers about the economy. They can be found in the Business section of many newspapers.

I love the blurbs because they say so little, thereby allowing me to say so much, without ever repeating myself. (Well, hardly ever).

Example: Go Figure - Today’s big financial numbers

$4.2 Billion - The value of sales in Canada’s cafes, bars and restaurants in January, down 0.5% from December, Statistics Canada said. The price of food purchased rose 0.5%. (April 1, London Free Press)

Okay, now my turn. Canadians make 17.7 million visits to restaurants on a typical day. The average size of Levis worn in this country is XXXH, as in HUGE.


["Coming soon to Canada - XXXH2 jeans": photo link]

Four astute predictions:

The price of food purchased in restaurants, cafes, bars, street carts, etc., will continue to rise.

The number of visits will soon fall to 17.6 million per day.

The value of sales will drop to $4.1999999 billion by Wednesday, maybe later.

Canadians will be healthier for it.

***

Please click here for more news from This Old Economist

Is ‘restaurant trouble’ BIG trouble? Click here to find out.

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Live Small: Do we need another medium-sized potato chip company?

There’s a first time for everything.

(Have you tried my oatmeal recipe that includes diced cranberries and ground almonds? If you’re feeling a bit peckish, call me).

A recent letter to the editor (Feb. 16, London Free Press) got me thinking about small- and medium-sized companies. Not to open one, mind, but where, and what should they make.

Bill H. writes:

“It’s depressing to see the powers that be at city hall planning for the next 50 years, using ideas from the last 50 years.”

I’m pretty sure Bill is referring to the talk about developing more land for industrial use out by the 401, a super-highway that connects London to Windsor, Detroit, and the American mid-west on the one hand (incl. Route 66 if you can find where it starts in Chicago), and our arch-rival Waterloo, then Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Labrador and the Eastern Seaboard (incl. the Maritimes and NYC and all that The Big Apple entails) on the other hand.


["I thought, the things we touch disappear!"]

Sure, smog and diesel fumes are associated with super-highways, and the price of oil will one day put the kibosh on many manufactured goods, but if we can get those miles of expensive tarmac to help us back into the Top Ten of Canadian cities (i.e., population-wise; the Happiness Index, aka HI - Ya, is another story) we should maybe start digging ourselves a deep hole - for solid foundations, I mean.

What’s Bill think about this?

“Handing out corporate welfare to large companies and hoping they make a few jobs doesn’t work anymore.”

“More jobs are created by small- and medium-sized companies than large ones.”

Bill gave several reasons to support his assertion, e.g., “their owners are more likely to live in the community , raise their families here...” etc.


["More chips? More soda? More beef? More pork? More?"]

However, rather than giving a thumbs up to Bill and thumbs down to more big business as usual, or visa versa, my mind went in another direction.

It happens on occasion. I have just learned to go with the flow. Something I learned in the 1960s perhaps.

I thought, should we consider what any small-, medium- or big-business is producing before we throw support behind it?

For example:

In light of North American consumption patterns, do we need a medium-sized potato chip company within driving distance, or even a small one?

In light of rising oil prices and global consumption, do we need industries that rely on huge trucks for supplies and distribution? Remember how quiet the 401 became when oil prices hit the $130 - 140 range a couple of years ago?


["Maybe we need to train for tough times ahead": photos GH]

Should municipal governments (all levels really) be driving sustainable lifestyles, including reductions in production of many non-essential goods, rather than driving the economy with expensive growth near the highway?

Should City Halls consider and discuss what goods, food stuffs, jobs and resultant lifestyles will be sustainable for the next 50 years?

Sure, I’ll have to live until I’m 111-years old to find out but... there is a first time for everything.

***

Please click here for a series of posts with a Live Small frame of mind.

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It Strikes Me Funny - Conclusion: KFC’s Double Down sandwich

All I can say is thank goodness.

‘Canadians will not get to enjoy Double Down’ says a newspaper clipping from the April 13 issue of the local Free Press.

After reading about what makes up a Double Down (it’s two pieces of bacon and two slices of cheese smothered with the Colonel's Sauce with two fried chicken patties as buns) I felt I should become a member of the Food Police and strike it from menus wherever it may be found, along with triple pattie burgers and anything else containing enough calories to scare buzzards off a gut wagon.


[Dear KFC - keep the DD out of Canada; we're already getting too big for our pants"]

For those who can’t believe what I’m saying and are warming up the car to drive to the nearest KFC for lunch, afternoon snack and supper combined in one huge sandwich, here is what the brief news clipping said:

"The Double Down is currently not available in Canada," the company said in a statement sent to QMI Agency. "KFC Canada closely monitors customer response to all international and U.S. product launches and continuously evaluates opportunities to test these new menu items in Canada."

I suppose if no one dies right away from eating the DD in the USA, it will appear in Canada in time for high school graduation festivities.

Good luck with your thighs, Canadian grads!

***

Repeat after me -

I solemnly swear I will never eat a Double Down. So help me pancreas (and all other internal organs).

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It Strikes Me Funny Pt 2: KFC’s Double Down sandwich

This just in:

Some people are madly tweeting about the new KFC Double Down sandwich, which is not called a chicken sandwich even though it’s two pieces of bacon and two slices of cheese smothered with the Colonel's Sauce with two fried chicken patties as buns.

(I suppose it’s called the Double Down because after you eat one you double over and are down for the count).

When I googled KFC Double Down, out of morbid curiosity, a few tweets started to appear.

Here’s the latest one:

My chem prof just called kfc's double down a weapon of mass destruction... Jash M.

Here’s another:

As soon as Liz and I saw the KFC "Double Down" commercial last night she said, "Shut up." I had not said a word yet. BLF

Another:


["I'd use a fork to poke at it. Is it real?"]

I'm gonna go try out a KFC Double Down. Pray for my survival. BT

Tweets are coming fast and furious. Wow, the Double Down seems to be all the rage in the USA.

Are you in on this, or praying for the survival of your fellow countrymen?

Oops, here’s another:

Just finished the KFC Double Down. Had four bites with hand, ate the rest w/fork & knife. Sandwich was finished at 1:58 PM. Will update. gg

While waiting for the update (I’m on pins and needles) ‎I’ll mention that a few people have commented that KFC isn’t the only fast-food chain that is going super big and bunless.

That’s right. If the Double Down isn’t for you, perhaps I could interest you in a Mr. Potatoskin Sandwich.

Please click here to read Pt 3 The Double Down

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It Strikes Me Funny Pt 1: KFC’s Double Down sandwich

“No way,” I said.

My wife said nothing.

I was channel surfing the other night and came across a report about a new chicken sandwich from KFC in the USA and couldn’t believe my eyes.

“No way. This is...” I said, then stopped and pointed, as if the chicken sandwich, the size of a breadbox, couldn’t be seen from where my wife was sitting, which was at the other end of the same sofa I was sitting on.

“This is what’s wrong with the world,” I finished.

While listening to the mini-documentary/heart-attack-waiting-to-happen-update, I learned KFC’s latest menu item wasn’t in fact a chicken sandwich.

It is two pieces of bacon and two slices of cheese smothered with the Colonel's Sauce with two fried chicken patties as buns.


["Why is it called Double Down? Do you double over?": link to photo w comments]

No regular bun. The chicken is the bun.

“You and I couldn’t finish one of those off together,” I said. “How can people eat that stuff?”

During the TV report, I saw various people, i.e., moms, dads, young children, reacting to the Double Down.

I noticed a lot of positive and surprised reactions.

“Oh, it’s big.”

“Oh, where’s the bun?

“Oh, this is so good?”

“Yeah, I like this.”

“Hey, how come there’s no bun?”

I also noticed no one reacted the way I would have reacted. Nobody asked for a fork so they could poke at it to see if it was real.

And nobody asked, “Do I really need this much meat for this one meal, or for today, or this week?”

Would you eat a KFC Double Down?

Please click here to read Pt 2.

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The Four EEEEs Pt 1: Oh, what a tangled web we weave

Surely you read this. Surely your jaw dropped.

Surely you at least put down your bottle of prescription medicine for a moment to read the fine details.

A recent headline shouted, Canadian seniors take 5 prescription drugs on average.


Wha...!?

I immediately thought, if this isn’t a story that entangles issues related to the Four EEEEs (Economy, Environment, Education and Entertainment) I don’t know what is.

I read the following:

The Canadian Institute of Health Information study says 67% of people over 65 take five or more types of drugs, 21% take 10 or more and 6% take 15 or more.

Public spending on prescription drugs in 2009 totalled $11.4 billion, a significant chunk of which was spent on seniors, the report says. (Mar. 20, The London Free Press)

Though I’m not 65, so the report obviously didn’t apply to me, I quickly spit out the hotdog smeared in four condiments I happened to be eating. (Usually I add five but we were out of cheddar cheese cubes).

Let’s look at this another way.

Say you walk into a fast-food restaurant and notice a group of 65-year olds tucking into cheeseburgers and fries.

2 out of 3 have 5 or more pill bottles hidden away.

1 in 5 have 10 or more bottles of pills.

And 1 in 16 has a sore shoulder from carrying 15 or more bottles of pills.

Only 1 in 3 of the seniors has four or fewer prescriptions.

I must ask: How many seniors are not taking any prescription drugs? There must obviously be very few.

Why are so many seniors taking medications?

The article says the following:

Statins, which are used to treat high cholesterol, are the most commonly prescribed drug, with 40% of seniors taking them.

Next on the list are ACE inhibitors, which 32% of seniors use to treat heart failure and high blood pressure.

The above raises more questions, doesn’t it?

***

Please click here to read Part 2.

How many prescription medications are you taking?

Are there preventative measures that are just as helpful, if not more so, than prescriptive measures?

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Will troubles near and far affect my grocery bills? Likely

Perhaps the recent summer-like weather will alleviate food production problems some local farmers are complaining about.

[Note: I didn’t say ‘summer weather’ because, thanks to climate instability, summer hasn’t really arrived yet. Yes, my cherry tomatoes are coming along well but my peas are lagging behind. Sorry, I digress. Back to more pressing problems.]

The big three crops in SW Ontario - corn, soy and winter wheat for cattle and human consumption - need typical summer weather to do well, and areas farmers are hoping August won’t be a repeat of July.

If we don’t get hot weather, we’ll likely experience higher bread and beef prices in the fall and winter.

However, worse still will be the affects of the very low water levels in California.


["Heads up": photo link]

Though our region is fairly well known for its bread and beef, California is world famous for its fruit and vegetable production, and if crops and employment stumble or fall there, the negative ripple affects will be felt across North America.

Higher grocery bills are one thing. We can just reduce our food intake, excessive to the extreme in many U.S. and Canadian homes.

But can we handle an even bigger and farther reaching recession if and when water resources begin to fail?

Link to Drought update.

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Grocery Store Blues: ‘Tis the season to make oatmeal fa-la-la-la-la

On Sunday morning, the first day of autumn, and the day after my son’s wedding, several family members and friends met at Hellen’s Diner for breakfast.

(It’s off Highway 35 near Fenelon Falls. Ask me for directions).

A few leaves were turning colour and I caught the smell of oatmeal in the outside air.


Once inside the diner I noticed our group dominated the small space.

I was greeted nervously.

“How many more are coming?” Hellen asked, wide-eyed.

“Maybe a few more, but we’re all easy to get along with.”

Normally, I’d order a good-sized and meatless breakfast but fall and winter are my oatmeal seasons.

Unfortunately, oats weren’t on the menu, and because I seldom eat manufactured cereals (one reason; 6 types of sugar in Kellogg's Muslix) I instead ordered and enjoyed two eggs, beans and toast.

This week I’ll walk over to Quarter Master in the Village to pick up bulk breakfast supplies for the next few months; rolled oats, dried currants, cranberries, raisins, cornmeal, cream of wheat, bran, almonds and walnuts.

I like to make oatmeal you can stand on.

Is it on your menu?

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The Grocery Store Blues: Ocean Spray Craisins too sweet by half

Crap. I’m up a pant size and my son’s wedding is just around the corner.

So, this morning I bought a new pair of pants for my suit, size 35 waist, and when I returned home made salad and soup for lunch.

Okay, I know about salad dressing. Lots of fat in many cases.


[Photo link: Obesity and cancer]

But I didn’t know how much sugar was in the Ocean Spray sweetened dried cranberries I sprinkled over my lettuce.

Nutrition facts:

In a 40 gram serving (or 1/3 cup) there are 26 grams of sugar.

When Ocean Spray proclaims that Craisins are “the sweetest way to eat a cranberry” they aren’t kidding.

No wonder they call them Craisins. After 14 grams of cranberries soak up 26 grams of sugar they are - legally - no longer cranberries.

And what’s a craisin?

Some manmade hybrid that’s sweeter than raisins by a long shot.

Ocean Spray should add:


The fastest way to shoot syrup into your butt

Instead they say - Fat and Cholesterol-Free

Whoop-dee-doos... I got the sugar blues.

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Cranberry Juice. Cranberry cocktail. Harmony Restaurant. Heart Attack.

Relax. I didn’t have a heart attack while drinking cranberry cocktail at the Harmony Restaurant.

But next time I’m offered juice I’ll ask if it’s real juice or counterfeit cocktail.

450 ml of cranberry poppy-cocktail contains 63 grams of sugar and I wouldn’t be surprised if most of it is high fructose corn syrup, the cause of much of the fat in this great wide land of ours.

And in your cheeks, hips, waist, thighs, breasts, upper arms and butt.


[Grandson Jack asking, “That’s five times as much sugar as we need... right?”]

Did I miss anything?

Oh yeah. I think my love handles are full of the stuff.

(It’s definitely time for me to hit the recumbent bike. Hockey season starts in two months and my team needs me - really needs me.)

At the aforementioned restaurant I poured a small amount of my cocktail over a glassful of ice and later took home the rest. So did 3 of my 4 companions.

We drank the rest with lots of water while swimming in the afternoon.

Conclusion: Sugar in the morning, sugar in the evening, suga at suppa time is more than an innocent love song.

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Sugar in the morning, sugar in the evening, suga at suppa time!

Geez, if I’d wanted a heart attack while eating pancakes I would have asked for one.

I wanted blueberries with my blueberry pancakes, nothing more.

Oh, yeah. And a glass of cranberry juice because that’s what the server at the Harmony Restaurant north of Fenelon Falls said she was serving.

But when the juice arrived it was actually cocktail and I’m smart enough to know there’s a difference - just not how much of a difference.

After reading the nutritional facts label and discovering how much sugar was in the bottle of cocktail, however, I figure the difference is somewhere between good health and a coronary.


[Closing in on a coronary bypass?]

I exclaimed in front of others, “What the heck? That’s a lot of sugar.”

Close your eyes and guess. Just take a stab.

How much sugar in a 450 ml bottle of cranberry cocktail?

10 grams? 20? 30? 40? 50? 60?

Someone might say, “Sixty? Get real, granddad.”

Yeah? Try this.

The label said 35g per... 250 ml serving.

Quick. Go grab a calculator. I’ll wait.

Stay tuned.

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Really, I’m not 100% juiced but I wanna be

Ever since reading Sugar Blues by William Dufty several years ago I banned soda pop from my diet.

Get offa my porch, stop your knockin’, I say. Thou shalt not cross my lips.

I don’t drink Coca-Cola, Pepsi or Dr. What’s-his-name because even though I run on a treadmill and ride a recumbent bike 3 - 4 times per week I have trouble keeping my love handles down to the size of small pillows.

Besides, one beer or can or Guinness before supper is surely enough sugary drink for one day.


[I repeat: This is not me. It's definitely some other guy.]

“Since 1985, an American’s annual consumption of high-fructose-corn-syrup has gone from 45 to 66 pounds. You might think that this growth would have been offset by a decline in sugar consumption, since HFCS often replaces sugar, but that didn’t happen: During the same period our consumption of refined sugar actually went up by five pounds.”

“What this means is that we’re eating and drinking all that HFCS on top of the sugars we were already consuming. In fact, since 1985 our consumption of all added sugars - cane, beet, HFCS, honey, maple syrup, whatever - has climbed from 128 pounds to 158 pounds per person.” pg. 104, The Omnivore’s Dilemma

Now, I do like to drink real fruit juices but they’re getting squeezed off grocery store shelves by cocktails and blends and stuff that is a very poor excuse to cram more HFCS down my throat. (We’re buried in cheap corn, so get used to HFCS being added to just about everything we eat and drink.)

So, help. What’s a poor boy to do?

I want good juice in the fridge. What’s best?

More meaty quotes from The Omnivore’s Dilemma

I generally do my best reading while riding a recumbent bicycle in the basement.

My concentration is deep, pages fly by, I underline with jiggly lines many world famous quotes (well, they will be once everyone reads the same book and sees things the way I do), calories fall to the floor, beads of sweat form on my brow.

Not all of the beads are produced by the much-needed exercise.

In The Omnivore’s Dilemma Michael Pollan writes:

“When humankind acquired the power to fix nitrogen (make fertilizer from mountains of ammonium nitrate left over from WWll munition production in the U.S.), the basis of soil fertility shifted from a total reliance on the energy of the sun to a new reliance on fossil fuel.” (pg. 44)

Of course, being self-reliant is commendable in many ways but we supplant the sun at great personal and environmental cost.

The personal: Mountains of fertilizer turn into mountains of corn which, along with a mountain of antibiotics and truckloads of fat, feed millions of cows that become the meal of the day (in North America we eat a fifth of our meals in cars and feed a third of our children at a fast-food outlet every day) for an obese population.


The environmental: “The ultimate fate of the nitrates spread on cornfields (e.g. in Iowa) is to flow down the Mississippi into the Gulf of Mexico, where their deadly fertility poisons the marine ecosystem... creating a dead zone as big as the state of new Jersey”. (pg. 47)

I’ve finished only 20 per cent of the book so I’ve many miles to pedal before more important lessons have been learned.

But I can almost guarantee I’ll be less beefy by the time I reach the last page.