PRACTICAL PARSIMONY: Not in My Wildest Dreams...

Sunday, August 28, 2011

Not in My Wildest Dreams...

...would I have ever dreamed this product would be on the shelves. Not only is this wasteful of resources, a piece of junk, a piece of plastic, landfill fodder, but it also encourages unhealthy eating.

Don't get me wrong, I will eat a Twinkie. But, the container calls for a refill every day. Hostess should be ashamed of themselves. Oh...The hat pops up to hold a Twinkie.

This is the latest of the trend of labeling children's lunch/food storage containers with brands...Cheerios, Crayola, and others.

My parsimonious heels are digging in.

I don't believe I ever gave my children a Twinkie for school lunch. I made cookies for them.

Your turn
Are you as appalled as I?

7 comments:

LindaMAugust 29, 2011 at 7:37 AM
Disgusting. Its not just the commercialism either but the health aspect is disturbing to me. Yesterday, we were looking to buy pretzels for a short road trip. We were pricing potato chips too. We like those now and then but haven't bought them in a very long time. 3.99 for about 10 oz. of oil?!!!!
We ended up buying bananas. I just can't understand how people can afford to eat unhealthy foods in the first place. If I was addicted and needed to stop, the price alone would motivate me to lose weight.
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LindaAugust 29, 2011 at 11:27 AM
LindaM, exactly! The commercialism promotes an unhealthy lifestyle.

I wanted Ruffles potato chips because I was going to make pimiento and cheese. I like them together. The smallest bag Ruffles makes was $4.29. for 10 oz. The price made it easy for me to leave it on the shelf.
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BLD in MTAugust 29, 2011 at 12:17 PM
Oh, how sad! .... a twinkie a day keeps the doctor away...no, wait, that was something else. Yeeeesh....

Matt and I used to buy sweet treats at gas stations on roadtrips. Now I just bake cookies to bring along. I still get a sweet treat, but it was reasonably priced and not full of scray sounding things I cannot pronounce. All it takes is a little planning.

But, my cookies don't come with a super cool plastic container probably made in China and shipped around the world....
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LindaAugust 29, 2011 at 6:49 PM
LOL...a Twinkie a day would probably kill me eventually. I long for them if I see them. So, I just don't look at things like that. I mostly baked things for my children, like I said, but they did not get a dessert in their lunch very often. Grapes were a good dessert. Now, I just have to remember what I fed them and eat it myself. I remember the roadtrip junk when I was alone. Amazing how that stuff disappears.
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AndreaAugust 31, 2011 at 1:01 AM
I must admit I have caved and given my kiddo the occasional snack cake. Never a Twinkie, though. About a year ago, while pregnant, I really wanted one since I hadn't had one in years. My husband got a box, and I went to eat one. I didn't finish because I could literally taste the chemicals. The box went into the garbage.
And I HATE HATE HATE the commercialism of anything marketed to children. This goes for the Twinkie container, t-shirts emblazoned with Disney characters, and more. I bristled while caving in and buying my toddler an Elmo stuffed toy at a bookstore, but the child was not leaving without it. It is the only thing in my house with any sort of character theme. My children are simply not advertising space for these companies.
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LindaAugust 31, 2011 at 1:45 AM
I keep hearing how awful Twinkies taste now. So, I suppose in the interest of science or public welfare, I now must go buy one and see. I hope I don't have to buy more than two in a pack. That will call for a Twinkie post...lol.

When my children were little, it was not such a big deal. They got very little but I did not mind the Strawberry Shortcake and Snoopy products. Now? It seems to have gotten out of hand. They never had clothing with any emblem or ads. Well, the son had a hand-me-down Mr. Peanut shirt. It is much more of a problem now.
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LindaAugust 31, 2011 at 2:03 AM
Andrea, The occassional snack cake is not going to hurt any child. It is the all day feeding frenzy that is trash that hurts. I was dead set against feeding sweets to my children, yet they did have some sweets, just not as many as they wanted, as often as they wanted. Their father was the worst for wanting garbage to eat. I set a good example and ate a Hershey bar...lol....seriously, sometimes the three children and I shared one candy bar. And, we would share one Coke...I kept small cups in the car just for that purpose.
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Okay, hoping the annoyances have gone away.

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The Cast

Fancy is my favorite hen. She is one of the three youngest hens I adopted. Because she is so gentle and friendly, she may be the one I rescued when she was being pecked to death after she could no longer stand. She got to live in the house in a box. Sometimes, I let her sit in my lap while she was convalescing. Now, she comes to sit in the swing with me, cuddling up to my body like a cat or dog. She died in February 2012.

Fancy follows me begging, complaining, needing me to do for her. She talks to me in various voices. She allows me to pick her up and carry her. When she became an adult, her head was a darker red and her body was light brown. Around her neck were tips of black feathers. It appeared she had a necklace of jet around her neck. When I showed this characteristic to a friend, he said, "Oh, you have fancy chickens and plain chickens."

Chessie has a broken toe. I broke it! She had a habit of jumping really high and almost sticking. A raccoon ate her in October 2009.

Thelma is the blonde. She is also the largest hen and the alpha hen. I suspect the gigantic eggs are from her. She often squats and presents herself to me. She is top hen, but I suspect she knows she had better be deferent to top feeder of the flock--me.

Louise is the auburn-feathered hen. She looks like the true Rhode Island Reds in pictures. She is almost as large as Thelma. Some days I suspect she is trying to be top chicken. When I got Pepper, I found out Louise is the Alpha hen.

Pepper came here from the same home as the first four. We were discussing putting red pepper on their food, wondering if it really would increase egg production. Pepper is the only name we agreed on. She is terrorized each day by Louise. Even after the worst was over, she was and is still filled with terror and very wary.

Linda is owned by four hens. They allow her to fetch for them. She loves them dearly, so she allows them to boss her around. Linda comes out in the rain to perform chores for them and make sure they have food and water. She begs scraps from all sorts of places to make sure they have fresh fruits and vegetables.

Parsimony is not a vegetable

Parsimony is extreme care in spending money. Stick around and learn about my random thoughts on accomplishing goals economically--dumpster diving aka safari, gleaning, do-it-yourself, sewing tips, recipes, and whatever is happening in my life.

Okay so maybe "parsimony" is not your thing. How about thrift, frugality or just plain saving money? I try not to go the tightwad route as that seems to imply others will suffer from my habits.

Some of my not-spending habits have very much been a part of my lifelong habits. Other habits are newly acquired and are an extension of my lifelong not-spending habits.

I am very imaginative when it comes to substituting or making instead of buying. I will tell you about making a heater for the chickens' water. Not one dime was spent since I had everything I needed right in my basement.

Practicality must rear its head alongside parsimony. For example, I will use the dryer in bad weather or because of allergies in the spring. But, I will not wash clothes in a tub as long as I have a washing machine or can find one.

You may hear more about my four Rhode Island Red hens than you care to hear. They lay delicious brown eggs.

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Sunday, August 28, 2011

Not in My Wildest Dreams...

7 comments: