Pollywogs!

So I noticed something weird when on a service call recently.  Usually stop at Sheetz if my trip is more than three hours for a pitstop, and I usually buy a Naked juice drink if they don’t carry Honest Tea at that particular store.  So, instead of my usual Blue Machine, I grabbed a rather delicious looking Strawberry Banana puree, and was not disappointed at all by the taste.

It wasn’t until I looked at the nutrition information that my dismay began to grow.  Click on that link, wait for the horrible flash website to finish it’s spasms, and click both “What’s Inside” and “Nutritional Information”.  Notice anything strange?   It claims to have over twenty pureed strawberries and more than a whole banana, chopped up and inside the bottle.  Great, right?  Look at the nutritional information.   No Vitamin C, no Fiber.

Let’s assume the strawberries are medium sized (12 grams each), and make about a cup pureed (232 grams).  Supposed to be 227% of your daily Vitamin C and 5 grams of fiber, but the bottle claims none.

Let’s assume they used one large banana at 136 grams.  Supposed to be 20% of your daily Vitamin C and another 4 grams of fiber, but the bottle claims none.

So how did they get rid of 247% of your daily Vitamin C and 9 grams of your RDA for fiber out of the strawberry and banana puree?  I wrote to ask them, and their first reply was a horrible form letter which completely ignored my question.  Not to be deterred, I wrote back politely and again asked what happened to the nutrients:

Yes, I grabbed the one I purchased because it contained puree, and I prefer a drink with a little heft to it. I usually get Blue Machine considering how delicious it is, but in this case decided on something a little different.

I noticed, however, that you didn’t address my question in your reply: the bottle claims 22 strawberries, the ingredients list strawberry puree, yet the nutrition panel claims there isn’t any fiber or Vitamin C in it.

A month later, they get back to me:

First I’d like to provide information regarding the amount of vitamin C in our Strawberry Banana smoothie. Generally, yes, strawberries are a good source of Vitamin C; however, Vitamin C can degrade in the presence of oxygen. Our “Enjoy By” dates -by law- need to reflect the amount of nutrients in the product. There may be losses as a result of distribution and exposure to oxygen along the way. So you may see 0% listed on the package for this reason.

Regarding the amount of fiber in our Strawberry Banana, our smoothies do include fruit purees in which the seeds and/or peels of the fruit are included in the bottle so there may be traces of fiber from these parts of the fruits. Fruit juice is known to not have much fiber naturally because we’re not including the actual fruit in the beverage. Usually the skin, rinds, and mass of the fruit–that gives fruit its fiber–is left behind after it’s juiced. The value of fiber listed is what is measured on analysis and we are held to FDA standards for nutrition labeling.

So, the long and the short of it is the Vitamin C degrades because the long process between a raw food and the bottle you enjoy from the cooler.  The fiber was never the bottle at all, it depended upon the definition of ‘puree’.  Not simply “to grind or crush food“, but specifically to strain the food.

And this seems uniform across their bottles.  I never bothered reading beyond the nutritional information and the “What’s Inside”.  My beloved Blue Machine has fiber and Vitamin C added back into it.   So, I guess it is healthier by far than soda or mainstream tea, probably healthier than a low-sugar tea, but in no way is it anything close to a whole food as their labeling would have you believe.  I’ll probably skip the expense from now on and just grab an Honest Tea at 60 per bottle and save myself the extra 280 calories.

In reference to this: http://irregulartimes.com/index.php/archives/2010/02/25/patriot-act-without-reforms-passes-house-roll-call-included/

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I am writing to request you explain why you voted to extend the Patriot Act in light of the widespread violations of constitutional rights that took place under it, and the abuses of the powers it granted.

Please save me any song and dance routine with regards to national security.  I’ve read the party line:

“In the end, it became non-controversial,” Senate Committee on Homeland Security Chairman Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) told POLITICO. “[There was] the growing concern about increase on the pace of attacks on the homeland… and frankly, I think the Patriot [Act] got a bad name under the Bush Administration.”

“Increase on the pace of attacks on the homeland”?  The Sender Gleiwitz? The Reichstag?  The Shoe Bomber?  The Underwear Bomber?  Pathetic.

I guess I’m writing mainly to express frustration with the horribly travesties carried out against the US citizenry in our recent history, between our soldiers being used to create banana republics in the Middle East (Halliburton this time instead of Dole), our taxes being used to line the pockets of the ultra-rich (Geither making sure his Goldman buddies make out literally like bandits being simply the latest installment), our civil liberties being trodden upon (the FBI issuing NSL AFTER a FISA court denied them)…and don’t get me started on this farcical attempt at health care reform, with the talking points being it is impossible for the government to run health care, pretending the US public has no knowledge of any country outside of our own borders…

I guess you could sum things up by saying that there is growing opinion that the government is not only ignoring the will of the people (which is has done off and on for the past two hundred odd years), but instead actively engaging in policies designed to thwart the power of the people and consolidate wealth and power within itself.  A government no longer For and By The People.

You know what?  Don’t even bother sending me your form letter, carefully crafted with talking points of why the Patriot Act is essential in stopping the Underwear Bomber.

I’ll simply vote for your opponent, and recommend anyone who will listen to do the same.

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Feel free to drop him a note yourself: http://thompson.house.gov/contact/index.shtml

So I saw someone recommended rice and beans on Reddit under a Frugal post where someone was looking for recommendations on how to eat cheaply short term, without adversely affecting their health.  I thought the “rice and beans” could use a little fleshing out, and somehow a paragraph turned into what I’d usually consider a blog post…so here’s a blog post!  I cleaned it up, fleshed it out, changed the formatting a little, added some more links to nutritional and product information…the usual.  Someone else broke down how to eat for $2 a day on rice & beans.  Enjoy.

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With the rice, try to get brown rice in the cheapest, largest bag you can find. The brown rice has more nutrition than white rice.

With beans you cannot go wrong.  I made some really great split pea soup yesterday from scratch, but you can make a pretty good split pea soup just with a bullion cube, water and a bag of split peas. Black beans are also nearly impossible to screw up.  I literally take my spice cabinet and throw stuff in by smell (oh, this smells like it’d taste good).  If you don’t have a spice cabinet, just get a thing of bullion (I suggest “Better Than Bullion” as even though its more expensive than regular bullion cubes, per-use it is actually quite a bit cheaper and its flippin delicious).  You may want to pick up a thing of Goya Sazon depending on how you feel about MSG…as it will also make your taste buds dance. Navy beans make a delicious soup….mmm so many delicious beans…

Split peas are nice because they don’t take any soaking, you just cook them till they’re soft (I like them completely dissolved).  My soup yesterday was some curry, turmeric, cumin, better than bullion, Adobo (salt, pepper, spice mix), two tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil, half an onion, half a bulb of garlic, one carrot, and a packet of goya sazon.  I literally just chopped the veggies, threw everything in a pot with six cups of water and a whole bag of split peas (rinsed) and let it cook for an hour (bring to boil, then simmer with lid on). If its too thick, add water.  Too thin…it’ll thicken as it cooks!  Took maybe 10 to minutes to throw everything in a pan, an hour of cooking and presto I had numerous servings of a crazy nutritious and delicious meal, very very cheap.

Split peas have a TON of fiber and protein, as well as a lot of other vitamins.  Black beans also are amazingly good for you, and delicious.  I love making black bean soup (pretty much the same thing, just with soaking overnight and hotter spices) ladled over some brown rice…wonderful food.   Beans and rice will see you through almost anything, last forever if kept cool and dry, are cheap and amazingly versatile (even if I just usually make soup cause I’m lazy)…dunno why folks don’t eat them more often!

Since this is just temporary I wouldn’t suggest any fruits or veggies (or meats, dairy or anything else calorie dense) as they’re pretty expensive.  Just get a decent multivitamin and you shouldn’t die of scurvy short term!

Someone else recommended potatoes, which I can’t really recommend using as a bulk source of calories alone.  Sure they’re cheap, but they don’t really have much in them other than starch (which basically becomes sugar as soon as your body starts processing it).  One thing they do have is Vitamin C, which may preclude the short term need for a multivitamin if you substitute two potatoes for one multivitamin a day.

Peanut butter toast is also really good if you can find cheap whole wheat bread, which is usually next to impossible.  I’m partial to Weis “Whole Grains” series.  White bread is cheap but is also worthless, you might as well eat sugar and a multivitamin…

There has been a change in the breeze lately.   Folks are realizing that by allowing the rich and the reckless to have access to our money, we’re enabling them.   A smaller, local and //fiscally responsible// local or regional bank is vastly preferably to a large faceless entity who literally does not give a fuck about you or your life while they’re playing chicken with the US government, knowing that if they are big enough an irresponsible enough we’ll actually pay them to screw us over…I’d recommend a credit union if you have access to one!

http://moveyourmoney.info/

Speaking of having some rich asshole shove both hands into your pockets, what if you’re in the market for a loan…or you want to invest some money?   How can you do such a thing without entering the dirty and crooked world of finance?  I’d recommend Prosper, but apparently they aren’t allowed to operate within Pennsylvania at the moment. Lending Club is a service that connects people who want to borrow money with people who want to lend money.   You could even do both at the same time if the fancy struck you.   How it works is that say 100 people each have $50, and they’re looking for somewhere reasonably safe to invest their money.   You have an excellent credit score and a clean report, and qualify for perhaps a 8% loan.  You’re looking for $5,000 for a used car.   The lenders see your request and then can bid on your loan.   If you’re a very qualified candidate you may so many people may bid on your request that they drive your loan rate lower than you’d initially qualify for based on your credit report.   If you’re a risky candidate, you might have a rate at 15% or even higher.   The entire thing is actually quite clever and works very well, basically inserting normal people into the position only bankers would have access to…cutting out the middle man and reinserting humanity into the equation.   Oh, and you can make a buck or two if you are fortunate enough to have some extra cash laying around.

http://lendingclub.com/

What if you’d prefer to be a little more altruistic in your lending?   Kiva provides microloans to good people who simply don’t have enough money to get what they need to get done.   On the surface it operates much like Lending Club or Prosper, but instead of a credit report they have field investigators who search out entrepreneur who need an infusion of money.   I could explain in great detail how this can have an enormouse impact not only on the individual you loan to, but their entire community…but I’ll allow the Kiva website to do a better job.

http://www.kiva.org/

I am reproducing it here as the Williamsport Sun Gazette gutted it of facts and actual content, leaving only opinion behind:

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Re: Turning our backs by Mrs. Joan T. Harvard of Williamsport, as found here: http://www.sungazette.com/page/content.detail/id/534117.html?nav=5008

It is easy to believe anything you wish to be so when you are ignorant of the relevant history.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Tripoli – “As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion…”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_Six_of_the_United_States_Constitution – “…no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States…”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_amendment – “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;”

We have freedom OF and freedom FROM religion. In no way, shape or form was this country founded on any single religion. This is a simple historical fact.

One of the drives that lead to the creation of this country was to get away from mandated state religions that were the norm in Europe, and set up a new state where people were free to worship (or NOT) whatever they chose in any form they chose. The attempt was to create a more perfect union. Notice the complete lack of references to Christianity? That is no coincidence.

It’s one thing to believe in whatever you want to believe in, it is entirely something else to be ignorant to the history of your own country and proclaim “THIS IS THE WAY IT IS, ALWAYS HAS BEEN, AND ALWAYS WILL BE”.

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This is the Sun Gazette’s version: http://www.sungazette.com/page/content.detail/id/534463.html?nav=5008

It is easy to believe anything you wish to be so when you are ignorant of the relevant history. We have freedom of and freedom from religion. In no way, shape or form was this country founded on any single religion. This is a simple historical fact.

One of the drives that lead to the creation of this country was to get away from mandated state religions that were the norm in Europe, and set up a new state where people were free to worship whatever they chose in any form they chose. The attempt was to create a more perfect union. Notice the complete lack of references to Christianity? That is no coincidence. It’s one thing to believe in whatever you want to believe in, it is entirely something else to be ignorant to the history of your own country and proclaim “This is the way it is, always has been and always will be.”

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Thanks, Sun Gazette, for sucking cocks so hard!  You removed my nod to Atheists for absolutely no reason!  You even removed the references from the virtual copy where there was no space or format limitation!  Fuck you too!