By Colleen Rothe

One of my kids’ favorite breakfasts is frozen toaster waffles. They are particularly fond of the Kellogg’s brand. I make them eat the healthier variety of the product, although I still balk at its ingredients, but our little town’s grocery store hasn’t had the healthier choice. The teenager at the checkout just shrugged and said they didn’t get any in. I wasn’t too concerned about it; I found another brand, which was less expensive and I thought had a better taste. But my Eggo-eating brood was too curious to let the questions remain unanswered. Today, we found out why the store was lacking.

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By Gene Ayres, Your Consumer Curmudgeon

This week, with a gasp of relief, I'm happy to move on from the excretory to the exhausted exhilarating exhalations of exasperation with exfoliates. And stuff. This week marks the 32nd Great American Smokeout, as if anyone was paying attention, since such a commemoration is likely to be just about as successful as a plea to, say, politicians to repent and start being honest and responsive to their voting constituents instead of just their rich and powerful friends—namely Corporate America.

Getting people to give up smoking, especially given that it is driven by one of the most powerful addictive substances in the world, is of course not an easy task. But I'll take a shot at it, because smoking killed my father, and he wasn't even a smoker. He worked for 40 years at AT&T, a then-progressive company that provided numerous benefits to its employees, none of which, unfortunately, included a smoke-free environment. Not even, in my father's case, in your own office, because he was a mid- level executive with a private secretary: one who, unfortunately, smoked. I guess it never occurred to Dad to replace her with one who didn't smoke, or ask her to do it elsewhere. Those notions had just not come into fruition yet. Years later, I was heavily involved in the struggle and campaign, first with airlines, then later (against much heavier resistance) with restaurants and retail spaces, for the right to breathe clean (or relatively clean) air not contaminated by somebody else's pollution. We started in New York, then Los Angeles and the Bay Area in California, and thanks to the Surgeon General's warning way back in the 60s, it began to work. As for Big Tobacco, it became increasingly difficult to deny, let alone gloss over, the fact that half a million Americans were dying from smoking every year, and that was just those who actually smoked and didn't include those who got emphysema and pneumonia from constant exposure to often thick clouds of so-called “sidestream” smoke everywhere they went. Like my father.

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By Gene Ayres, Your Consumer Curmudgeon

You had to see it coming, didn't you? How else to follow up on a story about the amazing power potential of pee, than with one about poo? And I don't mean as in Winnie the. Granted I may have thrown you a curveball with my hint at the end of last week's dispatch, “Next time: methane.” But this is but a feint, a side step, in truth, because methane is very much a byproduct of waste, human and animal and otherwise. It too is a very useful energy source and could be competitive with natural gas, and maybe, for the same reasons alluded to last week, it isn't going to go away any time soon, given its source (we, the human race, all our crap in all senses and forms, plus all that of our domestic mega-herds). The average American landfill repository of all that junk we consumers toss, just oozes with methane. Like at that cool dinosaur fossil pit in L.A., it is literally bubbling out of the ground. And it burns just like gas, natural or otherwise.

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By Gene Ayres, Your Consumer Curmudgeon

You'd almost think we were swimming in the stuff. First came that Off-Broadway hit, Urinetown, which made the subject downright trendy, and somehow garnished a heap of rewards, if not rashes. And for those who survived Katrina, or who swim regularly in, say, Lake Washington (where more than once I have watched mothers empty their young children's bladders into said lake), maybe you are. Or will be. Urine is everywhere, like it or not, we all produce a lot of it every day (granted some more than others) and just flushing it out of sight is proving less and less viable as a method of disposal.

Granted, it is a completely natural impulse to get rid of the stuff as quickly and efficiently as possible. Urine, of course, is not something we generally want to keep around, for obvious olfactory and other sensory, health-related, and aesthetic reasons. Anyone remember that nationwide drought in the ‘80s? We were all supposed to take fewer showers and there was a slogan we were supposed to use on bumper stickers in regards to flushing and when not to that I won't repeat here.

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By Colleen Rothe

By now you are all probably tired of me saying to plan in advance to save money. But that really is the best advice anyone can give. Anything last minute is going to cost big bucks. The point of Thanksgiving is about gratefulness and spending much needed time with family, not emptying the bank account for a giant meal.

Additionally, experts are spouting that nearly 20 percent of Americans who traveled last year will be staying home. That may mean a couple more folks around your holiday table. So the time to start saving is now.

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By Gene Ayres, Your Consumer Curmudgeon

Personally, I'm rather fond of food. I'm not sure where that started, but it goes way back. Of course, one might argue (as my wife is wont to do) that there is food, and then there is, well, food. Or as she would say, “Fooda.” When we first got together in China, she caught me eating corn flakes for breakfast. I'd found them at the local German-run Metro Market. They were Haines, but hey, they were still good. I was enjoying a bowlful when she came in the kitchen, took one look, and said, “What's that?” It was an accusation, more than a question. Feeling defensive, I explained that corn flakes were an American staple, and I being American, well, never mind. She remained incredulous, that I could eat such insubstantial stuff. “Well,” I protested. “What do you eat for breakfast?” She put her hands on her hips and glared. “Fooda!” she retorted, and stalked off.

I have since developed a taste for healthy Chinese food (as opposed to, say, take-out), having little choice other than dine out. But what I have learned from her is that there is a lot to be said for food that comes from a farm, instead of a factory. Which brings me to this week's topic: corporate food control. Which, unfortunately, a great many of us now take along with breakfast, lunch, and dinner, for granted.

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