It's a squeeze

The food industry is always full of tricks to get people to eat products. I am always amused by the gimmicks. There's cheese shapes and fun packaging. Then there is the convenience of things. That usually makes me sneer. Squeeze up yogurt, crush cup yogurt, uncrustables... then they add squeezable applesauce to the mix.  Why is it so hard to use a spoon to eat these foods?  It's just another way to trick kids into eating something healthy.  You weren't going to catch me doing that, even if I did buckle and let the kid eat yogurt squeeze tubes.  But anyway, I was not going to spend more money for a gimmick.   That was until I tried it.

A trip to Meijer one day and we were all given a package for free. If it tasted good, I could see the benefits. The kid tends to forget to clean her silverware from her lunch bags..that makes opening any lunch bag a fear fest to me. I am scared of mold. It absolutely terrifies me. So I am starting to see it's perks.  It happened to be hunting season and I saw how that would be very handy to have. Then we like to hike and such. Okay, I have to admit, the design is actually pretty handy. But a plastic sack of apple sauce? It's not going to taste good. I can guarantee you that.  So I didn't brave trying the package for a while.

My daughter insisted they were good and that she wanted them for lunch. Normally she isn't much of an applesauce person. If I buy her a snack pack set of them, more often than not they go to waste. I finally realized I needed to taste this stuff to understand. I tried the plain apple and it was delicious! You know what that means! Oh yeah, show me the high fructose corn syrup and 3 types of sugar. I flip the package and get : apples.  No way, it's a straight forward product? Mind. Blown.  I can get behind a snack like that.  And then I start paying attention to all the flavors! They really branch out! apple-cherry, apple-peach, apple-mango, plus the typical apple-berry and apple-strawberry.  I tried all of them, except the mango cause I'm allergic.  I think the apple-cherry is my favorite.

So now I have to always have these on hand. With so many stomach issues, I have to eat a great deal of mushy bland food. You know how they say there's always room for Jello? Obviously that person never had stomach issues. You have to live on soft foods and jello soon becomes your enemy.  Having these gogosqueeze apple sauces is such a wonderful thing.

I have to admit, sometimes the gimmicks work. Just sad that plain pure fruit with no added junk is now considered a novelty.

It's cheesy!

Ever notice that name brand fancy cheese isn't as good as store brand? Seriously, try it sometime. Everyone avoids store brand because it's considered the inferior brand, the cheap knock off. You get it stuck in your head that the name brand is the best brand and that it is going to have the best quality for your dollar. That makes it reasonable to be priced higher. You pay more and obviously it is going to be the better cheese cause that's what we're taught!  So how do you find out it's not? Maybe you are short on funds and have to grab the sale brand. Maybe someone else brings it to a taco party...I don't know how, but somehow you get the store brand. Most people will think it tastes worse because they are tasting with their brain and not their tongue. How do you taste?

There are things I won't cheap out on with taste. A1? I never go store brand. It's always a nightmare. Velveeta? That stuff is beyond my imagination anyway so I'm not gonna risk it with some off brand. Ok, maybe these aren't good examples but they are two things in my fridge right this instant that I know I would not buy knock offs of.  Cheese though? I actually started buying the name brand cause it was cheaper than my store brand, and every meal I ate after that tasted "off". I thought it was me, but it became a consistent thing. Every cheesy dish was just not right. So I try the cheese solo and it is the cheese! It seems there is less taste in the "Good" brands. Cheese is supposed to be slightly strong. Maybe Americans don't like strong cheese, but when making certain dishes, you can't have a water down cheese or it's well, Americanized.  Slightly less flavored cheese on crackers is like plastic on crackers. If you didn't want that strong cheese taste, you would have just eaten crackers.

So, when you are trying products, quit thinking name brand is always the best brand. You are taught to think that. The market spends billions of dollars to make you think that way. Taste with your tongue, not your brain.  And that goes for life. Is it what you are always told that makes it true or what you feel that makes it true?  Yup. That's cheesy.

Here we go again

Well, I am foraying into the blog world once more. I just got done watching a movie called The War Bride. Very good movie about WWII. I guess a lot of soldiers met foreign wives and they had to be shipped home to new families. That's one heck of an adventure! Funny all the ways people meet. I met my husband at a Meijer. I was meeting his friend -a blind visit with an internet person. So I met my husband through the internet by proxy.  I don't get people who marry who've never met. It's easy to get along with a person when you don't have to deal with them physically.

So, besides watching movies, I've been thinking of starting up the old fashion pen pal thing. I also want to get a jewelry party done.  My friend makes the most beautiful jewelry and I hope I can help her out.  I asked her once where she got her designs from. She said they came straight from God. She keeps a notepad by her bed cause she gets ideas in her dreams. How intense!  I just love hand made jewelry. I never got into wearing a real gold chain with this or that on it. Diamond earings? Never. I hope I never get a pair. I'd lose one.

Well, I have a fussy pup who wants out. Dogs in heat have to pee every 45 minutes I swear. It makes me cringe about what it will be like once she has puppies in that belly.  That's not now though. I don't want to rush into it. I must think long and hard. The main thing, is I don't want to risk my dog. I really would like her and her daughter to keep, but I rather just her if I can't have pups.  I just want everything planned out for her. I'm also struggling with the concern if this is a good thing to do. There are so many rescues out there. Is it so wrong to want a puppy that you know from birth and raise up? I almost have takers for each of the possible pups.  It seems if someone wants a doxie they should be able to have one if they are responsible. I want to raise pets, not pedigrees and papers. But that's just another part of the decision process.  I don't want to jump in blind. Still something tells me to just get it done now. One litter, then everyone gets fixed and it's all over.  Oh, who knows.
Enough rambling for the night. Time to snuggle with the other half.

Let's Give it a Go

Well, I decided to try this blogging thing. It might work, it might not. All I will say is-it shall be random! Oh so random. Because that's me. I think it's a matter of ADD. I can't keep focused on a single thing for very long.

So you shall hear about traveling, gluten free living, my naughty wild puppy (who is actually a 2 year old mini doxie) and life with my disease.

Today's tidbit would be a review on a gluten free snack. I opened a box of Udi's Gluten Free Snickerdoodles. Straight out of the freezer and they are soft and chewy! Soft and chewy are two words you don't usually associate with gluten free. Baked goods tend to be dry and crumbly. Not these cookies. They are so wonderful. If they were warm you would think they were fresh baked. I never was one big on snickerdoodles, but I always keep these in my freezer now. They are mini cookies so one or two really hits the sweet tooth.

And another thing. It's really awesome to open my purse and discover I have money in there! How did that happen? I never have money! But, since I was sick over Christmas I never finished spending it. Now that I know it's there, it'll probably be given to Ray to put in the gas tank. Car eats more than all of us combined I think!