The Sense of Smell

Image via WikipediaOur sense of smell serves us in many ways.  The smell of certain foods cooking can illicit responses within us.  For instance, whenever I smell my wife's chocolate chip cookies baking in the oven, I immediately start salivating.  There are other food aromas that can bring about similar responses.

Smells can also alert us to potential danger.  There have been times when I have awakened in the middle of the night because I thought I smelled something burning.  Fortunately, it was something that had fallen on the burner while my wife was cooking so it was nothing to be alarmed about.  There were other times when somehow my wife's laminating machine was turned on accidentally, and I could smell it heating up.

There are other smells that alert us to things that might need attention.  My son still has issues with his toileting thanks to his special needs.  So there are certain obvious smells that tell us when he needs to have his Depends changed.  Smell can alert us to when foods have gone bad and are no longer safe to consume or prepare. 

There are certain smells that I am particularly sensitive to and can cause an adverse reaction.  At times, I often wonder if I am perhaps a bit to sensitive to olfactory stimulation.  One of the odors that I respond to negatively is when somebody wears too much cologne.  I am not talking about getting a subtle whiff of perfume or cologne when you are near somebody, but the overwhelming smell of somebody who seems to bathe in the stuff.

In my opinion, there is an appropriate amount of cologne for somebody to wear.  When applied correctly, perfume or cologne can be quite pleasant.  One should apply just enough cologne so that if you are in the near vicinity of that person that you can get just a sense of the aroma.  In some cases, it can even help to spark a sense of arousal.

Unfortunately, there are some who seems to think that the more smell good you put on, the better when in reality the opposite is true.  When I get into an area with somebody who has too much cologne on, I tend to have a negative physical reaction.  This reaction includes getting headaches, having my eyes itch and water, and a general sense of nausea.

Lately, I seem to be experiencing a lot more folks who are using too much cologne.  I will give you a few examples of the types of things that I have been experiencing.  At work, I park in a parking garage and have to go through a door to a small area where there are five elevators to take us upstairs.  I have entered that area to see nobody else around, but the strong smell of perfume remains in the area.  I have intentionally avoided getting into elevators with some that I recognize as heavy users.

The other day, I was sitting at my desk in my cubicle.  Somebody walked past my cubicle with an extremely strong odor of cologne.  More than a half hour later, I could still smell the cologne. I have also walked into an empty mens room to the overwhelming smell of cologne.  Sometimes I wonder which is worse, the smell of too much cologne or the smell of what is supposed to happen in there.

Years ago, when I worked at another job, we had a senior VP who used to bathe in  expensive cologne.  We could always tell where he was by the smell.  One time, I was walking near him in the hall of the building when he slapped me on the back and asked how I was doing.  I went to my office and he went another direction.  While sitting at my desk, I thought I smelled him, but I didn't hear him enter the office.  It was then that I realized that when he slapped me on the back he left his cologne on me.

I am not anti-cologne.   In fact, just the opposite.  When applied subtly, it can be quite an effective enhancement to one's persona.  However, when you scent lingers long after you have left a room, you have crossed the line from sensual to offensive.

Edible Cannabis

Image via WikipediaIn my job as a candy and snacks buyer, I receive a lot of email newsletters related to the food industry.  One of the newsletters that I subscribe to is put out by Natural Food Merchandising magazine so that I can stay aware of any trends in the natural and organic snack markets.  This week, they had a rather interesting article about the use of medical marijuana in food product.

Now, I am not, nor have I ever been a marijuana use.  I did try it a couple of times in college with a couple friends of mind, but all it did was make me cough.  I just could not manage to inhale the smoke.  I did have some friends who did smoke on a regular basis.  Some of them talked about baking marijuana into brownies, and I remember  a particularly funny Barney Miller episode where the squad mistakenly got high off of marijuana laced brownies.

The gist of the article was about companies in Colorado who were working on a variety of gourmet food products that are infused with medical marijuana.  In particular, they mention a company called Simply Pure that makes a wide variety of products that goes beyond the stereotypical pot brownies.  Among their offerings are pizza, sodas, energy drinks, cheese cakes, and candies.  Their goal is to product all natural, organic, gluten-free and sugar free foods.

The article goes on to include quotes from a doctor who specializes in medical marijuana evaluations and nutrition.  He talks about the benefits of healthy and natural eating for everyone, but especially for those who require medical marijuana.  In addition to healthy eating as a whole, the good doctor say that consuming medical marijuana in foodstuffs may be more beneficial to patients than smoking, due to a slower absorption rate in digestion and burning through smoking can destroy some of the beneficial cannabinoids in the marijuana.

I do not intend to get into the arguments on whether or not medical marijuana is a good or bad thing for society.  There seems to be some evidence that it does help some people suffering from cancer and long term pain.  Of course there is always the opportunity for abuse.  I can see the benefit of ingesting medical marijuana in food form versus smoking, just based on my experience of not being able to inhale smoke.  Though I hope I never get so sick that I will require medical marijuana. 

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Loving My Aldi's

Image via WikipediaA couple of days before I had my little scare, I had made the decision to try to get back on the "eating right" bandwagon.  One of the things that I wanted to do was to eat more fresh food, particularly fruit and salads.  The only problem is that all of those things are just so darn expensive at traditional grocery stores.

A while back, my wife had told me an Aldi store that had been open for a little while on the other side of Bowie.  I had been in the store once before and noticed that it was a bare bones operation with fairly low prices.  They do not carry name brands, but rather less expensive, for lack of a better term, off brands.

I decided to go online to see if Aldi's had any fruit on sale in their circular.  They had a few of my favorite items on sale, so I decided to drop by on the way home from work to pick up a few things.  Even though I had been in the store before, it was my first time buying anything,  When I say it is a bare bone, no frills operation, I mean it.

First, they have a cart control system.  It requires that you place a quarter deposit to get a cart.  When you return the cart to the cart corral, you get your quarter back.  Inside of the Aldi's store, they have a sign that says "You only pay for what you take home."  They mean it.  If you need a bag, they do charge you a few pennies for one.

On my first actual shopping trip to Aldi's, I did not have a bag with me so I had to buy one from them.  I purchased a whole cantaloupe, a pound of strawberries, a bunch of bananas, six plums, and six nectarines.  My total purchase price was a little more than $8.  I was hooked.

I made my second trip to Aldi's during the 4th of July weekend.  Once again, I went there with the intention of picking up a few pieces of fruit.  I left the store with two pounds of strawberries, a pint of blueberries, a bunch of bananas, and two bacon wrapped tenderloins.  My total bill was only $10.

I figure that my total tab at a traditional supermarket may have been close to double that.  If you care about name brands or a shopping experience, Aldi's may not be for you.  On the other hand, if you want to save a little bit of money, then if you have an Aldi's near you, check them out.

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Diana's Banana Babies

Every now and then, I will do a paid post for a website or a product.  I always try to give my most honest opinion of that product within those posts.  Then every now and then, there is a product that I like so much that I just have to right about it, like when I read a book I love like "Rawhide Down."  Diana's banana babies is one of those products.

My family loves to snack.  My son and I like the same kind of snacks; Cheez Its, pretzels, and just about any kind of chip.  I also like to eat a lot of meat snacks like beef jerky.  It is rare, however, when Mrs. Dickster and I both want to snack on the same thing.  Diana's banana babies is a product that the two of us are currently addicted to, the dark chocolate variety in particular.

Diana's banana babies are chocolate covered frozen bananas that we have found in the ice cream novelty section of our local Giant food store.  They come in dark chocolate covered and milk chocolate covered.  We have been loving the dark chocolate ones, but we have yet to try the milk chocolate.  There is just something about the flavors of bananas and dark chocolate that taste great together.  The coldness of the frozen treat is a great way to beat the heat. 

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Saving Money

Image via WikipediaA few years ago, we went through a particularly rough financial stretch.  I won't bore you with all of the ugly details, but suffice to say it was an extremely difficult time.  It was particularly tough on me whenever anybody wanted to do something special, especially if it was a gift for somebody or a very special event for a family member.  We just did not have the extra times.

During that stretch of time, I learned to save money whenever I could.  I went from buying Starbucks Coffee drinks on a daily basis, and sometimes twice a day, to brewing my own, usually with store brand coffee.  Forget about going out to lunch, I was the brown bag king.  Whenever I would go to the grocery store, with a few essential items, I would only buy sale items or store brand items to save money.

One of the biggest expenses a family has would be their auto expenses and maintenance.  It was tough even to have cash available for even basic maintenance.  Repairs and things like tires were even more difficult.  A financial adviser that I had spoken to had recommended buying used tires instead of new the next time I needed tires.

About two years ago, I had my first experience with buying used tires.  My initial impression was positive, so much so that I even wrote a blog post about it.  I desperately needed two tires for my wife's car.  New tires would have been nearly $100 plus all of those nice little extras the tire shops add to the final price.  When I bought the used tires, the two cost me about $80 compared to well over $200 for new.

Unfortunately, one year later, I ended up needing to replace those two tires, and needed two more of the original tires.  I started to think that in the long run that new tires would have been cheaper in the long run, but I still did not have the money to do so.  I bought two more used tires for the front of the car, and then a few months later I bought two more used tires for the rear of the car with the hope that they would last until I could afford to buy new tires.

I was starting to see that all four tires would need to be replaced soon.  Fortunately, I happened to have a little spare cash available right now.  Earlier this week, my wife called me to inform me that she had skidded on the road.  Thank goodness there was nobody around her and there was no damage to the car.  She had already asked me to take her car to Jiffy Lube for service, so this morning after doing that, I took her car to BJ's for four new tires.

Our finances are a little better than they were a few years ago, but they are still tight.  I still look to save money whenever I can and probably will the rest of my life. Whenever I happen to have some spare funds around, I am very reluctant to part with it because I am concerned that an emergency could arise and not be able to pay for it.  However, from here on out, safety is one area where I can't afford to scrimp.  

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Tracking My Carbs

Image via CrunchBaseOne week ago, I had posted about using The Carbohydrate Curve as outlined in "The Primal Blueprint" as a guide for losing weight.  At the time, I had come to the realization that some food products that I thought would be better for me in my weight lost quest, actually were hindering my progress.  I immediately cut those products out of my eating and began concentrating more on the number of carbs in the foods that I was eating.

I switched from drinking my 100% juice drink that contained 52gr of carbohydrates to drinking Vitamin Water Zero or other drinks that contained little or no carbohydrate.   Over the next few days, my stalled weight loss had started up again.  In the week since I made that switch, I have already lost another 3 pounds.  I have now become a true believer in the idea of limiting my carb intake in order to lose weight. 

In the past, I have never been one to read nutritional labels, but it is now becoming an obsession with me.  After discovering that the juice I was drinking contained 52 grams of carbs, I decided to see if there were other things that I was eating that would add unnecessary carbs.  There have been a couple other products that I had been using that I have found that I can change and further reduce my carb intake each day.

One of the things that I have been eating consistently at work has been a salad with a little bit of baked chicken in it.  In my new zealousness of reading labels, I found that the light versions of the salad dressings that I had been using contained more carbs than the regular variety.  For instance a serving of regular bleu cheese dressing has 1gr of carbs while the light has 6gr.  One of the light salad dressings that I was using had 8gr of carbs per serving.  It is no longer on my shopping list.

Right now, I am becoming more dedicated to keeping my carbs in the 50-100gr per day as recommended in The Carbohydrate Curve.  I downloaded a cool app for my android operated phone from myfitnesspal.com.  It has a pretty cool feature where I can scan a UPC bar on a product and it will pull in all of the nutritional information and add it to my daily food diary.  You can also search thousands of products to easily track and add foods to my daily food diary.

Currently, I am down to about 210lbs.  I have lost between 15-20 pounds since I started to change my eating habits.  According to a lot of the weight charts, my ideal body weight should be around 170 pounds.  I am not sure I want to lose that much weight, but I would like to get down to 180 pounds eventually.  I have a formal affair to attend for my son's school.  I had hoped to hit 200 pounds before it, but since it is just two weeks away, I don't think that will happen.  However, I think I can definitely get there by Memorial Day.

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Clean Your Plate

Image by wonderyort via Flickr

Remember when you were a kid and your mother told you to clean your plate because there were starving kids in Africa who would love to have it?  If you were like me, you were willing to send it to them.  Well now there is a restaurant in Australia that takes the "clean your plate" mantra to another level.

Yukako Ichikawa is chef and owner of the Wafu restaurant located in the suburbs of Sydney.  They state as their goal, "to contribute towards creating a sustainable future we request a little more of our guests than most other restaurants."  They ask their patrons to not waste food or containers.

They actually state in their "Eat In" policy that if you agree to their terms to "not waste food" then you are welcome to eat at their restaurant.  To not waste food is to eat everything on your plate, with the exception of lemon slices, wasabi, and sushi ginger.  If you don't finish your meal, they will suggest you find another place to dine.

If you want to get carry out, they have rules for that too.  You have to bring your own containers, otherwise they will charge you $3 to use their containers.  Oh, and don't bring an aluminum container.  They aren't reusable, so you obviously don't care about waste prevention.  They also don't want you to bring in a new container that you just bought.

Now I am not a proponent of wasting food and throwing it out.  There have been times when I have been trying to lose weight, and my wife has brought home a box of donuts.  Rather than let them get stale and end up getting thrown out, I would eat them.  However, this is one business that I can't see ever getting getting any of my hard earned dollars.

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World's Best Chocolate Eclairs

Anybody who has spent anytime traveling through Waldorf MD on route 301 has probably seen the giant wigwam there.  I discovered the wigwam several years ago when my parents lived in Waldorf.  The wigwam was home to Wall's Bakery where they sold a variety of baked goods and Native American artwork and souvenirs.  They were most famous for their huge chocolate eclairs. 

When my parents moved from Waldorf to Annapolis, there were few reasons to make the 25 mile trek to Waldorf.  However, the eclairs from Wall's bakery were well worth the drive.  So every couple of months, my wife or I would drive down there to get a couple of their famous eclairs.  Sadly, about five years ago the owner decided to retire and shut the doors.

A couple weeks ago, the BJ's in Bowie was out of stock on one of the main food items that my son eats.  So, on a Saturday, we decided to head down to the BJ's in Waldorf to pick up the items we needed.  For some reason, Mrs. Dickster decided to do an internet search on Wall's bakery.  To our surprise and delight, she discovered that Wall's Bakery had reopened in Waldorf. 

They are no longer located in the wigwam, but the eclairs are still the best there is.  By the way, the eclair you see pictured here is sitting on a dinner plate.  I don't even want to think about how many calories this sucker had in it, but it was worth it.

Candy or Food?

Image by clevercupcakes via Flickr

I got my first job when I was 15 years old. It was for a local convenience store. For all but 4 or 5 of the 33 years since that first job, I have been involved in some way, shape, or form in the retail food industry. For many of those years, I worked first hand in the candy category. Plus before I ever started working, I ate a lot of candy. So, I thought I knew what would be considered "candy" and what was not.

One of the subjects discussed in the health care debate, is the issue of obesity in this country. Several states are passing taxes on those foods that are major contributors to the obesity problem. Foods that are under consideration are things like soft drinks, candy, and other high sugar products. For years here in Maryland there has been sales taxes on "non-essential" foods like candy, so this is nothing new for me. However, the state of Illinois has a new tax on candy and other products that goes into effect next month that is going to cause a lot of confusion for consumers.

The new law taxes candy at a sales tax at 6.25%, and food items have a sales tax of 1%. The potential confusion comes in how the new law defines defines candy, or more importantly, what isn't considered candy. Several items that logic or common sense would lead you to think that an item is candy can now be thrown out the window thanks to the logic of our government in action.

All my life, I have always thought that Twizzlers licorice was candy. Not so. Twizzlers contain flour and therefore, under Illinois law is considered a food product and not a candy item. Similarly, a Hershey's Cookies & Cream bar is considered food, but a Hershey's Milk Chocolate Bar is candy. A chocolate covered raisin or nut is considered a candy, but a chocolate covered pretzel is considered food. Peanuts would normally be food, but if they are honey roasted they are candy. Very confusing, but what else would you expect from the government.

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