What's Wrong With the Government Limiting Food Marketing to Kids?

I thought I would weigh in on the recent proposed Federal Trade Commission's rules for limiting food marketing to children.

To me this is a fascinating debate. One one side you've got food writers like Marion Nestle arguing (somewhat predictably) that the new rules don't go far enough. Other bloggers are a bit more circumspect and are willing to consider abstract but important aspects of the debate, like unintended consequences, free speech issues and so on. And, sadly (uh, and also somewhat predictably), over at the Huffington Post we have a totally information-free post in which the author jokes about playing games on the Lucky Charms website.

Okay. As usual with any political issue, you ain't gonna find much nuance out there. Most people have agendas that they're pushing, and those agendas typically come from one of two extremes: YAY! More regulation! Corporations are evil! or BOO! get the government out of my life and get off my lawn!

For my part, sure, I would love to see less advertising in general. And long-time CK readers especially know about my particularly insane hatred of overpriced, hyper-sweetened cereals--a food marketed to children like no other, coincidentally. So, yes, I have a bit of a personal axe to grind in this debate too.

And heck, making the contra-argument on this subject is a little like being against puppies. It is not an easy position to take. (Wait, don't you care about kids? You're in favor of evil corporations taking advantage of our children, you bad, bad person you?)

To be honest, I don't really know where I stand on this issue. So instead of advocating a position, I'm going to ask you, readers, a few open-ended questions, in the hopes that we can collectively foster an open-minded and nuanced debate of our own.

I've said this before and I'll say it again, the readers here at Casual Kitchen are as articulate and thoughtful as anybody can find anywhere (did I mention for the millionth time how grateful I am for this?). With that in mind, what are your thoughts on the following questions?

1) Is it children who actually buy these foods? (PS: This is a bit of a trick question.)

2) Will rules like these actually change peoples' behavior?

3) What are the possible unintended consequences that might result from enforcing guidelines like this? (Keeping in mind that it's notoriously difficult to perceive a law's unintended consequences when those consequences are unlikely for you.)

4) What are the free speech issues involved here?

5) Is it appropriate to hand responsibility for our food choices over to our government? And to what extent is it appropriate that we give away our power to make choices in the face of advertising--or in the face of our children's demands for certain foods?

6) Are we creating rules to make ourselves feel like we've solved a problem?

Readers, here's your chance to sound off--on any or all of these questions. What do you think?

Related Posts:
What's Your Favorite Consumer Empowerment Tip?
Companies vs. Consumers: A Manifesto
A Tale of Two Breakfasts
Food Militancy, and Food Moderation


How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

Who Does the Cooking In Your Home? The Results May Surprise You

Who does the bulk of the cooking in your home, and how did you decide?

Recently, I asked this question to my Twitter followers (follow me!), and I was stunned to find that in about 80% of cases women still do the vast majority of the cooking at home.

Admittedly, this was an anecdotal sample. But it turns out that most of the respondents found themselves in one of two situations: either the female partner simply enjoyed doing the cooking more (or in some cases she hated it less), or the female partner had more abilities in the kitchen when the relationship began (which says a lot about the value of feigned incompetence).

It appears as if dividing cooking responsibilities along gender lines is a more comfortable and productive arrangement for both parties.

Here at Casual Kitchen, however, I do almost all of the cooking. I suspected it was an atypical arrangement, but I never guessed it was that atypical.

And to my female readers: I wouldn't read this gender-based division of kitchen labor as proof that feminism failed. In fact, from what I've seen, men are involved in the kitchen more than ever, even if they don't prepare the majority of household meals. In quite a few cases, for example, men shared in the cooking, took responsibility for weekend meals, or were willing to take on the dreaded kitchen clean-up duties.

Phew. I don't think we're heading back to the 1700's just yet.

So, readers, here's your chance to hold forth: Who does the cooking in your home, and how did you and your significant other decide?

Related Posts:
When Do You Throw Out Food?
A Reader Asks For Help
Reader Questions and Answers on Raw Foods and My Raw Food Trial
Ask Casual Kitchen: Advice for a New Blogger

How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

Best Practices to Raise the Level of Discussion on Your Blog

One of the things I'm most grateful for here at Casual Kitchen is the thought-provoking conversations I get to have with my readers.

Unfortunately, thought-provoking conversations are a rarity these days--in blogging and everywhere else. I follow some 500 blogs in my feedreader, 325 of which are food-related, and I'm regularly mortified by how little value there is in most blog comments.

When reading food blogs, how often do you see eye-scaldingly meaningless things like "Mmmmmmm!" "YUM!" or "I can't wait to try this!" scrawled everywhere? (My personal favorite: "Great post!" ... followed by nothing else.) Take a sample of any of the more widely read blogs (food or otherwise) and as many as half of the comments will be puerile.

Look, I'm all for positive vibes and everything, but "Mmmmmmm!" isn't exactly a conversation starter. What it does do, however, is bring a tiny bit of residual traffic to that puerile comment-writer's most likely puerile blog. And therein lies the problem, obviously.

Okay. You've got your own blog, and you don't want it filled up with pointless comments. You want to raise the level of conversation. How do you do it?

Screw the First Amendment
You can start by deleting. A blog is not a democracy--it's your personal dictatorship. And there's no First Amendment in blogging. If you see a pointless comment, a comment that's obvious linkbait, or worst of all a hurtful or inappropriate comment, delete it. Nuke it.

There's already much too much to read out there. Don't permit the idiotic comments to crowd out the intelligent ones, wasting your readers' precious time in the process. Set an example that encourages your most thoughtful readers to contribute more.

A Precarious Slice
It's one of the more discouraging statistics of blogdom, but I'll share it anyway: only about 1-2% of the readers of any given post will comment. In other words, 98-99% of readers simply don't leave comments. As a blogger, this puts you in the precarious position of relying on a rather arbitrary slice of your readership for all of the follow-up conversation on your posts.

Therefore, do whatever you can to help make sure the right readers leave comments. Respond to every thought-provoking comment, and reward your thoughtful readers by picking up on the conversations they start.

Encouraging Disagreement and Leaving Gaps
A side note: Never argue with readers who disagree (respectfully) with you, and never censor or delete their comments. If anything, you should encourage disagreement from your readers, because there's no better way to start a provocative conversation. Often I'll specifically ask my readers to disagree with me, because I want to hear other perspectives and find the holes in my thinking. Hey, that's how we all learn more.

Here's another, counterintuitive way to get a good discussion started: leave deliberate gaps in your argument. Your astute readers will catch and fill in those gaps, and this often takes the conversation into surprising directions.

When you write a post that is exhaustive, utterly convincing and proves your point so flawlessly that it leaves no room for debate... well, there won't be any debate. Instead, try asking questions and raising issues, and then solicit your readers for their thoughts and input. Bring them into the discussion rather than overwhelming them with facts and opinions.

And let's face it, if you've said everything that can be said about a subject, you'll exceed the attention span of 95% of your readers... and the remaining 5% will have nothing left to say but "Mmmmmm, great post!"

Final Thoughts
A final point: decide what you want your blog to be, and stay consistent. Is your site a place where your readers get to think? Or a place where they aren't expected to think? Readers want to know who and what you are. And once they do, they'll come, armed and ready with amazing and inspiring thoughts and ideas.

Readers! What would you add?

Related Posts:
Ask Casual Kitchen: Advice for a New Blogger
How to Write A Killer Links Post
How to Give Away Your Power By Being a Biased Consumer
How to Get the Benefits of Organic Foods Without Paying Through the Nose
Who Really Holds the Power in Our Food Industry?

How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

The Ick Factor: Balancing Cost with Time and Effort in Your Kitchen and Home

What tasks do you refuse to do in your kitchen--regardless of the costs savings?

I had a reader once tell me that raw chicken meat grosses her out so much that she gladly pays extra money for pre-wrapped chicken breasts.

Sure, she could de-bone her own chicken breasts at home. It's not that hard to do, and it's meaningfully cheaper. The problem was it crossed too far into "ick" territory for her. And despite the fact that she's on a tight budget, this particular job grosses her out enough that she's happy to pay extra to avoid it.

In truth, we all have our own Ick Factors. We all have some gross or highly undesirable task in our kitchen or home that we will happily pay to avoid.

What's yours? Some people draw the line at making certain foods at home. The idea of making homemade hummus (and dealing with the cleanup afterwards) could be a preposterous "ick" exercise for some--especially when it's so easy to pick up a tub of decent hummus in your local grocery store. (On the other hand, if making homemade hummus is definitely your kind of thing, be sure to visit Casual Kitchen's huge blogroll of hummus recipes.)

Perhaps you'd rather pay extra for store-made hamburger patties because it skeeves you to handle raw ground beef. Maybe you're happy to pay extra for store-baked cookies, muffins or cupcakes because you can't bear to spend the extra time and mess of making them by hand at home.

Heck, I've got a great homemade tortilla chips recipe here at Casual Kitchen, but sometimes, when I think about the effort it will take to deal with the hot oil and the greasy cleanup (and when I compare it to the incredible convenience a $3.99 bag of Doritos), my Ick Factor alarm goes off too.

Where do you draw the line? And is it always a cost-based decision? Or are certain tasks so undesirable to you that you completely ignore the cost?

The thing is, in the world of frugal cooking, there's a mentality--a home-cooking samurai code, if you will--that we should always do everything at home. After all, most foods made at home are cheaper, healthier and of better quality (once we get good at making them, that is).

But is this true in all cases? I don't know for sure, but I don't think so. Heck, here's an obvious example: Homemade ice cream. For me, the idea of grappling with eggs, cream and an ice cream maker will never match up to the ease of buying Ben & Jerry's. And this will remain true for me no matter how much a pint of Cherry Garcia costs.

The Ick Factor question shows up outside of the kitchen too. One of the most popular posts in Trent Hamm's The Simple Dollar is his "recipe" for homemade laundry detergent. I absolutely love reading Trent, but for me, this particular post had Ick Factor written all over it.

Sure, many people gladly pay extra to have their cars washed, their toilets cleaned, their shirts ironed, their driveways shoveled, their burgers pre-made or their chicken breasts deboned. If there's a gross or irritating task that you are dying to avoid, it very well might be worth it--in terms of time, money and happiness--to pay extra to have someone else to make it or do it. You can then apply your time and effort towards accomplishing things that are more important to you.

Readers! What jobs or tasks set off your Ick Factor? What are the tasks in your home or kitchen that you just flat-out refuse to do yourself?

Related Posts:
Applying the 80/20 Rule to Diet, Food and Cooking
Speed-Weaning: How to End Your Caffeine Addiction in Just Three Days
Why Spices Are a Complete Rip-Off and What You Can Do About It
Stacked Costs and Second-Order Foods: A New Way to Think About Rising Food Costs
Malcolm Gladwell Was Completely Wrong About Cooking

Casual Kitchen would like to thank the Kitties x 3 blog for the spurring the ideas behind this post.

How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

How are You Adjusting to the Economic Crisis? A Question for CK Readers

Given the recent credit crisis, the spectacular decline in the stock market, and the likelihood that the economy will slow down materially over the next year or so, I have a question that I'd like to put to my readers:

To what extent have you changed your cooking, eating, food-purchasing and food-related entertainment habits to adjust to coming economic uncertainty? What things are you doing differently, and most importantly, why have you made these choices?

Perhaps you have decided to switch away from more expensive organic foods, or you've decided to embrace part-time vegetarianism. Maybe you've decided to slash your restaurant budget in half, or you've postponed the purchase of big-ticket kitchen appliances. Whatever it is, I want to hear what adjustments you are making or thinking of making.

Even if you are a reader who isn't making any changes, I'd love to hear your thoughts on why not. Are you already cooking on a bare-bones budget that can't be cut much more? Are you just not all that unsettled by the economic crisis? Or do you view the current period as a great time for consumers (after all, there certainly seem to be a lot of sales going on lately) and thus you are stepping up your purchases of certain items?

I have two goals in asking for your thoughts. One is to get a better sense of what my readers are doing, so I can adapt to you and keep giving you content that you'll find useful.

The second goal is more collaborative in nature. I have the good fortune to write for an audience of extremely creative and insightful readers, and our collective ideas ought to be far more valuable than anything any one us could come up with on our own. That's one of the key strengths of a cooperative medium like blogging, and I think today's question could generate a lot of great ideas to help us all be more proactive in adapting to the economy.

So, please leave your thoughts in the comments below! And if you want to share your views in a longer form, feel free to email me at dan1529[at]yahoo[dot]com. Include the words "credit crisis question" in the subject line so I can sort those answers out from my regular emails.

Related Posts:
A Recession-Proof Guide to Saving Money on Food
Mastering Kitchen Setup Costs
Six Secrets to Save You from Cooking Burnout

How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by subscribing to my RSS feed, or submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon.