Where have all the flowers gone…

That iconic phrase raises a whole constellation of memes for those of us who lived through the 1960s with even the slightest degree of consciousness (that’s a significant distinction: many ’60s & 70s stoners can’t claim to have been conscious during that era). If you have even an echo of that consciousness ringing in your being, let me encourage you to sing instead, “Where has all the money gone… ” with that same sense of questioning.

Let me suggest some places where Americans’ money has gone and how, perhaps, having less of that fluid stuff might even be a good thing. I’ll just throw out some unsubstantiated assertions and let the interested (or concerned) perform their own googling to confirm or deny the assertions.

One example: Around 90% of Americans’ spending on food is spent on pre-processed, pre-packaged or “fast” food. What’s really in that (those!) soda(s) you drank today? Assuming a soda to be a typical 12-oz can, each one contains about 40 grams of High Fructose Corn Syrup per can. Setting aside the lies from industry ads that HFCS is the same as sucrose (table sugar), just that much–one soda can’s worth–of HFCS is more than the AMA’s total recommended daily caloric sweetener intake. One can. And HFCS hides in the majority of pre-processed, pre-packaged foods. Major studies by independent researchers highlight the many ways that HFCS is different to sucrose, as well as the many ways it has a deleterious effect upon human health in large amounts (like 2-3 cans of soda a day). A 90% increase in diabetes among Americans in the last 10 years alone can be laid largely at the feet of stupid Americans participating in chemical warfare upon their own bodies… and paying a premium for the HFCS-laden processed foods that are the prime culprits.

Stupid. Spend more for stuff that degrades ones health. But that seems to be the idea behind modern American life. It’s not just Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and AIG that have been wasteful and stupid with money. Darned near ALL of us have wasted our resources to obtain things that we do not need, that are detrimental to our physical, mental, emotional, financial and spiritual health. Of course we have. Those things we’ve wasted our substance on are bright and shiny and new; they are easy, convenient and comfortable. Whether we need them or whether they actually do anything good for us is largely unimportant… or has been.

Scale back. Stop, look, listen and… think. Do you really need that box of instant mashed potatoes when you can buy a five pound bag of the real thing for the same price? How hard is it, really, to clean a few potatoes, cut ’em up and boil ’em then mash ’em? Well, not hard at all, really. And I defy you to make ANY mashed potatoes that taste as good using box taters. Buy a pizza? Why? Do you really know what’s in that pizza you bought? Making a pizza from scratch does take a wee tad more time than ordering one delivered, but not necessarily all that much. Just more advance thought and planning. And a bit more work.

Do you really need that new car (made by either an American company that will use the money to featherbed jobs or a foreign company that exports your money away from our economy)? Probably not. I’ve only had one car that wasn’t good for 250,000 miles, with proper care, and that one was one I bought for all the wrong reasons. (“It’s a really fast luxury car. Oh, joy! Sure, all the parts are priced as though they were gold plated–or solid gold–and it needs constant maintenance, but boy it goes fast when it works! And I just want it. So there.” *sigh* I used to just sit in the thing and drink in the ambiance. Usually cos it needed more maintenance, and I had to wait for a mechanic. Or parts. *heh*)

Really need to “move up” to a larger house? When the kids leave in a few years, four bedrooms are going to look like an awful lot of extra room…

I could go on. Where has all the money gone? For many everyday Americans, it’s gone down the same wasteful, bad spending choices drain that Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and AIG sent money down. The mom in the grocery store buying gourmet chocolate because with hubby’s job gone the family just needs a treat. The kid with his first job spending every dime of his paycheck on a flashy new car. The mid-level drone who buys a house that’s beyond his means: all are just making stupid spending choices, not thinking beyond “shiny, new, tasty, convenient” to something beyond tomorrow.

On a brighter note, here’s one of my rarely seen “not-a-recipe” recipes. A couple of weeks ago, I bottled some really nice “Oktoberfest lager” styled beer for its time bottle conditioning. The trub that was left over went into a stainless steel bowl that has a nice lid. In with it went a couple of cups of plain white flour and just a little (maybe a cup) of warm water. A week later, when the beer began being ready to drink, the dough starter was also ready to use making bread (I bottled the water sitting on top too :-)). I added a couple of cups of whole wheat flour (well, 1.5 cups of wheat flour and 0.5 cup of flax seed powder), some salt and olive oil and kneaded the mix. Let it sit and rise in a warm place, floured a board–and the dough–and kneaded it some more. That was enough for two 12″ pizzas. Added some pasta sauce, rated cheese, hamburger, canadian bacon and plain smoked bacon and… 400 degrees and 20 minutes later: pizzas. The whole wheat and flax seed powder give the bread dough crust a nice nutty flavor and texture, and I can choose whatever cheeses, sauce and ingredients I want. I didn’t have any canned pineapple on hand, so no “Hawaiian” pizza this time, but it’s certainly at least as good as buying ready made. And a bonus: I almost never buy pepperoni (cos I hate the greasy crap), so that wasn’t an option. My Wonder Woman likes the flavor of “that greasy crap” so I do buy it every now and then, but since she also likes hamburger and sausage on pizzas, I’m usually covered there.

It’s so easy a pre-1970s child could do it. Nowadays, unless it goes in a microwave (with pictures on the HFCS-laden processed food package and icons on the microwave to let the little illiterate know what to do), fugetaboutit.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, this was my own personal white elephant No, not “my” car, but almost exactly the same model, same color. Same headaches, down to an including Lucas Electrics parts and four Stromberg-Carlson carbs. Love that burled walnut, though. Had better wheels.