Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Money Miser: Paper

This should be easy, but I’ve found that many people needlessly spend big bucks on paper products. I don’t know if the reason is convenience, lack of time or lack of knowledge. I talk to folks in the grocery or retail store about buying paper products. There was a woman in the grocery store last week who had one of those mega-packs of twelve rolls of paper towels. HUH? When I asked her why she needed so many paper towels, she said that’s all her husband would use to clean up. And she said that was a less that a month’s worth. I just told her that my husband and I don’t give ourselves that choice. We use cloth towels as much as possible and only use one roll of paper towels every two months.
The best practice is to not use paper products unless you have to; however, a second choice is to buy recycled products. Both can save money in the long run and help the environment.
The average family uses 700 pounds of paper products each year. That adds up to a lot of money (http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_much_paper_does_the_average_american_use).
I’ve brought up the subject of paper products before, but it’s time to take a more extensive look at the subject.
Bathroom Tissue
There are just some things that are impossible to replace. Well, unless you want to go back to corncobs. So you will probably keep buying this paper product. There are some brands that are more economical than others. Personally, I don’t buy most store brands because they don’t really cost less. There are often fewer tissues on each roll and the quality is low.
There are some brands better than others. Quilted Northern Soft and Strong is a good product to choose. It does the trick and isn’t too costly. Seventh Generation is 100% recycled paper although it costs a little more than Quilted Northern. Marcal Small Steps is also a good choice because it is not expensive and is recycled paper. Scott Extra Soft and Natural is a good choice. The rolls are large so you use less and the Naturals are made of 40% recycled paper.
Unless you have a specific need for a moist, flushable wipe, stick with regular bathroom tissue. The wipes are much more expensive and often don’t do the job and don’t do the job any better.
Kitchen Towels
Now there’s a waste of money. There are times when paper towels are a good thing to have on hand. I mostly use them when I’m frying something or there’s a clean it up right this second spill. I have an older cat whose stomach gets upset very easily so you figure it out. I’ve about gotten my husband to use cloth towels and old cotton rags instead of paper towels.
The cost of exclusively using paper towels is high. A roll can cost from between $1 and over $2 each. If you use three rolls a week, that’s a cost of between $3-6 a week. And that’s not even counting the cost to the environment in cut trees, towel manufacture and landfill costs.
The best buy to me is Viva. The roll looks small, but the paper is a tight weave, which makes each towel more absorbent, and there’s not much air between the sheets. Paper towels are much like toilet paper in how they’re packaged. So the best bet is to look at the paper and decide how tight the weave is and squeeze the roll to see how the sheets are compacted. All that air between sheets makes it look like you’re getting a huge roll, but often the number of sheets is less that rolls that look smaller. Knowing what you’re really getting can help you make a better choice when buying paper towels.
Napkins
I’ve never cared for paper napkins. I guess it’s because my grandmother never used them. Instead she had beautiful cotton and linen napkins, some of which were embroidered and others pale colors of the rainbow. I remember during my early years my mom used cloth napkins. My mom was also a money miser although she was practical too. With four of us in the family, she finally began using paper napkins.
A few years ago, I decided that buying napkins was a waste of money and not very environmentally friendly. It was then I came up with the idea of using bandanas and cleaning cloths from the auto parts store for napkins. The investment is more than one of those 250 packs of paper napkins, but if you have enough cloth napkins, you don’t have to wash a load but once in awhile. Additionally, you save money because you don’t have to replace cloth napkins more than every two years.
There are added advantages. Your fingers won’t punch through, and you seldom need more than one, even when eating fried chicken. I like having colorful bandanas so each person knows their napkin. We each use one cloth napkin a day.
Bandanas are pretty cheap and cost less than $10 for a dozen. Cotton auto cleaning cloths cost about $12 for 10. Both are a good value.
Facial Tissue
There’s nothing quite as nice as a cotton or linen handkerchief. You don’t see them very much anymore, but at one time everyone carried them. For most people cloth handkerchiefs are messy. But even so, you can still save money if you use paper tissues.
The store brand, pop-up box tissues cost less and work just as well. You can buy them plain, with lotion or with a built in germicide. A box of the plain ones with 85 two-ply tissues costs about a dollar. If you watch for sales, you can get them for 75¢ a box.
Picnic Supplies
As Americans, we have become addicted to convenience. There’s no better sign of our addiction than picnic supplies: paper plates, paper napkins and paper cups. If we used them just for picnics, it probably wouldn’t get so expensive, but the use of these paper products has slipped into everyday life.
Here’s the logic used for using paper supplies: do you have company coming? Buy paper supplies so you won’t have to wash dishes. How about a large family? Paper works well and is less work.
The problem is that it gets expensive to buy all those paper products. Here’s a rundown of estimated costs:
$6.69 for 100 count 12 oz paper cups
$10.84 for 125 count 12 oz. paper bowls
$31.08 for 125 count 10 1/4 inch heavy duty paper plates (http://www.kmart.com).
I keep disposable paper picnic supplies on hand for when we lose electricity, but even when we have company, I stick with regular items that are washable.
I’m not suggesting that buying paper picnic supplies doesn’t make sense when you are having a large gathering, but just remember that everyday use is expensive. So you have to ask yourself if it’s worth the cost.
Diapers
This is certainly not my area of expertise. I have had no children and only acted as a babysitter once. However, that one babysitting experience involved changing diapers, cloth diapers. EWW! However, I don’t think disposables are much better.
I suggest a diaper service for working parents; however, the closest one is in Johnson City. I don’t know if they come to Johnson County but here’s their phone number (423) 283-9316. They don’t have a website so you’ll have to call for more information.
You will have to decide if cleaning and then washing diapers is worth it to you. For these calculations, let's assume that for one child you need about 60 diapers a week. In the San Francisco Bay area, each disposable diaper costs roughly 23¢ per store-brand diaper and 28¢ for name-brand. This averages to 25.5¢ per diaper. Thus the average child will cost about $1,600 to diaper for two years in disposable diapers or about $66 a month for cotton ones if you use a diaper service (http://www.realdiaperassociation.org). This site has a wealth of information on diapers.
So how much do cloth diapers cost? A twelve pack of three ply white cotton diapers costs around $11. The recommendation is to have 36 on hand for newborns and 12 for kids in potty training. This is based on washing them every two days (http://www.littlefornow.com). 
If you use cloth diapers from newborn through potty training, you’ll spend $500 (http://www.realnappiesusa.com). That is a big savings compared to the cost of disposable diapers.
Just remember that disposable diapers are expensive, toxic and one of the major components in landfills.
Most of us will never completely eliminate paper products, but there are ways to cut down on their use. Not only will you save money, but you’ll be helping the environment and conserving trees. You can use old towels and wash cloths in the kitchen. Cloth napkins and handkerchiefs are nice and save too. And don’t forget the diapers. For those paper products you just must have, shop around and buy in bulk. Buy products that work well so you won’t be wasting your hard-earned dollars. After all, we all want to save and get our money’s worth when we shop.
© 2011, Katherine B. Hegemann

Eating Wisley: Tasty Taters

The lowly potato is one of the main food staples we all keep on hand. We like them boiled, baked, fried, or roasted. You can add almost anything to potatoes to enhance the flavor. Or you can add nothing at all; well, maybe just a little salt and pepper.

I grew up in an area where the folks eat a lot more rice than potatoes. Southeastern NC used to have rice plantations, and the residents still love that rice.
Since moving to TN, I’ve eaten many more potatoes and have found out just how many ways you can serve them. Also, I grow them every year in my garden.
History
Potatoes are a root tuber and the name for them is Solanum tuberosum. They are a member of the nightshade family as are tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, and tobacco. Nightshades have a substance within the plant that wards off most pests—nicotine. Just handle a tomato plant then smell your hands. Daggone it they now smell like tobacco.
So where did potatoes come from? They are a species that originated in the Andes Mountains of South America. When the Spanish came to South America in the 1500s, they took potatoes back to their country with them. Sir Walter Raleigh of England took potatoes to Ireland in the late 1500s and planted 40,000 acres of them. Forty years later, potatoes were grown all over Europe. It wasn’t until the early 1700s that potatoes were successfully introduced into American agriculture by Scotch-Irish immigrants. (1)
My own family had their lives dramatically altered by the potato. The blight that caused the Irish Potato Famine of the mid-1800s spread to northern Europe. My father’s family was from northern Germany and migrated to the US when the potato blight began to cause crop failure and the resulting starvation in that country. Interestingly, the potato blight is a fungus and related to the fungal blight that infects tomatoes. And we, who live in this area, know all about late tomato blight.
Potatoes are among the top four crops grown in the world. The list includes rice, wheat, maize (corn), and potatoes.
Home gardeners try to grow enough potatoes to last through winter and hopefully until the next potato crop is harvested. All those potatoes are usually stored in a root cellar, which keeps the potatoes dry and cool. The root cellar is supposed to keep the potatoes from freezing yet cold enough to prevent sprouting.
Nutritional Value
What nutritionists say about potatoes is familiar to me. Remember the egg? One year they’re good for you, the next year they aren’t. So it goes with the potato.
But wait, potatoes ARE good for you. They are high in fiber, vitamin C and minerals. Moreover, potatoes are part of a well-balanced diet. Besides, potatoes are cheap and filling.
Let’s take a look at a plain old tater and its nutrition. Costing about 25 cents, a medium potato that you eat with the skin on you get:
-110 calories
-45% of your daily value of vitamin C
-potassium 614 mg
-fiber 2 g
-fat-free and sodium-free
-also a source of calcium, iron, B vitamins, phosphorous, zinc, magnesium, and copper
-good carbohydrates (2)
That makes the potato a pretty good food to eat. Combine that with the many ways to cook potatoes, and you have the ‘great American staple.’
If the only ways you eat potatoes are fried, mashed with gravy, or baked with butter and sour cream, you might think potatoes aren’t that good for you. But they are if they’re cooked right. And yes, I do love good French fries.
Recipes
My mom used to cook boiled potatoes at least once a week. She would make either mashed potatoes or potato salad, but she always left one potato for the refrigerator. As a kid, I loved cold boiled potatoes, and that extra potato was for me. I’d get the salt shaker and take the potato out to the back porch. Take a bite, shake a little salt, take another bite until it was all gone. Now that is good eating.
I have a few good recipes for potatoes: potato cakes, scalloped potatoes and potatoes au gratin.
Potato Cakes: Serves 4
Ingredients
-2 cups left over mashed potatoes
-1/4 cup finely chopped onions
-1/4 cup finely chopped bell pepper
-1/4 teaspoon dill weed
-1/8 teaspoon garlic powder
-Salt, pepper and paprika to taste
Directions
Combine all ingredients in a mixing bowl.
Form 1/2 inch thick patties from the mix that are 2-3 inches across.
Dreg the patties in seasoned all purpose flour then put them on a plate and refrigerate least 1 hour. The cold potatoes don’t fall apart when you fry them if the oil is hot enough to create a crust before the patty gets warm on the inside.
Take a frying pan and pour in about 1/2 to 1 inch of vegetable oil.
Heat the oil until when you add one drop of water it sizzles.
Fry the patties a few at a time until they are heated through and golden brown. Don’t crowd the pan, or the temperature of the oil will go down and you’ll end up with greasy potato cakes.
Drain the cakes on paper towels then pat the tops with a paper towel too.
Eat however you like them; you can use butter, sour cream, yogurt, Dijon mustard, or even applesauce. These are good for any meal although I’m partial to them for breakfast.
Scalloped Potatoes: Serves 4
Ingredients
-3 tablespoons chopped or thinly sliced onion
-3 tablespoons butter or margarine
-3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
-1/2 teaspoon salt
-1/4 teaspoon pepper
-2 1/2 cups milk
-4 thinly sliced potatoes
Directions
In a large saucepan, sauté onion in butter until tender. Stir in flour, salt and pepper until blended. Gradually add milk. Bring to a boil; cook and stir for 2 minutes or until sauce is thickened.
Place half of potatoes in a greased 1 quart baking dish. Pour half of sauce over potatoes. Repeat layers. Bake, uncovered, at 350 degrees F for 60-70 minutes or until potatoes are tender and top is lightly browned.
Potatoes au Gratin: Serves 4
Ingredients
-4 russet potatoes, sliced into 1/4 inch slices
-1 onion, sliced into rings
-salt and pepper to taste
-3 tablespoons butter
-3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
-1/2 teaspoon salt
-2 cups milk
-1 1/2 cups shredded Cheddar cheese
Directions
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Butter or use cooking spray a 1 quart casserole dish.
Layer 1/2 of the potatoes into bottom of the prepared casserole dish. Top with the onion slices, and add the remaining potatoes. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
In a medium-size saucepan, melt butter over medium heat. Mix in the flour and salt, and stir constantly with a whisk for one minute. Stir in milk. Cook until mixture has thickened. Stir in cheese all at once, and continue stirring until melted, about 30 to 60 seconds. Pour cheese over the potatoes and cover the dish with aluminum foil or lid.
Bake 1 1/2 hours in the preheated oven.
I like to remove the top the last 10 minutes to let the potatoes brown.
Both the scalloped and au gratin potatoes can be cooked in a crock pot. Cook them 3 hours on high or 7-9 hours on low. The dish won’t be browned on top, but it will be delicious.
Potatoes are good for you, cheap and plentiful. You can take any potato recipe and make it low calorie and low fat. I love all the recipes, but I do have a favorite way to use potatoes. Fresh green beans, diced Vidalia onions, unpeeled small red new potatoes quartered, and a dash of cayenne pepper flakes. You can season with ham, chicken or beef bouillon if you so choose. And of course this is best when the vegetables come right out of your garden. My mouth is watering. Now when will those beans be ready to pick and taters ready to dig?
2. Washington State Potato Commission: http://www.potatoes.com/Nutrition.cfm
© 2011, Katherine B. Hegemann