Kitchen Headquarters Products ?

You thought this section was to sell you something, didn't you?

Well you are wrong! Later we may have our own products here but this section is about products in general - the products you use, would like to use, should use or should never use.

There's a heap of kitchen websites that peddle recipes for gourmet food and tantalising luxuries but there are very few like us, who show you how to dine on great nutritious food, all on a tight budget. I get sick of these recipes that tell you to thicken something into a creamy sauce by adding cream. Haven't they heard of heart disease, diabetes and obesity?

Maybe if they also educated their audience, they could help them stay healthy, rather than killing them off with over indulgence!

Kitchen Headquarters began after much prodding from friends and family after cooking for heart patients and diabetics in our restuarant and Bed and Breakfast. Many were amazed at the full flavour of our meals in spite of the low calorie, fat and sugar count. For some strange reason we can come to accept that diet food is either tastelessly bland or rabbit food.

It doesn't have to be that way. Think about it a moment. All the herbs have no calorific value and only a few spices will increase the calories of a meal, so why don't they use them in diet meals?

Simply, the reason is that the diet scene is ruled by gross profiteering. Spices and herbs add to the cost of the diet food so leave them out. After all the diners will expect food to be tasteless, as if it is a punishment for their over indulgence. Actually there is no excuse at all : it actually brings the cost of a meal down when you don't use cream to thicken sauces, so leaving out the spices and herbs is really a double rip off.

Here we will look at a wide range of products - foods, appliances, diets and treatments and try to answer your questions:

• How can I cut the cost of my groceries and still get the essentials?
• There are many diets that all claim to work wonders. Can they all be true?
• I'm diabetic, what can I eat to reduce my blood sugar?
• Will I ever be free of diabetes?
• They talk about good cholesterol - I thought it was all bad?
• What sort of tree do vanilla beans grow on?
• Is microwaved food harmful or radioactive?
• Are microwaves safe?
• Are apricot kernels poisonous?
• I heard it was healthier to cook in Olive oil, reather than any other oil. Is this true?
• Which is healthier margarine or butter?
  

You thought this section was to sell you stuff - right? . . . Wrong! - Let's begin with buying food on a budget:

Supermarkets aren't saints. They only offer "specials", "mark downs" or discounts for two reasons:

• the product will not keep and they can help recover at least part of their costs (or their storage space cost for a new line of products will exceed the profits on this product).
  
  
• the discount will attract customers in who will spend on other higher profit items, in such numbers that the cost of the ndiscount will be exceeded.

Specials Baiting
Understand how this "specials" ploy works. Go and buy the specials but be aware of the prices, compared to other shops (that are not on special), when you buy the other goods in the store. Here's a few tips to combat this:

1. One way to combat this is to prepare a list before you go shopping. Anything not on the list that looks like a good buy, better be an exceptional buy before it goes into the basket.
   
   
2. Don't use a shopping cart if you can avoid it. Use a hand basket instead. If you have to lug it around the shop, you will think twice before putting extra stuff in it. It will also discourage you from stopping too long and looking at every aisle.
   
   
3. If you have to bring the kids, keep them occupied as you shop. Use "find" games or vebal memory puzzles, to distract them. You will find the kids love this quality time. Every so often you can reward them with a spending limit that they can choose something for that price or less. It is just as effective at a $5.00 limit as at $10.00 and teaches them the meaning of budgeting.

The Hidden Cost of Transport
Keep in mind that you also pay money to get there and back again.
Where is the saving when you spend $5.00 in petrol to buy a product on special for $2.00?
You haven't saved $2.00 - you have lost $3.00 (Petrol costs less saving = $5.00 - $2.00 = $3.00).

Higher Markup Shopping
Try to reduce the number of trips for shopping. Each trip costs you money. The main ones to cut out are those trips to the corner store for bread and milk. The corner store doesn't sell the same volume as the large supermarket, so how do they survive - by charging a higher price for the stuff they sell. That's your bread and milk. You don't really have to buy bread or milk daily, anyway. Fresh bread will freeze for months and thaw, still fresh. You can usually separate individual slices in a frozen loaf, with a kitchen knife if the loaf has not been squeezed tight while freezing. This method will also reduce wastage - no more stale bread. Milk will keep for at least 7 days if kept chilled and in the dark (milk degrades rapidly in light).

Packaging Scams
Compare quantities versus prices. A common trick is to repackage products to look like you get more. Read the weight on the product packaging (net weight) and see how much you are paying per litre, kilogram or 100grams. Here's an example from the Safeway Supermarket in Melton, Victoria where I live - look at the prices in the two photos:

These were in the same store, at the same time and 5 metres apart. Neither one is organic or anything else that should warrant a 100% increase in price, other than some cling wrap.
Which would you prefer - $7.96 or $3.75 per kg? (Alternatively 500gms could cost you $3.98 or $1.85 - the choice is yours).
Beware of convenience packaging.

The Low Stock Specials Scam
Yesterday, while I was shopping at our Foodworks Supermarket in Melton and I noticed our favourite brand of coffee was reduced by almost $2.00 a jar but the space on the shelf, where it should have been was empty except for the "Special" sign. I bought what I wanted and left the store. Today ran out of something and needed to make a quick trip to the supermarket. I called very early in the morning and noticed that the shelf had been restocked but there were far less jars of the coffee on special, than all the other brands. There were only two rows of jars deep: enough to make the shelf look full.

I have seen the same thing at both Safeway and Coles here too. Of course if questioned, they will claim they genuinely only had a few in stock and they received a delivery over night. Unless you earch their storeroom, when the low stocked shelf runs out, you cannot prove them wrong.

The Low Stock Special scam is where a supermarket offers a popular product at a special price (a remarkably low price) and prints a rider "until stocks last". They place only a few on the shelf, each time the shelves are stocked (usually overnight). Legally they cannot be accused of misleading advertising; the goods were on the shelf. The advertised bargain brings shoppers into the store and they find the product sold out but while they are there, they will buy something else. Of course if a shop does this too often, the customers will wake up to the scam. In the reatil trade this is a sales technique. On our side of the fence it's a thinly veiled scam.

Few people will ask an attendant if there are any more out the back. Really unscrupulous stores will say they have no more stock left, apologetically of course. Often they will justify the shortage by saying the special was so popular that the goods sold out faster than expected but they are getting more in tomorrow. Either way the result is the same - you're in the store and are likely to buy something else while your there.

The solution is, shop when you need something and if they have a really good special, get it while you are there. Don't let the junk mail specials entice you into the supermarket when you don't need to do your shopping.

Incomapable Products
Here in Australia we have basically two grocery chains that have the 80% of the grocery market - Safeway and Coles.

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