Tag Archives: Meijers

And we're shoveling, shoveling…

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True Temper Snow Boss Shovel

This is without a doubt the best snow shovel I have ever used. The entire thing is incredibly sturdy and the way it’s constructed allows me to plow, shovel, and dig. The two interior handles let me change my leverage on the shovel itself making lifting and tossing snow much more comfortable than it otherwise would have been with a standard straight shovel. It has more power than my ergonomic shovel and for that I am very grateful.

I was able to clear out my entire driveway in half an hour. The front parking area took about as long only because of the drifts built up by the township plows. All in all I didn’t overexert myself, I got an hour of cardio + circuit exercise in, so I don’t need to go to the gym today and I was even able to plow a strip across the properties for the mailman and the energy company guy to come and deliver mail and take meter readings if they have to.

I was able to get this awesome shovel at Meijers, on sale for about $30. I’ve seen them also at Lowes. Amazon has them as well, but the price is about $45. If you live where it snows and you have to deal with snow removal, and you want a good workout too, I can’t recommend this shovel enough. I was going to buy a little snowblower this year, but with this shovel and my interest in getting in shape, what’s the point now? I’ve got what I need, might as well use it and not burn more gasoline that I don’t have to.

Stuff I Just Can't Throw Away

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Spy Hill Landfill – 2

I can’t throw away plastic supermarket bags. My reluctance is because they are such a waste of difficult-to-degrade plastic if their only purpose is to sack up food for conveyance from a store. I believe deep down that if you are going to sack your food in plastic that once you get it home, those bags ought to have a second or third life in the home, a kind of active recycling. In my household plastic shopping bags are used to hold bottle and can recycling, used to contain too-old leftovers so they can be thrown in the garbage without their degradation becoming noticeable, and finally being handy receptacles for cat exhaust. If the bags just go right into the garbage from the market then their 10 minutes of use and 3000 year lingering feels like a horrible sin. If you can get them to do a host of other things, then I believe you should. People look at me oddly when I tell them to save the bags, some people just immediately throw them away, but I hope by answering this Plinky prompt, they understand why that isn’t right.

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Eggs

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The recent news of the Salmonella-tainted Eggs is bouncing around the 24 hour news cycle. My mom told me about Davidson’s Pasteurized Eggs, they are still raw, but rendered completely safe to consume because they’ve been treated with heat, not enough to coagulate the yolks and set the whites but enough to kill any potential infections of Salmonella that might be lurking within the egg. I am of course wanting to explore the MAFC, and a good portion of that is mastering the Sauces section, for which under-temperature eggs are a fundamental component.

I discovered that I could pasteurize my own eggs by raising an amount of water to 150 degrees and holding eggs suspended in this water for 5 minutes. To overcome this annoying inconvenience I thought I would write to my local supermarket chain, Meijers. I suggested that they carry Davidson’s Pasteurized Eggs and basically got a rebuff throwaway message from a Meijers representative who claimed that none of the eggs that Meijers sells was involved in the recall. As it may be, Meijers, that your eggs weren’t recalled does not necessarily mean that they are safe. Pasteurized eggs are safe. I would pay more for eggs that I knew were safe so I could feel okay with exploring the Sauce section of the MAFC. I can’t really just target Meijers, as WalMart, D&W, and Hardings, all the markets in our area do not carry pasteurized eggs. This isn’t the first time that I’ve contacted Meijers, so far it’s the third request I’ve made over the years for products that would do very well in our area. I’ve decided that contacting Meijers is a fool’s errand.

I suppose that if enough young and elderly die of Salmonella poisoning then Michigan will legislate to force egg pasteurization and Meijers will turn a tidy 180 and then aggressively pursue and market it to their customers. What bothers me deep down is that expanding customers choice for truly safe foods isn’t on the radar for any of the local food marketers in our region. Then again, I’ve said time and time again that restaurants and food markets have no interest in public health or safety – filthy food from monstrous sources is perfectly fine as long as the balance sheet remains in the black. Because I don’t trust anything I buy from Meijers, D&W, Hardings or WalMart it is important to cook everything thoroughly, select against raw foods, and when there is no choice but to buy raw foods from these providers, make a weak bleach solution to sanitize what you bought because nobody is going to care for your health but you, yourself. I couldn’t imagine having a live-in elderly family member or an infant, that we don’t have more of a body-count from tainted and monstrously sourced foods is an absolute blessing.