The Kitchen Think

Family InSourcing

I can't decide whether to feel prescient, vindicated, or just terribly sad that much of the anecdotal evidence of financial stress within families that this blog has been tracking for more than a year now, has been confirmed by The Washington Post.

The latest Washington Post/ABC News poll out this week shows Americans have experienced a significant rise in economic distress since last September, causing nearly 6 in 10 polled to say they feel "stressed" about their economic situations, and a quarter reporting feeling "serious" anxiety about their family's financial footing. 

And while this comes as NO surprise for those of us who live out here in the "real world," what is shocking is how long many of us fear the financial ugliness will last.  "Seventy percent of Americans anticipate a downturn lasting well into 2010 or longer; more than a third see it lasting two or more years," The WaPost reports.  Proof, it says, that Americans are feeling much more doom-ier and gloom-ier this recession, than they have during previous downturns.

And, as if disastrous retail sales figures weren't enough of an economic indicator, two-thirds of those polled say they've reduced spending, while nearly a third say they've cut spending dramatically.

My prescience comes not in these dismal and depressing poll figures, but rather in exactly what consumers have been cutting spending on:  hair maintenance, beauty maintenance, body maintenance, home maintenance, and car maintenance among other things.  That's a lot of deferred maintenance, as I've outlined in numerous posts here on Wise Ideas. 

Instead, as The WaPost reports, consumers have started "insourcing," a term marketers and businesses have coined meaning "doing yourself what you once gladly paid others to do."   For instances, sales of sewing machines and notions have gone up 30 percent at Wal-Mart.  Landscapers nationwide are reporting a 7 percent drop in business.  And Procter & Gamble reports a renewed interest in do-it-yourself (DIY) hair coloring kits.  

Target's ad agency, Peterson Milla Hooks, which noticed the DIY trend during last summer's gas price nightmare, targeted (pun? yes) its commercials toward these new thrift conscious customers.  As The WaPost reports, "PMH created a series of ads dubbed New Day for Target that depicted an $11.88 yoga ball as 'the new gym,' a $29.99 espresso maker as 'the new coffee spot' and $1.97 glass cleaner as 'the new car wash.'"

But a clever ad campaign can no longer be counted on to coax money out of the consumer's wallet.  Target reported a 40 percent drop in its 4th quarter profits, after cutting prices over the holidays and setting aside more money for unpaid credit-card balances.

21st Century Home Economics have us all getting back to basics:  doing our own gardening, cleaning our own shower scum, and washing our own cars and windows.  Weekends at home never seemed more....more....busy.  I'm just glad my kids are old enough to pitch in.  I just hope they don't expect to be paid!

 

Moving Forward

How symbolic that the same week a plumber is under my kitchen sink tinkering with a leaky pipe....I am doing the same thing with the plumbing of The Kitchen Think.

That giant sucking sound you hear is The Kitchen Think going down the drain, unplugged by my host after today for "budget reasons."   

I am nothing but grateful to ABC7, particularly the folks at The View from the Bay, for hopping on-board my Kitchen Think idea and hosting my blog for the past year.  It's been a great run, and I've been able to explore topics as diverse as The Mommy Wars, menopause, Hillary Clinton's cleavage, YouTube politics, Homer Simpson, Lance Armstrong, Brittany Spears, Nancy Pelosi, school fund raising and teaching kids the value of money.

So thank you, ABC7, for making this all happen.

ABC7's thoughtfulness continues however, by allowing you to still link to The Kitchen Think archive just by clicking to the same URL you are on now.  Regular readers may want to bookmark it, because it won't be readily available on the ABC7 website starting in September. 

Change is good.  We all need to remodel once in awhile.  And it's time for me to move on to another location in the blogosphere.  My challenge is convincing other potential "hosts" that the researched and informative musings of a woman of my particular age, background and current circumstances has value. 

So just what is a middle-aged, middle-class, mother-of-two's voice worth? 

It's a fair question, considering that women, in particular moms like me, in this country have a collective purchasing power totaling $2 billion a year.  It used to be that the mainstream media and the people selling products on TV, radio and in magazines and newspapers told us what we wanted and needed.  But that's just sooooooooo 20th century. 

Yes, we still like romantic comedies, Oprah, shopping shoe sales and chocolate.  But our lives are much deeper and more complex than that - and businesses which "get it" are the ones who will be successful in the 21st century.  In other words, don't tell us what we need...we'll tell you.

And tapping into this well of women's deepest needs, wants and desires turns out to be so simple.  Just go online, where you'll find the female network thriving and driving their own conversations on blogs just like this one.

As this piece in Entrepeneur.com points out, moms who blog - and those who read them - are increasingly influential in passing the word along about products, issues and trends. 

A Pew Internet research project from 2005 shows that blogging has become a key part of today's online culture, and its influence is skyrocketing.  Even BusinessWeek magazine has been advising businesses and advertisers to catch on to blogging, or get left behind.

That's why I'll be remodeling my old Kitchen Think into a new, improved blog.  And I invite you to follow along by clicking over to THIS NEW PAGE, which I'm temporarily calling Stay Tuned..., and watch as I go through the process, blogging all the way.  Same topics, same sarcasm, same humor, same writing....just new URL.

And in the next two weeks, I'll be announcing a new exciting venture and partnership at an new, exciting website.  So Stay Tuned...you won't want to miss out.

Thanks again ABC7 - especially Maggie Baxter, my champion...Jennifer Mitchell my IT mentor...and Kevin Keeshan, who just plain "gets it."

See you in the blogosphere.

Someday girl, I don't know when, we're gonna get to that place
Where we really want to go and well walk in the sun
But 'til then tramps like us, baby we were born to run ....

 

Labor vs Leisure: It's a Gender Thing

What is your definition of "leisure time?"  Is it all the time in your day in which you are not working?  Or is it the time you spend doing something you really, truly enjoy?

The question comes as most of us are getting ready to kick back and enjoy the upcoming three-day Labor Day weekend....a federal holiday first set aside in 1882 to celebrate America's "working men" - and now of course, working women.

For some time now, we've heard from researchers that we hard-working Americans are seeing our leisure time shrink.   In July I wrote a blog called Letting Vacation Slip Away about a new Expedia study which found that "52.2 million American workers were vacation deprived" by choosing NOT to take all the paid vacation days owed them. 

The Expedia study came just months after a think tank called the Center for Economic Policy and Research released a report called "No Vacation Nation."  The CEPR report "reviewed international vacation and holiday laws and found that the United States is the only advanced economy that does not guarantee its workers any paid vacation or holidays."  As a result, the report claims that 1 in 4 workers in the U.S. do not receive any paid vacation or holidays.

Put that information together with all the Blackberries, PDAs and laptops that have Americans working even when they aren't at work --- and you have a population that's seriously over-worked and under-played.

Or are we?

I heard on NPR's Morning Edition this week that yet another new study finds that working Americans today are actually enjoying more leisure time than ever - a trend that's been going on for 40 years now. 

According to this study, which you can download from this month's Quarterly Journal of Economics, "leisure for men increased by roughly six to nine hours per week (driven by a decline in market work hours) and for women by roughly four to eight hours per week (driven by a decline in home production work hours)."

One of the study's authors told NPR that an increasing number of men are working fewer hours at paid jobs and watching more TV...while women are working more hours at paid jobs, but doing less housework.

There's something terribly wrong with this picture:  he's watching TV....and she's fixing dinner, but not dusting, vacuuming or scrubbing the toilet.  Does fixing dinner qualify as leisure?  Does fixing dinner while helping kids with homework and feeding the baby qualify as leisure?

Get my drift?  (BTW, the new "Trends in Leisure" study was conducted by two men)

The definitions of both "work" and "leisure" are very subjective. And the more you think about it, each are defined differently based on gender.

So I go back to my original question:  What is your definition of leisure time?

Think about it -  while you shop and prepare for that big Labor Day picnic and your husband catches up on Law and Order.

Driving Me Insane!

So it looks like California is well on the road to outlawing teenagers from using cell phones - hands-free or not - while driving.

For those of you who don't follow the haps in Sacramento, here's the basic story.  On Monday, California's state assembly overwhelmingly passed SB33, proposed by democratic state senator Joe Simitian of Palo Alto (land of the affluent teen), which according to the San Jose Mecury News, "makes it an infraction for those younger than 18 to use a cell phone, pager, text-messaging device or laptop while driving."

Simitian is also the force behind a bill that restricts ALL drivers from using cell phones unless they are using a hands-free device.  That bill has already been signed by the Governator and goes into effect next July. However, that particular law seems rather toothless, once you hear that the fine for a first offender is only $20.  Heck, you can burn through $20 worth of minutes/texting in the time it takes to say "M I busted?".

Despite the tiny fines, such laws seems like no-brainers to me.  Because even if you don't know the statistics on cell phones and driving (2,600 deaths and 330,00 injuries in the U.S. annually), you most certainly have had some sort of run-in or near-miss on the road with another driver who is distracted because they're yakking on their cell. 

Not to be sarcastic (who, me?), but why stop at cell phones?

A poll taken by the PEMCO Insurance Company and quoted by Drivers.com found that the number one driving distraction was eating while driving, followed by cell phone use.  That frightening fact would seem to suggest that the nation's drive-thru's are contributing not only to the traffic accident rate, but also to its rising obesity statistics.

The PEMCO poll also found that "some 25 percent of all drivers say they have steered with no hands at some time in their driving lives, while 14 percent say they have applied makeup or shaved."  Admit it - you've either witnessed this, or done it, yourself.  Another top distraction found in the PEMCO study was reading while driving.

I find it interesting that no-one has mentioned prohibiting the single biggest driving distraction I encounter on a daily, sometimes hourly, basis:  my own kids. 

If they're not bickering, they're chatting away non-stop, or asking me to change the radio station, or if I've got something for them to drink or eat, or where are we going-what are we doing-why can't Joe have a playdate now, etc....etc....etc....  They are not only a distraction - but at times they drive me completely insane while I'm operating this deadly piece of heavy machinery that masquerades as a family mini-van

But chances are pretty slim that California will make carpooling kids a crime.  Darn.  Looks like I won't be able to pick the radio station for another 10 years......

What do you think of California's proposed cell phone ban for teen drivers?  What distracts you most when your behind the wheel?  Click below on "Comments" and join the conversation.

Passing the Snack Test

Two words:  Snack Duty. 

Now that school is back in session, parents are back perusing the grocery stores shelves looking for (reasonably priced) food (in bulk) that will tide their kid's class, soccer or lacrosse team (or all the above) over until the next scheduled meal.

Being an experienced snack mom, I volunteered to bring snacks for my daughter's first grade class this first week of school.  I did this not only because I knew her teacher could use the help (brown-noser that I am), but also because I've been through the snack wars before and I know what "acceptable" snacks to bring.  It also gets me off the hook for at least another four months!

A decade or two ago, being on snack duty was no big deal.  Get a bag of Lays, a box of Oreos, mix up some lemonade, and you're done. 

But in these more health conscious, allergy-prone and politically correct times, parents must walk a thin (pardon the pun) line when providing snacks for a large (sorry, pun again) group of kids. So sorry cupcake - you're not welcome anymore. 

Nor is anything with sugar, caffeine, trans or saturated fats, fructose, high sodium, nuts, or anything that might have touched or come into contact with a nut during its lifetime.

That shrinks the old-time snack list considerably.

My children's school provides a list of suggested snacks which is helpful, but I'm sure in many homes it gets lost with all the other paperwork involved in this first, busy week of fall.  However, there are other places you can turn for snack assistance.

This recent Washington Post article has some great information about snacks that pass the nutrition test these days, which even an experienced snack mom like me can learn from.  It includes the results of a taste test taken by some 3rd and 4th graders. 

For instance, I learned that the FDA frowns upon any home-made snack items because of concerns over home food preparation. I hope that doesn't mean my homemade mini blueberry muffins will be trashed!

Of course, fresh fruits, veggies and cheese sticks are always at the top of the list.  But refrigeration is a problem for many teachers - and keeping that stuff in your car for days on end prior to your snack commitment isn't wise either.

A list of "Smart Snacks" can be found on a website called SmartSpot, which was launched by PepsiCo to help consumers find healthy snacking options. Warning though:  its healthy snack list does include nuts...a no-no for anyone on snack duty.

As for pre-bagged individual items which are perfect for outdoor sports snacks, I was happy to find that the Frito-Lay people are finally providing a so-called "Smart Mix" variety in a bulk bag.  It has Baked Doritos, Baked Cheetos, Baked Ruffles and pretzel Twists in packets of 120 calories apiece.  Something else I'm learning - apparently, just using the word "smart" with a snack makes it healthier.

Snacks are HUGE business....$25.6 billion a year according to the Snack Food Association.  And although I joke about the marketing fascination with the word "smart," I'm happy to see that the industry is responding to our more healthy snack needs. 

Still, despite all this easily available information on healthy snacks, and the rising obesity rate showing every state getting fatter, there will always be parents who continue bringing bags of full-on chips, cookies and soft drinks for snack.

There's a couple of ways to deal with that:   1)  Get angry and do something about it, like launch a nutrition mission ala these moms featured recently in USA Today,  2) Simple ask them to make a "smarter" choice next time, or 3)  consider it a splurge for your kids  - and give them a taste of what life used to be like when we were children.

What are some of your snack duty suggestions?  Are you a parent who volunteers for snack duty, or has to be assigned kicking and screaming?  Click below on "Comments" and share your stories and secrets.

A Rude Awakening

Six-twenty comes awfully early in the morning.  Especially if you are young and have grown accustomed to a life of leisure in which your days are made up of lounging, playing, swimming, playing and more lounging. 

As I look this morning at the tousled (AKA: ratty) hair of my two sleeping children, I am quickly reminded how much I dislike this portion of my day...the part where I interrupt their pleasant childhood dreams and say "Wake up.  Time to get ready for school."

I've told myself for days now that I ought to be sneaking back my kids bedtime to prepare them for school.  According to The National Institute of Health, the National Sleep Foundation recommends that "children should gradually start adjusting their sleep schedules about two weeks prior to the start of the new school year."  But as is always the case, I just can't get myself to do it.  "Why squash their summer now?" I always say to myself.  "It's bad enough that they have to go back before Labor Day."

The transition between summer and school days is rough enough already, what with retraining the mind to focus on math and reading rather than arts, crafts and sports.  But retraining a child's body clock is probably just as important.  It's a no-brainer that the better you sleep at night, the better you perform during the day.   

Yet here I am, on the first day of school - going through the same rude awakening routine we were stuck in last school year.

First it starts gently, with a small hug, pat or rub and my soft, whispering voice saying "wake up."  In a span of 15 minutes, this idyllic scene turns into sharp shoves and loud nagging with increasing threats like "GET UP!  You'll be late for school and you KNOW how much you hate that...." 

Nothing like starting off the day with some negative vibes. 

If I could only outsource this job.

It turns out that in the early 20th century before alarm clocks, the job of waker-upper was indeed, outsourced.  I learned this by listening to a spirited reading on NPR's Weekend Edition of a children's book called Mary Smith. 

Written and illustrated by Andrea U'Ren, Mary Smith tells the story of the real-life Mary Smith, who went about waking people in her village up by shooting dried peas at their windows.  People who did this job back in those days were called "knocker-ups" (no kidding).

Although my son would dearly love to have access to a peashooter, I'm not so sure he'd enjoy being awakened by one.  However, it seems a much better solution than having me nag he and his sister to death to "get up, get breakfast, get dressed and get in the car."

I found another solution at Parents.com:  Clocky, the rolling alarm clock.  This $50 device is supposed to out-wit even the sleepiest of kids by rolling off the table when the snooze button is pushed, "hiding" in the room, and continuing to buzzzzzzzz - thus annoying your child to the point that he or she finally gets up.  However, I've learned that if something is annoying to my kids...it's probably even more annoying to me. 

Personally, I prefer the idea of hiring out for wake-up duty.

Do you suppose I could find a "knocker-up" on Craig's List?

Have you prepared your kids for their rude awakening to the school year?  How do you wake your kids up in the morning for school?  Is it a pleasant moment, or a dreaded one?  Click below on "Comments" and share your stories and parenting secrets.

Endless Summer

Shhh.  Can you hear it?  That sound at the nation's playgrounds, pools, campgrounds and beaches is summer's last gasp.  Or is it the collective sigh of relief from millions of moms who worked hard and played hard with their kids over the past two-and-a-half months?

My kids have three more days of freedom.  That means I have three more days running "Camp MJ," which among the activities this week featured a walk across the 1.7 mile long Golden Gate Bridge (and back), before heading for an afternoon at the pool.  Fun, fun, fun....interrupted only by frequent bouts of bickering!

Yet despite my fried nerves and exhausted patience, I'm experiencing the end-of-summer blues - that mix of depression and nostalgia that has me longing for lazy mornings, pressure-free afternoons and laid back evenings. 

I have always joked that there ought to be a law mandating that school shouldn't start until after Labor Day.  Lo and behold - because of a grass roots movement called "Save Our Summers," there is such a law in three states:  Minnesota, Wisconsin and Virginia.  Five other states have passed legislation forbidding public schools from opening too terribly early in August.  I'm sure private and parochial schools in those states ultimately follow the state mandated schedule as well.

"Summer creep," as this recent piece in the Sunday SFChronicle called it, is the trend toward moving school start dates up into early August, which many blame on the testing frenzy caused by No Child Left Behind.  I really don't care what's exactly to blame...it just seems criminal to me to have the dog days eaten up by school days. 

Am I being too romantic, too nostalgic about the dog days of summer?  Time Magazine writer Nancy Gibbs thinks I am.  "Savoring summer is a habit tattooed from childhood," she writes in her essay, "Dog Days No More."  "The flip side of summer freedom is anarchy, the structures of school and work melted into casual Fridays and long weekends spent playing on grass now baked to beige by drought, if it has not been drowned by this summer's biblical floods." 

A cynic would say that - although the days are still long, the leaves aren't turning colors yet, and there's no chill in the night air - autumn in our accelerated world has already begun.

Thank goodness that here at Camp MJ, it's summer for at least another three days!  Who's up for a trip to Mt. Tam?

Are your kids back in school?  How does that make you feel?  What do you think about "summer creep?"  Click below on "Comments" and tell us what you're thinking. 

Having It All - NOT!

"People told me, 'You can do it all. Just stay the course, get your education and you can raise a child, stay thin, be in shape, love your man, look good and raise healthy children.' That was a lie."

Now there's a girl after my own heart. 

That statement was made by Michelle Obama during a campaign fund raising appearance near Austin, Texas for her husband, Barak.  According to an article this week in The LATimes, Ms. Obama's recent remarks received "emphatic nods" and "rueful laughter" from her mostly female audience.

That's because that mostly female audience was made up of women like me, who have been saying the same thing for years now, but only to each other.  Now, Michelle Obama is blazing a trail as mythbuster for my generation of women, taking the issue out of America's kitchens and cubicles, and putting it on the campaign trail.

But you don't have to be republican or democrat to understand the point Ms. Obama was making.  "I don't know about you, but as a mother, wife, professional, campaign wife, whatever it is that's on my plate, I'm drowning. And nobody's talking about these issues. In my adult lifetime, I felt duped," Ms. Obama admits.

The "Have It All" myth started with women of my generation.  We grew up believing, thanks in part to that famous 70's Enjoli perfume commercial featuring a woman in a yellow dress with matching kitchenware, that we could  "bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan, and never let her husband forget he was a man." Then we entered the workforce in growing numbers...had kids...went back into the workforce...and realized the lie we were living and in some cases, preaching.

As Joan Williams, director of the Center for WorkLife Law at Hastings Coillege of Law here in San Francisco told The Times, the Obamas "capture absolutely perfectly what's going on with their generation." 

Nearly a year ago, I wrote a blog about how deep the debate, often condescendingly called "The Mommy Wars," goes in this country.  It fills thousands of blogs and sells millions of books.  At that time, I wrote that much of the alleged "war" is over the choices we make in life, and how we deal with those choices, and how we deal with others who have made different choices.

I still believe that.  But I've also come to realize that this issue also has a lot to do with class, race and income as well.  As Maya Rupert recently wrote in an Op-Ed in The SFChronicle, a "vast majority of mothers are being excluded from the conversation."  They are women who are working class, low-income and single mothers - who don't have a choice about "doing it all." They just have to do it to survive.

I admire Michelle Obama for bringing up this issue on the campaign trail, but I'd like to see her broaden her stump speech to include not only "the haves," but also "the have-nots."  And although there's little that can be done politically about a social and cultural issue like this, maybe just having this conversation, when a lot of people are listening, will help us all find that balance we so desperately seek.

A girl can dream, can't she.....

Where do you stand on "having it all?"  Let your voice be heard, by clicking below on "Comments" and joining the conversation.

Fashion Statement

You wouldn't know it to look at me now (especially at this very moment with my ripped Gap pencil cut jeans and Vans flamingo T-shirt....), but once upon a time, I had a pretty sweet wardrobe.

It was back in the days when I was single, and had a hot job and a disposable income.  And at that time, what I chose to dispose my income on was designer labels. 

This use of my money back in the 80's was made possible not by a huge salary, but rather by the bold decision of two key designers, Calvin Klein and Donna Karan, to make their clothing available to a new, mid-range mass market of women just like me.

That trend has thrived over the past 20 years, and not only saved a lot of career women a lot of money....it has also saved some designers from bankruptcy (Isaac Mizrahi for Target), widened the market for some (Nicole Miller for J.C. Penny) and saved face (and raised bail money) for others (Martha Stewart for K-Mart and now Macy's).  The latest in this line of designers now designing for "the people" is Vera Wang, who's Very Vera collection, according to The Budget Fashionista, will be available in Kohl's stores in three weeks. 

But while NPR's Morning Edition this week called this the "democratization" of fashion, Newsweek fashion writer and now author Dana Thomas believes it's part of a trend that has degraded designer goods.  She's written a whole book about it called "Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster," which was reviewed this week in The NYTimes. 

In her book, Thomas posits that the mass marketing of designer goods has resulted in the "conspicuous consumption and wretched excess" which has spread around the world.  "Labels, once discreetly stitched into couture clothes, have become logos adorning everything from baseball hats to supersized gold chains," writes The Times.

True?  Sure!  But is that such a bad thing?

Even though the designer duds in my closet that belonged to that 80's career gal have since been replaced with stay-at-home mom stuff like jeans and T-shirts, I can still truly appreciate a trendy skirt and top with an affordable price. 

So what if luxury has lost its luster among the couture class.  The rest of us are laughing...and looking good doing it, too.

Has couture been killed by the mass marketing of designer clothes?  Do you shop designer goods at K-Mart, Target and Penny's?  Click below on "Comments" and tell us what's in your closet!

When Moms Blog.....

My kids don't seem to listen to me....my husband only occasionally. 

So what a pleasure it is that corporate American is finally tuning into what I, and other women like me, are saying.

In case you missed it last Friday, Kellogg's is unveiling a new package design that has the cereal's nutrition information on the front of the box using an easy-to-read graphic (for those of us who don't carry magnifying glasses everywhere).

As The Wall Street Journal reported, the so-called "Nutrition at a Glance" labels "feature information about calorie, fat, sugar and sodium content. They also will state whether cereals contain more than 10% of an adult's recommended daily allowance of fiber, magnesium, calcium, potassium and vitamins A, C or E."

From the healthy Special K to the more questionable Froot Loops - all Kellogg's cereals will sport such banners.

It was just two months ago that I blogged about Kellogg's decision to raise the nutritional value of all cereals and snacks it markets to children under 12.  Kellogg's officials told the WSJ on Friday that if its more sugary and fatty products like Apple Jacks, Corn Pops and Pop Tarts are unable to pass a taste test after a recipe change, they will stop marketing those items to kids under 12. 

The Kellogg's announcement follows the news that advertising pal, Nickelodeon, is no longer going to allow the use of its characters on junk food products.  According to The NYTimes, charactors like SpongeBob and Dora "will be allowed to appear only on packaged food products that meet “better for you” criteria established by Nickelodeon’s marketing clients."  The change won't go into effect until 2009, when current licensing agreements expire. 

Nick did allow itself one loophole, saying its decision won't count when it comes to special Halloween or Valentine's Day candies.

The power of the mom in the marketplace is not news.  According to a book called "Trillion Dollar Moms", we spend 1.7 million annually, so our purchasing power is a given.  It's how we're spreading the word these days that is news.

The online version of Entrepreneur Magazine reports that the thousands of moms who blog - and the millions of moms who read them - are spreading the word on products so fast these days, that their purchasing power, which now totals $2 trillion a year, is even more significant.  As Debra Aho Williamson of eMarketer.com told Entrepreneur, "Moms are the ultimate internet networkers," passing along shopping tips, product picks and helping shape trends and opinions via the ultimate word-of-mouth forum - the Internet.

It's nice to feel wanted - and listened to - by someone.  If only my family knew how powerful I really am.......

What influences your consumer choices?  What would you like to see change in the products or brands you currently buy?  Click below on "Comments" and join our conversation.