Diet Green--and I don't mean lettuce

Well, there you go.

I wrote about my simple effort to lose weight by using salad plates for portion control. A reader left a note telling me about a new product called Flavor Magic.

She refers to a website, and I went there. Who knew? I thought. Here's a whole industry aimed at making a buck off portion control. Well, of course there is. I slapped myself. For every action humans make, another human somewhere is trying to make a little dough off of it. There are diet meals, of course, but I was talking about a do-it-yourself approach. And someone has come up with a product that goes with that. Of course there is.

I am saddened. Try as I may, I don't seem to have a money-making gene. And I really wish I did.

I commented myself that if I had some marketing spin to use describing portion control, a special ingredient or special time, it would be more attractive. And there you go. I have a comment telling me about just such a product on the market. And I ams sure it can work. Does work. And she pays money for it and just loves it.

My father started a savings and loan in 1934 in the middle of the depression. It thrived, grew, and is still going strong. On the other hand, when my mother was in junior high, one year she had only two dresses to wear. Her mother washed and ironed one each day while she wore the other. The reason was because my grandfather, a preacher with a parsonage and a regular, if small income, got talked into a gold mine swindle in the 1920s and basically beggared the whole family for a year. Not too smart. I think I know which side I take after, although I do have enough of my father's sense to hold a generally stable course. Just not a prosperous one.

I like to do things for folks, or tell them about helpful things. It just never occurs to me how to profit from it. It is extremely irritating.

Oh, well, I also hate to shop. I suspect those go together. For my continued survival, that's a good thing.