Today is just a good day for food related news in the MSM (main-stream media). My girlfriend pointed out this article in City Pulse.
Last Friday, beginning at about 10 a.m., I elbowed aside a couple of retirees settled onto a bench at the West Saginaw Meijer and watched the shoppers go by. It took all of six minutes for the first 100 bags to fly off their metal T-frames and hitch a cart ride out the door.
Each checkout lane was a little Ellis Island for bags. Welcome to Lansing. Your host family will put you to work for 12 minutes (the average useful life of a plastic bag), then help you settle down in a nice landfill, tree or ditch.
It’s no secret that plastic bags litter the landscape, get into water and soil, stop up storm drains and use up petroleum. Plastic bags are more visible and numerous by far than paper bags, but paper shouldn’t get off the hook. Paper bags are a lot easier to recycle than plastic bags, but they use up trees, they’re heavier than plastic and they take more energy to make and transport.
Now ther’s an interesting take on paper or plastic. I’ll admit, I’m bad. I keep walking by the reusable bags at the mega-marts, but they always seem like such a hassle. I have to remember to put them back in my truck after I use them so they are there for next time.
There are a lot of interesting facts in this article about how other countries deal with the platic bags. All of them sound like good solutions. I would be totally in favor of this one….
(Hugh) McDiarmid (of the Michigan Environmental Council) suggested, however, that a “takeback” program similar to the Michigan bottle deposit — and the Irish tax — might work.
“We have experience with that already,” McDiarmid said. “The bottle bill turned out to work fairly well.” Terry Link, head of MSU’s Office of Campus Sustainability, also saw an affinity between the two issues. “What really helped that bottle bill pass is, people were tired of the litter,” Link said. “And it’s the litter part that’s driving everybody nuts now. You see it on the beaches, the roadways — it blows everywhere.”
Before moving to Michigan a few weeks ago, I had no idea why all my Pepsi had deposit prices on them. The first time I went to Meijer I couldn’t figure out why people were taking trash into the store. Then I saw the machines to deposit bottles…then I noticed the other day on a reciept that there’s $.10 added to the purchase price of every pop I get. I think maybe I’ll start saving those bottles now.
Not everyone thinks we should get rid of plastic grocery bags. The companies that make them have formed the Progressive Bag Alliance to lobby for alternatives to outlawing the bags. Of course, they have an agenda though, so does their opinion really count?
San Francisco, CA became the first city to outright ban plastic bags on March 27, 2007. Just across the bay, the City of Oakland, CA followed suit shortly after. In July of 2007, the California State Legislature enacted AB 2449 requiring all large supermarkets to offer recycling points for customers. So far, no other states have followed suit.
This make you feel bad yet? It’s ok, the City Pulse has a list of stores that offer reusable bags and the price. Check out their article by clicking this link. The info is at the bottom of the article.
cream is 
We stopped at the pulled pork guy’s stand but all we got were a Pepsi and a Diet Pepsi. We had just eaten so it wasn’t time for lunch just yet. Vendors were constantly going up and down the aisles….almost to the point of annoying. I missed a few hits because I had three vendors following each other down the aisle. When we finally did grab something to eat, my girlfriend just got an ice cream sandwich from one of those annoying vendors.
I picked my girlfriend up at work and we took a quick dinner break at the PAD. We walked in and waited for a waitress at the front counter. The waitress came out and asked smoking or non-smoking. We chose non-smoking which is a pretty small dining room in the front of the restaurant. There’s a wall that seperates that space from the smoking section, but windows still allow the smoke to sneak through. The non-smoking side of the dining room is actually pretty big. I headed back that way to the restrooms and there were quite a few people back there enjoying their meals in the thick, smoky air. Most of the patrons back there seemed to know each other as converstions extended beyond their own tables.
The Penn Ave. Diner passed the test as a greasy spoon diner. They didn’t really do anything that made them standout, but most people don’t go to a place like this for something super special. The bill seemed to be a little high to me coming in at $15 before tip. I’m sure it was the extra we had to pay for a fry cook to open a bag of fries and drop them in the oil. It was a quick meal though as we were in and out in about 20 minutes. The PAD has a unique design and food that satisfies, but doesn’t wow.
We took a seat near the bar and the waitress came over with paper menus to take our drink order. Since it was early, we both went with Pepsi’s. The menu is pretty interesting with salads, sandwiches, and personal french bread pizzas. I went fairly safe and got the Beefeater sandwich. The kaiser roll was filled with sliced roast beef, cheddar cheese, lettuce, tomato, and bistro sauce. I left the lettuce and tomato off and went straight for the meat. The meat itself was nothing special. It actually kind of tasted like they went to the deli and got some roast beef. The bistro sauce was interesting and I couldn’t really place what it actually was, but it was good and added some flavor to a sandwich that really wasn’t much more than cold meat sandwich. The sandwich came with chips and a pickle spear.
The place was gorgeaus, but how would the food stack up? Our waiter came over for drinks. My girlfriend went with one of their many cocktails. I had a Pepsi. The drink menu is just about the same size as the dinner menu. I’m not sure I’ve ever been handed a menu so thick. Meals range from burgers to steaks and everything in between. I went with my new favorite, the Black and Bleu burger. The half pound burger with Cajun seasoning comes on a Ciabatta roll with blue cheese crumbles and hardwood smoked sugar cured bacon strips. The waiter said it was a good choice as Clara’s is known for that burger. The sandwich came with the standard out-of-the bag fries which were crispy and salty, so no complaint there. The sandwich was delicious…except I didn’t realize it was going to have mayo on it. The menu doesn’t say anything about mayo and I was really surprised when I took a bite to find that there. The first few bites it was overpowering and took away from the taste of the cheese, but the more I ate, the more the bleu cheese flavor came out.
Mid-Michigan Dining 
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