Black Friday

 

It is good to take advantage of a sale or bargain when the opportunity presents itself.

Nevertheless, I was never one into the craze over Black Friday.

I never intentionally went shopping on that day, I never understood the impulse the draw had on many.

I worked at quite a few department stores and still was not tempted to hunt for a deal.

 

 

I hated how our managers instructed us employees who had certain major positions to be at the stores by 5am to get the sales floor ready to prepare for the surge of customers before the doors to our retail outlets opened.

People literally tore the store up in their haste and disorder.

I used to hear on the news how some people were killed during stampedes caused by those who were in a rush, carelessly bombarding their ways through the crowds of other impetuous people.

I remember standing out in the cold while it was still dark outside one November, the day after Thanksgiving. I was waiting early that morning for a bus to catch, all for the sake of a job needing me to be there to help line up things for Black Friday- it was so ridiculous.

 

My Tidbits

 

This past Saturday morning I had some cold, tasty, nutritious apple juice without any added sugar.

In the afternoon, I drank three cups of hot delicious tea back-to-back.

Later, during the evening, I made quite a few pieces of toast from whole wheat bread.

I lightly covered my toast with I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter Vegan spread that I had not purchased in almost two years.

And that is all I ate and drank for that entire day.

Wait A Minute! What Was In My Box Of Rice?!

 

On my way home from work earlier in the week, I stopped off at a grocery store that I frequent on rare occasions while I am within the area.

I purchased a box of instant Minute brown rice.

I have been a rice eater since childhood, always loved me some rice- whether yellow rice, red rice, beans and rice, peas and rice, rice pilaf or plain rice.

I cut out eating white rice unless colored with the benefits of Turmeric two years ago.

I have been eating mainly brown rice when I get the taste for it mixed in with lentils or various type of beans that I prepare.

When I got home later in the evening to pour the rice into a pot to boil an object of some sort fell out through the box along with the rice.

It was dark brown in color, had a sharp point on one side and broke in half like some dirty piece of matter possibly found in ground or soil.

Whatever the article was it was a turn off to me.

I immediately poured the contents of the rice out of my pot into the garbage. I took a photo of the Minute rice box proof of purchase, date, and time stamp.

Afterwards, I wrapped the box of remaining rice in a plastic bag and placed it inside the trash.

The next day I phoned up the company that manufactures the rice and was disappointed at the representative’s way of operating, so I hung up on her.

The representative wanted me to send a picture of what I found inside the box. I explained how it broke up and as I did not know what it was, I quickly discarded it

I proceeded to fill out a contact form located on the Minute Rice website. Now I am waiting to see if I will receive a response from them.

 

Cheerios

 

 

There are not too many healthy cold boxed cereals out on the market. In fact, it is very rare to find some that really are nutritious without unnecessary ingredients.

One of my favorites, Uncle Sam’s Raisin Bran which was high in fiber without any added sugars and only had four simple ingredients was unfortunately taken off the market due to low customer sales.

I phoned up the company myself to find out this information after I could no longer find the item in the stores I use to purchase them from a year and a half ago.

Grape-Nuts is still on the market and is another healthy four- ingredient vegan friendly cereal, however, I do not have a taste for them as I did during my teenage years.

Cheerios was a cereal I loved while growing up and healthy compared to the other leading cereals.

I stopped eating them because of the Cheerios being fortified with vitamin D3 derived from lanolin (grease/oil from sheep’s wool).

Since nowadays General Mills made Cheerios gluten-free and non-gmo maybe they will eventually take out the animal sourced Vitamin D3 and replace it with a plant-based option for us vegans to consume.