A QUART OF MILK - When I was a boy, the Milk Man (Bennetts, Deeds Dairy and Home Dairy, to name the more popular dairies "back then" in Lancaster, Ohio) would leave a couple quarts of milk at our back door and the only identification as to contents was the name of the dairy on a little paper cap covering the bottle opening. I believe it simply said MILK, and maybe later, "Homogenized". You knew what it was because it was in a MILK BOTTLE. Sure there was cream, buttermilk, and even orange juice available but the point I am trying to get across is that the ingredients were quite simple. At breakfast this morning I noticed the rather large label on the plastic gallon jug containing 2% Milk and figure there must be several dozen words identifying or describing the contents of the container, as well as the bar code for pricing and inventory control. As specific as they are today, I am surprised that they do not list what field of the farm the cattle grazed, and maybe even which teat of the cow's bag the milk came from!

GASOLINE - Just two grades, Regular and Ethyl. Diesel, to the best of my knowledge was not around then, unless it was a restricted commercial item. You could buy "coal oil" or kerosene as it is known today which is comparable to diesel fuel, I believe. Then people used kerosene as fuel in small kitchen stoves with one, two or several burners that were designed for people who did not have a natural gas or electric stove in their kitchen. Today, the price of gasoline, and especially diesel fuel, might well be labeled GOLD, liquid gold that is.

CEREAL - When I was a kid, I think it was about then, they started using the word "preservatives" in certain products. One I remember for sure, was a box of Kellogg's (I think) PEP cereal. For some reason, it got old at our house or the grocer's shelf because it was about the stalest tasting stuff you could find - and we probably threw it out. Not that PEP was not a good cereal, but that cereal simply got stale. Today, cereals and such products are so hyped up with chemicals that even bugs don't bother eating it, but as people, we don't know any better and we gobble it up without another thought. Today there are also "expiration dates" on most products. Sometimes, of course, this is a code or an embossed type of identification but it is there just the same. Also, years ago little trinkets or awards were in a box of cereal, or no less than a coupon that you could send off and get a whistle, compass or other "valuable" item most kids would want. Or you could send in the BOX TOP, or several box tops and, with a few coins, and get a secret code ring!

HOSPITAL CARE - Close to the house we lived in when I was a teenager was the original hospital of our town. It was a two story house where nurses and doctors took care of patients in a very personal way. It was not unusual for the doctor himself, to carry a patient up a flight of stairs to the 2nd floor, after surgery, taking them to their room. Of course, most my age remember when "house calls" were more than a funny situation comedy on public TV. In my early adult life, it was also not unusual for our doctor to instruct his patients to "Pick up your pills in the box at the office front door." There, on the porch, just a few feet from the sidewalk, among packets of pills for sometimes a dozen or more, would be a packet of pills with the name "VENRICK" handwritten on the little envelope. There was no slip to sign, no validation required - trust and integrity were a part of the society in which we grew up. It is obvious such trust is not visible in today's society where you have to put your "signature" on a slip of paper and then "print" your name and phone number on the slip, and oh yes, PAY FOR the medicine before you leave the counter.

YES, I am aware my age has something to do with my desire for "the plain and simple". As I mentioned earlier about the PEP cereal going stale or flat, you can just about bet that we are not plagued with that because of all the additives they use in food products. However, the recent experience my wife and I had, acknowledging, accepting and adjusting to the facts of life - both of us had let ourselves go, weight wise, and excess weight and blood pressure are not "friendly facts"; so we have been quite conscious of the portion of boxes, bottles and bags called "Ingredients". Some may remember my rant about wanting chocolate milk without high test sweeteners or why they have to include high fructose corn syrup and (more) corn syrup in tomato catsup; well, it took all of about 60 seconds for a best friend and my wife to "inform me" you have to include sugar (or some kind of sweeteners in some things. OK, alright, OK, sweeteners are necessary but that still doesn't keep me from studying "ingredients". I am glad there are some food products prepared "plain and simple", e.g., Peanut Butter, dried fruit and some cereals. A popular food chain in this area, KROGERS, has a line of peanut butter that has, for ingredients: "Roasted peanuts, salt. Contains: PEANUTS" Pick up a jar of the top sellers and you will find that peanuts and a LOT of other stuff is in that great spread that doesn't stick to the roof of your mouth. (If you too would like some "plain and simple" peanut butter, and you are in an area where KROGERS is known, look for their product: "Natural Creamy" Peanut Butter.

The same is true with cereals. I prefer Shredded Wheat that has a list of ingredients with as few lines as possible. A POST "Shredded Wheat (with wheat'n bran)" only has three lines: "Ingredients: Whole grain wheat and wheat bran. To preserve the natural wheat flavor, BHT is added to the packaging material. And for "Contents: WHEAT" Again, take a look at those whiz bang popular brands and see "what else" is needed for most cereals. (End of commercials - no, I have not been promised a dozen cartons of any of the above products but I sure do like them!)

Yes, I am aware there are folks with unique health issues and "plain and simple" is virtually impossible. Rather, you will find a notice like, "This product was manufactured in a building where wheat flour and peanuts were processed." Pure and simple, our society has become quite complex, and let's face it, most of us are glad food producers recognize generalizations like "plain and simple" are simply not always possible.

Those who have experienced similar problems as my wife (stroke and diabetes), they and their caregivers, simply must become very thorough readers of foods products we find on the grocery shelves. Since we have drastically reduced our desire for sugar we have found even sour fruit tastes sweet! We have a hybrid blackberry bush in our backyard that is thorn-less but boy is it sour! Funny thing, that real sour taste has been reduced since we "gave up" sugar - fresh fruits have sufficient sweetness and if we add fruit to our cereal, that is sufficient sweetener. And boy do /we like the ingredient list on a package of dried plums: "Ingredients: California pitted dried plums. Potassium Sorbate added as a preservative."

Yeah, "plain and simple" is still around too!

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THE WORDWRIGHT