I’m in a panic here. It’s almost June.
You know, National Fruit and Vegetable Month.
That’s right, the month-long holiday is looming and I’m in danger of being caught with a fridge full of diet soda and a fruit bowl full of car keys and old rubber bands.
Fortunately, wiser (and healthier) heads can prevail. Over at The Food Watchdog, a blog I contribute to now and again, we got a press release today referencing this article: “ROYGBIV: The Color of Health” by natural chef and nutritionist Patty James, co-author of the book, More Vegetables Please!
And, no, that article headline is not misspelled. “ROYGBIV” is indeed intended.
It’s meant to be a little reminder about the need to eat fruit and veggies of different colors. Or, to spell it out:
Red
Orange and Yellow
Green
Blue and Indigo and Violet
White
Each group has its own particular value. Take Reds, for example. As James writes, red peppers, potatoes and their similarly hued relatives have lycopene, which:
“Helps rid the body of damaging free radicals, protects against prostate cancer, as well as heart and lung disease. The red foods are loaded with antioxidants thought to protect against heart disease by preventing blood clots and may also delay the aging of cells in the body.”
James knows that a little memory trick goes a long way to keeping people with the program. Yet I can’t help but feel that she may be a bit too optimistic about my grasp of this approach.
If I could remember ROYGBIV, I could also remember the 97 passwords associated with my computer and internet use. I’d never stand in front of the ATM in a frozen panic. I would sort out the destinations of Interstate 205-South and Interstate 205-North, once and for all.
This is not to say that we don’t need rules. We do. They just need to be a little easier to remember. For example:
1 – If the food item can sit on its own without packaging and has a peel, seeds, stem or stalk, eat it.
2 – Make the food items take turns. If Green went at lunchtime, then Yellow gets a turn at dinner.
There, done.
Have a great month. Don’t forget to hang that eggplant out on the flagpole on June 1.
Task-based wages…or how I’m learning to value myself.
Used to be that an independent contractor set rates by one or two measures: What will the market bear? What is my time worth?
That first yardstick has pretty much disintegrated. Anyone who knows what the market will bear should not be wasting her time reading this blog. Get out and make money, genius.
So, what is one’s time worth? Ah, there’s the thing to ponder. In my world, that of freelance writing, it’s a buyer’s market. Awash with former journalists, the field of wordsmiths-for-hire is very, very crowded.
Most of us started out valuing our time based on what we were paid in (usually) union newsrooms. Which is sort of like Pluto asking for the same treatment it got back when it was considered an actual planet.
I’ve tried a few approaches, including the name-your-price model that lets a client set the rate. This is workable right up until one is hired by a friend (who feels guilty, overpays, then never hires you again) or a true cheapskate. You know where that one goes.
So, here’s a new idea. In this time of economic murkiness, I notice that everyone is more forthcoming about costs:
–”My student loan is $250 a month!!”
–”The dentist said it’ll cost $1,400!”
–”I paid $4.80 to park downtown!”
There’s a weary sense of I-share-your-pain out there. Everyone is quoting numbers and no one is happy.
So, here’s my idea. I call it “task-based wages.” In this model a contract worker (freelancer, babysitter, yard worker, whatever) quotes a price that is directly linked to a real need.
So instead of $25 an hour, I tell my client that the job cost is “gym membership” or $40. I feel the budget pressure lighten and the client sees the reasonableness of the charge. Even if $40 is more than they wanted to spend, they can take comfort in the fact that there will be one less out-of-shape, overweight person in America. (This assumes a lot of things; just roll with me here.)
Instead of my old system of quoting an hourly and a flat rate for a large editing gig, I can now offer the “two cups of coffee every day for a week” or the “new tires” rate.
We’re all in this together, right?