The reason I put food in in chunks of whole is first off it is the worms job to do the work not mine. Second the moisture is released slowly into the bedding. This should let the right microbes grow just as needed. It is not the thorns of the pineapple that is the issue but putting a lot of it in the bin reminds one that pineapple is a meat tenderizer. How tender do you like your worms? Given enough bedding and an area to escape to non massive amounts of pineapple should be fine.

For me I don't call being frugal " cheap", penny-pinching, miserly, stingy--------------. As a matter of fact, I donâÂÂt even call it frugal. I call it value conscious. Greenish bananas is $0.79 a lb, but yellow bananas with very few black spots are marked down at $0.39 a lb, and as you know, yellow bananas with a few spots are at the best ripeness for eating. I was going to make pork chops, after having read ChaseâÂÂs pork chop thread. But pork chops are $4.99 a lb and pork shoulder is $0.99 a lb. Sous vide pork shoulder is more flavorful and more tender than pork chops. I was going to make prime ribs, after having read Ann_tâÂÂs dinner, then this week London Boil (boneless) is $0.99 a lb. I think Prime rib is $17.00 a lb? Sous vide London Boil is just as tender and may be beefier. I enjoy giving leftovers the Cinderella transformation, and free-range organic âÂÂweedsâ on the front lawn the gourmet promotion. Over the years, several thousand gallons later, there has never been one oz of kitchen scrap not composed. That includes meat, bones and fat, something normally people cannot compost. My simple tools for composting everything: A garden shredder to pulverize large bones http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUn3SCoCFFc A simple home-made convertable small rototiller to bury kitchen scraps 36â deep. The video shows the tool is digging into earth which was still frozen. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1i9LSzb-U0g dcarch

Jim, the money supply can go up but if velocity is down, it doesn't drive inflation. I've linked below to an article on this. And how much is the money supply going up, really? The Fed is trying to drive up money supply, but the private sector is pulling it down. You can find charts of money supply, here is one: http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/money-supply-charts Money supply has declined quite significantly in the past couple years. dcarch, no question the rapid growth of China and India is adding to demand. However, that growth is coming from a very low level. The consumption of goods and services by the average person in China or India is far, far less than the consumption of the average person in the US, Europe and Japan. Use GDP per capita as a rough proxy for consumption. India is about $3,500, China about $7,000 vs US about $46,000, Western Europe and Japan about $35,000. China's population is 1.3bn, India's 1.2bn, US 311mm, Western Europe 500mm (use the EU), Japan 127mm. So we can get the GDP of each region. Suppose China and India's GDP grows 60% in the next 5 years, which is 10% per year (about the current rate) while the US, Western Europe and Japan's GDP only grows 10% over the period or 2% per year (unfortunately, also about the current rate if not better). The result would be the combined GDP grows 24% over the period or 4% per year. (approximate, I don't have a spreadsheet here, just an iPhone and a pencil). (We could use other proxies for consumption, like energy consumption per capita. Which is why I did the above as a per capita calculation, instead of simply starting with country GDP.) Can the world supply 4% more ''stuff'' per year without driving inflation to very high levels? Overall, sure. There is plenty of production capacity in electronics and plastic molding and LCD screens to supply (far more than) 4% growth in iPhones and similar. There is plenty of assembly and component manufacturing capacity to supply (more than) 4% growth in automobiles. Similar for concrete to make housing, fiberboard to make furniture, etc. 4% will not stress global capacity, especially after a deep recession as we've just had. We'll see periods of volatility in some prices, as supply and demand adjust. Pork, rice, cotton, etc. This volatility will be upwards and downwards, but the price rises will get more media attention. Remember a couple of years ago, when rice was skyrocketing in price, countries were hoarding, everyone was talking about rice shortages? Rice soared to $22. Then it fell to $12, that didn't get much news. Rose to $16. Fell to $10. Rose to $14. Yet during the period 2008 to present, as rice price were cut in half, China and India have continued to grow and consume more of everything - and they eat a lot of rice. The commodities that are soaring today will collapse the same way. Commodities are more volatile today, their prices moving more than fundamental demand-supply would suggest, because more investors are playing those markets, and financial money flows are huge compared to the relatively small commodities markets. In the end, fundamentals still control. Here is a link that might be useful: Article

susie53 -- Yes, and the receipts from the grocery store are overly lengthy. Are you supposed to think you got MORE for your money because the receipt is a yard long? If I'd kept all the Citi American Express card offers we've gotten this winter I could paper the back hall. Stop already! Since his father's death in the late 1940's my DH has received a government check for $1.89 every month. DH is beneficiary of an insurance policy his father took out when he served in WWI. It took us years to get them to issue just an annual check. I wonder how many other people are getting checks are worth less than they cost to issue and mail. (How many government employees spend their days overseeing this waste?)