Leave the Planning to Us

Some people love to plan meals and shop daily; some people know they have to eat at home to save money but can’t face all that. Square Meals News is a service costing just under $5 a week that plans dinners, provides recipes and a shopping list that requires only one trip to the store per week, and tells exactly what to do day by day. It’s like being taken in hand by a very organized and nutrition-conscious friend whose food tastes are a little All-American, a little ethnic. To try it for a month, send $19.95 to Square Meals Publishing, P.O. Box 10551, Fullerton, Calif. 92635.

Tasteless Food Additive

Roadkill Helper is not a way of stretching a meal made from the flattened squirrels you find on the highway but a gag, a (virtually empty) parody of a Hamburger Helper box. General Mills, which makes Hamburger Helper, has dropped its suit against the maker and is allowing him to sell out his current inventory--which, come to think of it, makes Roadkill Helper a limited-edition collector’s item. If you want one, it’s $5, including postage, from Gag Foods Co., P.O. Box 6946, Woodland Park, Colo. 80866. Incidentally, 2% of the proceeds go to arthritis research.

Do You Have Chocolate-Raspberry Too?

Starbucks, the chain of stores famous for premium coffee beans, has apparently bowed to public demand by adding a line of syrups, in case you feel like flavoring your Arabian Mocha Sanaani or Colombia Narino Supremo with vanilla, almond or hazelnut.

Eat Your Cotton

Cottonseed has long been a protein additive for cattle feed, but a “toxic gland” has kept it from being a human food. Now a Texas researcher named Woodrow Rogers has patented an edible cottonseed said to contain more protein by weight than soybeans (but without causing gas), a high potassium level and the ideal calcium-phosphorus ratio for bone formation. Cotton Life Co. (Shady Trail Suites 113-115, Dallas, Tex. 75229) makes cottonseed bars, cookies and protein drinks and plans to develop cottonseed pancakes and cottonseed-fortified gourmet coffee.

Wear Your Dinner

In other wholesome cotton news, the clothing company Ecosport now sells duds made from organically grown cotton.

Cats to Birds: Boo(m)!

The less catfish feed on the bottom, the less muddy their flesh--and the more American diners like it. So to encourage upper-level eating, catfish farmers have developed puffed feed that floats on the surface. However, this exposes the catfish to fish-eating birds, so in Humphreys County, Miss. (“The Catfish Capital of the World”), butane cannons boom out all day long to scare away birds.

No Chocolate Today

Another victim of Hurricane Andrew:

The Annual Chocolate Festival at the Fontainebleau Hilton Resort in Miami Beach, originally scheduled for Sept. 26 and 27, has been postponed to some future date.