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Index of Jeff Asher's Archived Articles

2010-11 (Archives 1)

2011 (Archives 2)

2011 (Archive 3)Sept.-Dec.

Jeff's Shopping Views

"This column will be posted every other week with consumer product information you can use. As a value shopper, my love of shopping made me a real asset at Consumer Reports. I really know the good and bad of the shopping experience.

My recommendations are based usually on my colleague’s testing at Consumer Reports, but I overlay their work with my own judgment and focus on value rather than higher-priced products with all the bells-and-whistles.

In the same way when I worked for CR, my articles are independent of any commercial interests. I can assure my readers that I receive no free samples or any remuneration from manufacturers. Never has, never will!”

Be a Cautious Shopper

All of Jeff's articles are carefully researched, but, of cause, they represent his opinion. We urge everyone to look at advertising, endorsements, and reviews with skepticism. Ads, of cause, are worded to get you to like and want to purchase a product. They only give the seller's point of view. Endorsements are usually paid for, and can rarely be trusted.

Reviews like these, similar to what Jeff's team prepared for Consumer Reports, attempt to be non-biased. But as we all know, products and people can vary and one person's opinion may not reflect what another will experience.

Jeff Asher's Consumer News - Page 4

The Smart Consumer

Dr. Jeffrey Asher

Dr. Jeffrey Asher is a Mechanical Engineer who, after 21 years, retired in 2008 from being Consumer Reports as their Vice-President and Technical Director.

Since 1936, Consumer Reports has developed a worldwide reputation as an expert, independent, nonprofit organization whose mission is to “work for a fair, just, and safe marketplace for all consumers.”

At Consumer Reports, he was responsible for the leadership and management of over 150 staff members who annually tested thousands of consumer products. Dr. Asher was responsible for all consumer-product testing including the evaluation of the cars and trucks rated at the organization’s 327-acre auto test facility in East Haddam, Connecticut. This is the largest, independent consumer automobile testing center in the world.

During his tenure at Consumer Reports (CR), he expanded CR’s safety mission through its testing of items like condoms, fresh chicken, food irradiation and child safety car seats. In addition, he accelerated significantly the pace of testing and the volume of product models tested in order to efficiently feed their website, ConsumerReports.org to ensure that more than 3.1 million subscribers can receive timely information.

Previous to his career at Consumer Reports, he had been a manager and fluid mechanics researcher at General Electric’s Research Center. He graduated from Syracuse University with a Bachelors, Masters and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering.

Index of Recent Articles

See list of previous articles in the left column.

2012

January 5: Laundry Detergent
January 20: Beware: The Auto-Renewal Option!
February 5: Value Picks for Wines
February 20: The Vanishing Chocolate

Laundry Detergent

Whether you have a new, front-loading or a conventional, top-loading washing machine, the laundry detergent results from Consumer Reports’ (CR) should be of interest. In the past, Tide models have been the hands down winner.

Top-Loader Detergents: Yes, Tide is still a highly-rated brand, but Wisk’s “New Stain Spectrum Technology Deep Cleaning” is the detergent winner for top-loaders. This liquid detergent is the only CR “Recommended” model at about 17 cents per load. It also received the only Very Good “Cleaning” blob for a top-loader detergent.

There are several other top-loader detergents, all liquids, farther down in the ratings: Tide’s “Plus Bleach Alternative” and “Cold Water” models at 22 cents per load and Cheer “BrightClean with Bleach Alternative” at 16 cents per load. Interestingly, the Tide “TotalCare” follows these models in the ratings and costs a whooping 30 cents per load!

Front-Loader Detergents: For front-loaders, Wisk’s “New Stain Spectrum Technology Deep Cleaning HE is among the top-rated models. This liquid detergent costs 17 cents/ load.

In this case, the top-rated detergents for front-loaders were all Tide models: “HE Plus Bleach Alternative” a liquid at 23 cents per load and Ultra HE, a powder at 18 cents per load. The Tide Ultra is one of the few models that removed blood stains. Not to be forgotten is a CR Best Buy, Target’s Up & Up “HE Fresh Breeze” liquid at only 11 cents per load. All of these front-loader detergents received a Very Good rating for Cleaning.

“Green” Detergents: CR made a point that consumers should be “skeptical about green claims” since there are no “natural” ingredient standards. Seventh Generation “Natural Superconcentrated” powder detergent was the best among the bunch of “greens.” It is formulated only for front-loaders and costs 26 cents/ load. This model received a Very Good for cleaning and was one of the few models that could remove blood. Beware that other “greens” for front-loaders did very poorly in the ratings like Martha Stewarts “Clean,” Vaska, Biokleen and Ecos. (CR did not test any green models for top-loaders.)

Beware: The Auto-Renewal Option!

The old advice is to check your bank statements carefully each month since you may be quite surprised by errors that can pop up. Thus, I got quite a surprise the other day when I found a debit for $68 dated August 11, 2011 on my statement from Trend Micro, a firm that supplies virus protection software.

In this case, my three year subscription to this virus program ended in early June 2011. Yes, I had received email pleadings from them to auto renew, but I thought I was safe since I had received this software as a gift and they did not have my credit card information … even expired information.

Evidently, if you do not opt out of the “Auto Renew” option, a company can access your current credit card even if it does not have one on file. Trend Micro never had any of my personal credit information, so they just went and somehow got it anyway!

And, guess what? They chose their expensive, one year software package, the “Titanium Internet Security” for a whooping $68! (They could have chosen their entry level $40 virus protection, but I guess they just wanted me to be better protected.)

Trend Micro says what they did was legal. Legal or not, I do not see this business practice as ethical or consumer-friendly. I suggest you stay away from buying any product from this firm.

Virus Protection Choices: Consumer Reports (CR) has been evaluating virus software for quite some time. The methodology is complex since it requires the controversial step of CR developing new viruses to test out these programs to see how they respond to the unexpected. I can assure you that adequate precautions are in place to prevent these viruses from proliferating outside CR’s labs.

CR’s current recommended choices, all priced for 3 computers, are: BitDefender Internet Security 2011 ($50); ESET Smart Security 4 Home Edition ($90); Avira Premium Security Suite ($70) and Norton Internet Security 2011 ($70).

CR also recommended two free anti-virus programs. They were: Avira Anti-Virus Personal and AVG Anti-Virus Free 2011.

Just before my Trend Micro software expired, I chose the “Norton 360 Version 4.0 (now 5.0) All-In-One Security because of a great sale price at Staples. (Staples runs these sales often.) I have found Norton’s program to be far better than Trend Micro’s software that slowed down my computer at odd times while it went through an exhaustive hard disk scan.

Since I bought the Norton software at a store rather than downloading it, my Norton Internet account does not show an Auto-Renew option or contain any personal credit card information. Sound familiar? When this software program expires, I will report back about how Norton handles auto-renewal (or not).

A larger lesson learned: With so many on line transactions these days, the “auto-renewal” option can apply to much more than just virus software. Check to see if you can manually defeat this option when you set up an Internet account and think about checking accounts that have been opened in the past. And, if all this fails, remember to check those monthly bank statements for errors!

Value Picks for Wines

With wine consumption in the United States rising 30% in the past decade, I thought Consumer Reports’ (CR) wine evaluations would help us all toast in the New Year. I have included their most recent tests of Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay as well as their evaluations of Shiraz and Red Zinfandel from several months ago.

CR focuses on wines priced below $15 and, thus, offer the greatest potential for being a good value. Two professional wine tasters are brought in for a week to the CR Sensory Test Lab where they blind taste these wines. Each model is tasted a number of times from different bottles. This scientific, rigorous wine testing has been helpful in combating court challenges from vineyards that disagree with CR’s ratings.

There is good news and good values that await the smart wine consumer these days.

Cabernet Sauvignon: The CR Best Buys include Columbia Crest Grand Estate 2008 ($11 per 750 ml from Washington) and Trackers Crossing 365 from Whole Foods ($7 from Australia). Crios 2009 ($13 from Argentina) is the top-rated model. All of these wines were rated “Very Good” overall.

Chardonnay: The CR Best Buys include Bogle 2009 ($10 from California), Snoqualmie 2009 ($10 from Washington) and Columbia Crest Grand Estates 2009 ($10 from Washington). These wines were also rated “Very Good” overall.

Topping the Chardonnay CR ratings was the “Excellent” Chalk Hill 2009 ($37 from California) wine.

Red Zinfandel: The CR Best Buys include two California wines—Dancing Bull 2009 ($10) and Bogle 2008 ($10). Dancing Bull has made quite a hit with my family and friends. Even better, this wine is on sale locally for only $8 a bottle!

Shiraz: Three of this varietal from 2009 stood out as particularly low cost, high-rated wines: Alice White ($6), The Little Penguin ($7) and Yellow Tail ($7). These wines come from Australia and are certainly worth a taste at this price.

If you cannot find these wines in the year shown, CR suggests you should get similar results by trying a more recent vintage.

The Vanishing Chocolate

On my departure from a local store the other day, noticed a Hershey’s Milk Chocolate Bar with a difference … it was “Aerated”! The consumer in me, not the avid chocolate eater, got the better of my curiosity and I decided to buy and compare the “Non-Aerated” and “Aerated” versions.

One might first ask, why is Hershey’s doing this? I have heard of line extensions to get more counter space, but to do this with air, seemed a bit bizarre. And, there were no health claims on the “Aerated” package. (“Get an extra, oxygen high from this bar!”)

Maybe Hershey wants to do their part in slimming down overweight Americans and reduce the calorie content of their products? I think I am getting warmer here until you realize that the Aerated bar has only 14 or 7% fewer calories compared with a non-aerated bar that has a total of 210 calories.

Aha, I think I got it! This is a way for Hershey to start selling air at about a $1 a pound! If you do the calculations, the normal, non-aerated bar of milk chocolate sells for $1.19. Since it contains 1.55 ounces, this comes out to a hefty $12.28 per pound of chocolate.

For the “aerated” version, the price is the same at $1.19, but with only 1.44 ounces per bar. That comes out to $13.22 per pound of chocolate. Almost $1 more for the added air! I have to admit that this is more inventive than a straightforward 7% price rise.

If you are still interested in eating a less fattening serving of milk chocolate, I suggest that you buy their non-aerated version and eat only 11 of the 12 squares of chocolate to get the same reduction in calories. Save these squares up and after 11 bars it will be like getting one free! Now, that is the Smart Consumer!

About These Articles

The Smart Consumer

Be sure to check back frequently for Jeff's Smart Consumer articles.

Consumer Articles by Dr. Jeffrey Asher
Dr. Jeffrey Asher is a Mechanical Engineer who, after 21 years, retired in 2008 from being Consumer Reports' Vice-President and Technical Director.

Article Archives 1: 2010 through February 2011

Article Archives 2: March to September, 2011

Article Archives 3: Starting October, 2011

Jeff Asher worked at Consumer Reports for more than 21 years. When he retired, he was Vice-President and Technical Director overseeing all product testing, including cars. In the same way when he worked for CR, his reports for Slightly Creaky are independent of any commercial interests. He receives no free samples or any remuneration from manufacturers. Never has, never will! These recommendations are Jeff Asher’s alone and do not reflect the views of Consumer Reports. Bon shopping! Batteries … A Holiday Necessity!

You can contact Jeff at info@SlightlyCreaky.com.
He welcomes your comments and suggestions for future articles.

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