\n
I had half the under-12s basketball team in the ute, driving them home.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat are you up to tomorrow, buddy?\u201d I asked our point guard, riding shotgun.<\/p>\n
\u201cDad shot the family cow. Tomorrow we\u2019re cutting it up. He says I have to wear gumboots.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s gonna be pretty gross,\u201d he sighed. Then he brightened. \u201cBut we\u2019re having spag bol for lunch. And steak for dinner!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMMMMM,\u201d the whole ute hummed in unison.<\/p>\n
When I got home I told my wife. She\u2019s vegetarian. She looked at me the way a vegetarian looks at a man who has \u2026 just described a spleen to a ute full of children.<\/p>\n
My five-year-old looked up from the floor.<\/p>\n
\u201cYum.\u201d<\/p>\n
The kid is an animal. He won\u2019t touch anything green (that\u2019s cow food). To him, the paddock is just the menu with legs.<\/p>\n
Now Sunday night is documentary night at our place, so I decided to give the kids the sanitised city version of the same story. On went Dr Karl\u2019s ABC series, How Things Work.<\/p>\n
First up: meat pies.<\/p>\n
My kids inhale meat pies until Dr Karl appeared in a hairnet beside a dumpster-sized pile of what he politely called \u201cbeef trim.\u201d (ABC-speak for the bits that didn\u2019t make the cut.)<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is disgusting,\u201d said my thirteen-year-old, who swore off pies on the spot.<\/p>\n
The five-year-old leaned in. \u201cYum.\u201d<\/p>\n
But it was time for dessert. Next episode: how lollies are made.<\/p>\n
All four sat open-mouthed as Dr Karl showed them the vats of liquid and paste that become jelly snakes.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow this is more like it!\u201d said the five-year-old.<\/p>\n
I hit pause. \u201cSee that gelatin? What do you reckon it\u2019s made of?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cJelly?\u201d my daughter said hopefully.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo. Cow. Skin, bones, hooves. The lot. Chucked in a pot, soaked in chemicals, dried out and ground into powder. That\u2019s what makes your snakes wobble.\u201d<\/p>\n
Blank stares.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, hands up who wants a snake?\u201d<\/p>\n
One hand went up. You know whose.<\/p>\n
The lesson?<\/p>\n
The further your food gets from the paddock, the harder it is to know what you\u2019re eating.<\/p>\n
The point guard\u2019s old man gets it. Old Daisy was a lawnmower until Friday. But with beef up 13.5 per cent in a year, she\u2019s grass-fed gold in a second-hand freezer. Their family beat inflation with a rifle and a chest freezer.<\/p>\n
Gross?<\/p>\n
Sure. But that kid knows exactly what\u2019s on his plate, and what it costs.<\/p>\n
Your super works the same way. The further it gets from a basic index fund, the shinier the brochure, the more \u201csophisticated\u201d the fund, the less you know what\u2019s inside.<\/p>\n
Buried deep within it is the financial equivalent of that gelatin. A fee on a fee, on a fee, that you never knew you were paying, ground into powder and stirred through your balance so you never taste it.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s all disclosed of course, deep in the fine print the size of the ingredients list on the back of a lolly packet. Which is to say: printed so nobody reads it. Not hiding the hooves. Just listing them in a font you\u2019d need a magnifying glass to find.<\/p>\n
The point guard eats better than most grown adults invest. He looks in the pot.<\/p>\n
So should you.<\/p>\n
RIP Daisy.<\/p>\n
Tread Your Own Path!<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I had half the under-12s basketball team in the ute, driving them home. \u201cWhat are you up to tomorrow, buddy?\u201d I asked our point guard, riding shotgun. \u201cDad shot the family cow. Tomorrow we\u2019re cutting it up. He says I have to wear gumboots.\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s gonna be pretty gross,\u201d he sighed. Then he brightened. \u201cBut […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7025168,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[96],"tags":[10055,1204,342,13177,1176],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-7053118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-investing","tag-barefoot","tag-cow","tag-dad","tag-investor","tag-shot"],"yoast_head":"\n
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