Fizzy drinks and the infinite boredom of winter fruits
I was commenting yesterday to trace that it had been published recently an study outside there showing how people was dropping cokes, fantas and even robinsons in favour of mineral water, smoothies and juices. I think it is quite interesting, at least because I have made exactly the same.
Past year, when sml! came to London, we were having some dinner on a shawarma & kebab place near Old Street, and he said he was drinking coke as it was an special event, as he had stopped drinking it recently. I was looking at him and thinking "woh… he can't be talking seriously!" But some months after, for some reason I realised our diet is not good. I read somewhere we are living in the Sugar Society. And it sounded quite right. Everything is edulcorated, more and more each day - as we get used to that sweetener level and can't manage to distinguish, we need to have even more sugar in our food. Same goes with the salt. Add more and more until the body explodes. Luckily I am not a salt-fan; I prefer to use other spices as parlsey, garlic, rosemary, etc.
So to stop using sugar was a good step. No more sugar in the coffee - honest! At the beginning I added some honey but I got used to not to add even honey and just enjoy the coffee in itself, without saturating my senses with loads of sugar. It was the time to enjoy fruits too. A pity it is winter, and winter fruits are extremely boring. Apples and pears. And pears and apples. You can get all kinds of apples here, but all of them are plain boring. I hardly can find an apple that I really like. Either they are too acid, too bland, too like a crude potato - boring. I still had a bit of hope with pears, but they have also dissapointed me. I don't know if I am idealising the pears I ate when I was a child but they were sweet and juicy, their skin was terse and didn't look like plastic. I have been looking for those for some years and I can't find them, neither here or in Spain. Maybe they are an extinguished species. Who knows.
I would love to have summer fruits all year long. Peaches, apricots, grapes, watermelons, strawberries… you know. Nobody can get bored with them, so many colours and suggesting flavours and smells. A pity that artificial, greenhouse fruits do not taste exactly like the real ones, I have to wait until the right time comes.
Meanwhile I am enjoying this great new situation in which I haven't drunk a single coke or fizzy drink for almost two months - when before I drank at least three times per week, accompanied by a crisps bag to make it worse. It is extremely reconforting to know that each time one drinks a coke can, is also drinking ten sugar spoons, which are of course completely unneeded and artificial. So welcome water, juices (specially natural ones!), fruits, milk… and let's just stop intoxicating our bodies.
Jcl
20060306
Although I don't really follow the advice, I totally agree with it, except in the last paragraph: Milk.
I like Milk, and I drink lots of it… but Milk is everything but healthy. Except when you are a baby and your bones are forming, or you grow older and have some kind of lack of calcium (and even then, people should try to find other ways of getting it), milk (and it's derivates: butter, cheese, etc.) is one of the most unhealthy drinks ever.
Ask any doctor about it, he'll tell you how bad it is. It's forbidden to anyone that has ever had any kind of kidney or heart problem, and it's just something people could get along all their lives without drinking a single drop (except for mother-breasted one when you are a child).
It's, of course, not as unhealthy as coke or any of those other chemical drinks, but nonetheless, it's not good for anyone's health and should never be recommended :-)
PS: already told, but I do drink a lot of milk… then again, I also drink coke… that doesn't make this any more false :-)
sergeeo
20060307
Right. But I don't like coffee with no sugar :( Well, I don't even like it with it…
From time to time I avoid eating meat for a week or two. As I don't feel like becoming a vegetarian, that's the best way I have to "regenerate" myself a bit.
I rarely drink coke or fanta nowadays. I don't mix alcohol with other drinks any more.
But If at any time you feel like sending me some vanilla coke, I'll accept it undoubtly!!
trace
20060307
Unfortunatelly, they are stopping the production of Vanilla cokes :_(. It's quite hard to find a 2liters one nowadays, you can still find tiny bottles and cans tho..
Let's pray…
blackpawn
20060307
i completely agree. sticky sugary soda is no good. especially coke. that stuff is way too carbonated for me and tastes like battery acid. :) i do indulge in an occasional root beer though. now that's good.
sole
20060307
Ah and i have remembered another reason for not to drink cokes and similar drinks: the teeth suffer horribly with that.
My dentist told me something like: "you keep drinking whatever acid drink you drink so often (as i can see in your teeth) and you'll lose all your teeth in a slow agony, you choose…"
Jikan
20060307
I like some tea with no sugar, but you need a good (and not so cheap tea). In fact the best teas are drunk with no sugar, such as the good Pu-Erh, Keemun and of course Lapsang Souchong (smoked tea, I tried this one with sugar once and it's undrinkable!). Smoked tea is great, but first you must acquire the taste! And tea is healthy for the body, for the mind and for the spirit :-)
sml
20060307
well done sole!
I've never been very friendly with cokes and other chemical drinks, and nowadays I'm only drinking it in mixes with alcohol, so it means not usually.
There are a lot of drinks which can replace coke in a bar/pub.
For example, I really like beer, so I always try to order beer, but in that case, they didn't sell alcohol drinks, so I have to ask for another thing different from the sparkling water too…
Since two years ago, I'm beeing very concerned about my diet in order to be healthy, lose some fatty weight and have more energy at sports.
That includes stopping all the extra sugar, like pastry, carbonated drinks, fat desserts, etc. And trying to eat less quantity in more meals (5 a day).
Also some other small tricks.
And I feel quite better now than before, and I haven't given up anything, because there are always alternative pleasures, or you can just eat everything but not too much :)
So, milk, fruits, juices and teas for everybody!
sml
20060307
oh yes, tea with as less sugar as you can ;)
sole
20060307
i am still not that fan of tea… i must confess i haven't had a single cup of tea since i arrived in london :D
sml
20060307
That's only a matter of time ;)
Now I can't live without tea, black chocolate and cheese ;)
herotyc
20060307
I love pears! XD
Btw, just as jcl said, milk is unhealthy. I recently stopped having milk, and I think I'm feeling better.
(nota rápida: los lácteos en general producen moco, no son digestivos, y todo el rollo que nos han contado durante toda la vida sobre el "calcio" de la leche, es falso. Si no me creen, documéntense)
Delfina
20060308
Las peras molan.Y las mandarinas, a pesar de que mi estómago las odia porque es un snob.