When writing formally (which is certainly not what this is), is one supposed to cite the dictionary? If so, please see my footnotes at the end (yeah right).
I have argued for years that when a person eats a pop-tart they are eating nothing real. A pop-tart has several ingredients in it that have long names and are essentially a waste of my time, but the key ingredients it should contain-- fruit and wheat-- are mysteriously absent. Don't eat pop-tarts people. When you buy blueberry pop-tarts you are in fact not buying anything remotely involving blueberries. They are lying to you. Or at least that is what I thought until I discovered diet sodas.
I have begun a quest to wean myself off the greatest addiction of my life-- Mountain Dew. I have succeeded in purging the delicious soda pop before. From January-March 2009, I lost 58 pounds (this was added onto a previous 20 pounds I had lost for a grand total of 78 pounds of weight loss-- and I didn't even need to cry on national TV to do it-- and at one point I had lost 100). I didn't ingest any Mountain Dew whatsoever, so I thought I was cured. But as soon as my diet purge ended I fell back into the groove. Now I haven't gained too much weight back or anything, but it is still an unhealthy addiction.
After years of personal conflict and anguish (and a whole bunch of people telling me I should try it), I have decided to start drinking Diet Mountain Dew (DMD). We can get into a whole big debate later on the irony of letting go of one drink only to consume another made by the same company (that Pepsi Corporation is downright diabolical; no wonder they own Taco Bell), but the point I want to make here is how worried I am that I am consuming something that actually doesn't exist...
For the record, I am no chemist. If you came to this blog today hoping to learn some of the intricacies behind what goes into DMD, you have wasted your time. In fact, I hate chemistry and any of it's related scientific disciplines where you can't really see what you are studying. It's not that I don't trust the chemists or microbiologists. I'm not one of those nuts who says it doesn't exist if you can't see it. I believe God exists. But God is presented to most of us as a sentient being we can talk to and question. The day you tell me I can have a conversation about my life's journey with a quark is the day I sign up for the micro-imaginary world full time.
In the meantime, the healthy-living universe is asking us to do things more naturally. Buy organic foods (I am not excited about the possibility that my banana is inorganic); eat less processed foods (nevermind the fact that without processing we might still be in the dark ages); exercise and play outside more (done); and consume less high fructose corn syrup (but isn't it the same basic thing as sugar?). All of these things are actually good for you (they dodge the fact that all you have to do is eat less than you burn and you lose weight, and most of these "facts" are based on business models to sell other products like you-know-what, but I digress). And you should think that they are good for you and your body because they are. But there is one other issue that needs to be tackled.
At the top of this post is the definition for aspartame. This product is not real. It came from something real (do you realize the basis of aspartame is a chemical found in some asparagus? Wait a minute! What?!). But it is not real. The form of the material is crystalline. I don't know much about crystals other than the fact that I don't like Yani. I also don't like Columbian Coffee Crystals or The Crystalline Entity. All three of these things are fake and caused much harm to the people around them.
And yet, this strange substance known as aspartame is helping me lose weight. I usually crave the sweet taste of a regular Mountain Dew or a Mello Yello a few times a day, but I haven't craved it in a week. Instead I crave the something that is more mysterious. Diet Mountain Dew and I will be friends for now, but just as with my imaginary friends I had when I was a kid, I will eventually have to rid myself of this potentially diabolical new addiction.
Going from one addiction to a slightly better one is a normal and healthy way to get rid of something. But what about when your new addiction doesn't exist? If Diet Mountain Dew isn't real, am I really addicted to it? Boy, I'm craving one right now. Or am I?
pop tarts (blech) do have wheat (thank goodness... I'd hate to find out I'd actually been eating cardboard all these years). the ingredient list is still scary, but the truth is, they're just not as tasty as toaster strudels, and that's why no one should eat them.
ReplyDeletenice blog, btw :)