About six months ago, I decided to stop putting anything in my body that contained artificial sweeteners. There was to be no more aspartame, splenda, saccharin, Neotame, or Acesulfame potassium. In fact, my logic followed, why eat anything that sounds like something you would use in a chemistry experiment. If it sounds like a made up name, then it's got to be concocted by a bunch of lab coats in some underground laboratory with 7 levels of ID required for entry. I can't picture a field of budding Splenda, or canes of Aspartame. Perhaps, I'm jaded because I've been in marketing too long, but those sweetener names just reek of agency created monikers.
This artificial sweetener banishment began when I contemplated, "Why is real sugar so bad, and some chemically created sweetener better?" I know, I know. It's all that GI index, empty calorie, converts straight to fat, etc, etc, blah, blah. Sugar. Bad. Fat. Bad. Carbs. Bad. Ever notice that behind every diet craze is an evil food. Some food gets labeled "bad guy", and we all know that food, and train ourselves like dogs to step away from the evil. The moment however, that we take a bite of the beastly tidbit, we immediately feel like cheaters, weak, undisciplined, and/or losers. But again, I ask, are we so consumed with calories that we will gobble up chemically created foods over Mother nature's creations simply because Momma M's thing has more calories? Shouldn't the quality of the food count more than the caloric count of the food. I'm not getting on some soap box here. This is simply the kind of things I think about and ask myself.
So upon seriously considering that question, I decided to cut out all the fake stuff and stick with stuff that's natural or organic. Personally, I believe sugar in the U.S. is given a bad rap because it is dumped into our foods by the truck load, and it is processed to death until the only semblance of its true nature is diminished to minuscule levels. I'm no scientist, so don't quote me. I'm just voicing my personal opinion.....(okay lawyers, you can go away now)
Cutting out all the fake stuff was actually easier than I thought it would be except for one thing, Diet Coke. As Tammy Faye Baker is my witness, I could not give up on the diet soda. I could go one day, two tops, but then the monster would rear its ugly mug and I would have to sprint, no drive to the corner liquor store. This is pretty pathetic since the nearest store is only a stone's throw away. Diet coke is my crack. I admit I'm a D.C. junkie. I sit here tapping my veins prepping for the next fix. Mixed with the Diet Coke is probably some addictive agent like nicotine in cigarettes. I bet "they" do that in order to keep us buying the no-cal Carmel water by the gallons. Don't you just giggle over delusional conspiracy theories? I think I'll go crack open a chilled Diet Coke and break open the rice cakes bag, and contemplate that question.
