I pretty much live in a perpetual state of dehydration. This is primarily the result of the fact that; a) I don’t drink nearly enough water and b) I drink far too much other crap with artificial sweeteners such as coffee, tea and of course diet pop.
Now, I am not someone who is particularly worried about the long-term health risks of consuming artificial sweeteners such as aspartame or splenda, partially because I am not a laboratory rat but also because I don’t really care to be concerned.
Thinking about all the different things nowadays that are potentially harmful is depressing, and frankly if someone was to compile a list of everything that studies have shown could cause problems for human beings down the line then we hardly would consume or do anything it seems.
There is a line from a Family Guy episode where Stewie (the baby who is an evil genius hell-bent on killing his mother Lois) and Brian (the well-read analytical talking dog) are standing outside on a perfect night when Brian says to Stewie, “Look at all those stars,” to which Stewie responds, “I’ve read that starlight gives you cancer. But then again, what doesn’t these days?”
While the applicability of Family Guy to our everyday lives is a Blog (or series of Blogs) for another day this particular quote has significance. Stewie is right. Every time you turn on the television and watch the news, read a magazine article or engage in conversation with a friend it seems like information on what is bad for people is being passed along.
The most disturbing part of this trend is that no one really knows how much of this information has been substantiated by research and testing, and how much of it is simply speculation or a passing fad.
Now, I am not trying to tell people water isn’t good for them, or that everyone should consume as much fake sugar as I do because I am not the healthiest person in the world by any means. Although, at various points in my life I have tried to achieve the ultimate nutritional diet I have come to realize, through several unsuccessful attempts, that it is an unattainable vision.
While I still believe that nutrition is important and should be considered on a daily basis it isn’t something that should control your life as it has mine in the past. Regardless of what I am fed by the mainstream media and nutritional experts I refuse to stop eating carbohydrates after 7:00pm, drink 8 glasses of water a day (which is a totally arbitrary amount to drink since how much water a person should consume is based on their size) or stop eating sodium rich frozen foods.
Most of all I will not stop consuming products that contain artificial sweeteners. I am not taking a firm stand on this point because I own stock in Johnson & Johnson (they own McNeil Nutritional the company that produces Splenda), it is simply because I don’t want to live according to guidelines and recommendations imposed by people and groups that are ultimately saying conflicting things.
When it comes down to it I enjoy drinking diet pop, and while I believe that it is exceedingly important to be knowledgeable about what is considered by the nutritional community to be healthy, I refuse to follow all of their suggestions and thereby completely alter my lifestyle.
Therefore, I will continue to ingest products that are considered “bad” for me, but frankly with the number of things that have been branded with negative labels I honestly don’t really know what’s “good” for me anyway, so for all I know next week diet pop will be considered a G-d damn cure-all…
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