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August 10, 2005
It's Your Day For Free Ice Cream
No, actually, it's not.
But that's what a man standing outside an ice cream truck said to me as I tried to make my way to the Starbucks for an afternoon iced coffee. "No thank you," said I. It is truly not hard for me to resist a free ice cream, as I was never that into ice cream anyhow. I'm glad it wasn't my day for a free everything bagel toasted with cream cheese. That might have necessitated a cell phone call to MR for a pep talk. "Remind me again about spending an indefinite youth together..."
I meditated again on how unfortunate it is that we look to foods that don't nourish our bodies as "treats." One of my CR sisters, Shannon, once said, "Some people say I deserve a treat. I say, 'I deserve a long and healthy life.'" Wow, that's cool.
I am by no means immune. I still consider going out to restaurants with friends and eating more than I would usually eat a treat. It's hard to break the programming. I do better than I used to, by far, but the impulse is still there.
Imagine a CR friendly world where you'd pass a fresh vegetable truck. "It's your day for free broccoli!" Yippie!!! I often amuse myself by imagining how different the world would be. For instance, you're in a bar, and a guy slides into the seat next to you and says, "Can I buy you some resveratrol?" If you agree, he asks how many grams you would care for. The bar tender carefully measures your serving.
You go out to dinner. The menu is divided not into appetizers, salads, entrees and desserts, but into protein dishes, fat dishes, carbohydrates, and mixed dishes. Detailed nutrition info is on everything. You and your dinner companion pull out your pocket nutrient trackers, observe what you've already had today, and put together your delicious, nutritious meal.
You go clothes shopping and everything fits. Even if you are a CR'd male.
Green tea, sweetened with sucralose, is served in restaurants and available in vending machines.
Everywhere you go it warmer. There is no shame in carrying a blanket around with you all winter. Some people even carry pocket space heaters.
Seats always have extra padding.
Fast food restaurants serve salads that actually contain vegetables! Salad dressings contain real, extra virgin olive oil, refridgerated instead of left standing next to the grill all day!
The idea of being unhappy with your body or "feeling fat" is unheard of. People feel at peace with their bodies as they fill themselves with nutritious foods in small, measured portions. There is no weight loss industry. In fact, weight loss, as a concept, doesn't really exist because no one ever gets fat.
People don't talk about what they will do when they retire. They talk about their second, thrid, fourth, and fifth interesting careers. Those who choose to have children live to see their great-grand children grow up. Those who choose not to (and there are many of those, as there is less social pressure to reproduce) live to serve several generations of CR'd cats.
"Kid food" is no longer chicken fingers and hot dogs: it's high protein, high calcium, tons of veggies and fruits for growing bones and muscles and brains.
DWIDP is re-written as an interactive, DOOM-style video game.
And nearly everyone is ever so slightly orange.
Posted by april at August 10, 2005 5:40 PM
Comments
Woo-hoo! Imagine! May I please come with you? Just make sure that I can have a little piece of quality milk chocolate (sweetened with sucralose, of course) once in a while, O.K.? JD :-)
Posted by: Judith at August 10, 2005 1:22 PM
Oh yeah, I am SO there! but can the interactive DWIDP game actually be available for Macs too, please?
-Liz
Posted by: Liz at August 10, 2005 1:57 PM
Wow, the makers of sucralose/Splenda have pulled a fast one, apparently even within the usually well-educated CR community.
Hate to break it to you all, but this stuff is unhealthy, and pro-aging. Aspartame, too, which has been around long enough that finally most people seem to be aware that it is toxic (as it's composed of three poisonous molecules joined together, that separate during digestion).
The safest artificial sweetener is saccharine, which got a bad rap in the 70's after extreme mega-dosing on mice should it can cause cancer -- but then so can any vitamin at the 6000 times normal usage per day dosage level! Saccharine has been around for 100+ years with no reported side effects, a claim that sucralose and aspartame cannot make by a long shot.
And you have to love the sneaky name they gave "sucralose," making it sound like a real sugar like glucose, fructose and sucrose, and yet it has nothing to do with real sugar, despite the companies effective marketing ("Tastes like sugar because it's made from sugar") and public brainwashing.
And here I thought the CR folks would know better. My bad.
Posted by: Scott Miller at August 11, 2005 4:02 PM
That sounds like a nice world to live in! April, you have a great sense of humor.
Posted by: Kip Werking at August 13, 2005 1:21 PM