The Girl Who Ate Everything

Preliminary Data Suggest that Soda and Sweet Drinks Are the Main Source of Calories in the American Diet and Soft Drinks as Top Calorie Culprit. [from US Food Policy]

I remember my brother declaring how amazingly one could lose weight by cutting out or drinking less soda. So I asked him what do you do if you already don't drink soda (while pointing to myself).

"You're screwed."

Sure am!

When I was little I drank soda whenever I wasn't at home. When I was at home, I'd drink craploads of juice, mainly orange juice, which isn't that great but is at least not as bad as soda. I regret drinking so much soda as a kid but most kids do that, eh? My mum hated it when I drank soda; if only I had listened to her...

In the past 2-3 years , I think I've drank soda twice. Ever since I started drinking primarily water (it's hard for me to believe that most of my life was spend drinking juice and soda), I haven't drank much else besides the occasional dessert-esque drink. Am I better off because of it? I hope so. Of course, I still maintain my greater-than-desired weight because, unlike Science News' words:

Dieters may not realize how sugary beverages affect them, because they focus on avoiding calorie-rich solid foods, says Robert Murray of Ohio State University. "Liquid calories like this, I think we tend to just ignore them," he says.

I don't really avoid calorie-rich solid foods, but I'm more likely to avoid liquid calories because...they suck. They're not as satisfying as say, a peach scone (one of which I ate today, mmm). Why do people drink so much soda? I'm going to attribute my soda drinking as a kid to being a stupid kid, but if "a quarter of all teens drink as many as four cans a day", that's rather frightening. I don't think a quarter of my friends drink that much soda a day, but...eh.

My diet might be crappy, but can I be slightly at peace for knowing it's not full of liquid calories? Soda isn't just about liquid calories and the idea that people think they can just swap it with diet soda bothers me. Carbonation ain't that good for ya! Yeah! Off the top of my head (my head not being a doctor's head), I recall that carbonation leads to calcium leach-age. And a little anecdote: I still remember in 11th grade eating a lunch with some school officials because my friends and I helped paint a mural and the assistant principal, a rather girt-ful man, chose to drink a diet Pepsi. That's not gonna help, pal. Pick Poland Spring next time. After that lunch I remember being distinctly disgusted at the eating habits of adults, not that they all eat crap of course, but...something clicked.

Oh, I eat crap by the way. But if you read this blog, YOU ALREADY KNOW THAT! Haha. I eat too much...food. Today I ate:

• 2 or 3 oranges
• a few strawberries (NJ grown, HOLY CRAP these are good!)
• 2 pineapple cakes (those Chinese rectangles with pinapple goo, not actually cakes with pineapple)
• half of a sweet zong zi (first and last time I think I will eat one as it wasn't nearly as good as a savory one)
• a peach scone (mmmm)
• dinnner noodle-ee thing that I actually COOKED, consisting of a head of Boston lettuce, Japanese somen noodles, half of an onion, a bunch of peas, mixed together with some Indian curry sauce
• some honey and sesame seeds
• some potato chips
• a mantou
• water

Holy crap, that list is ginormous. ...oh god.

... ...okay, time for bed now that it's past 3 AM and I'm gonna get less than 5 hours of sleep, HUZZAAH!

OH last thing: food blogger get-together makes me feel so antisocial! I'm just gonna stay home here in Jersey, maybe stare at the wall since that's quite fun. Actually, NJ isn't that bad, but living here doesn't help my antisocial tendencies. If I lived in NYC I'd see a free Feist performance and attend the Renegade Craft Fair. Oh, and I'd eat a lot of bread. Obviously.