Why is it that so many things we find good and desirable are also harmful and best avoided?
Case in point. A friend of mine has a drink each evening after work. I’m not much of a drinker, so I don’t have any idea what it does for her. But she looks forward to having the drink. Oh yeah, it’s alcoholic. She drinks scotch with a little tonic. Serious. On those rare occasions when I drink, I have to have something fruity and more like soda pop. So she has her evening drink and it mellows her right out. She’s good to go for the rest of the night: getting dinner ready, chatting it up, or not, with her husband.
I have another friend who smokes cigarettes. He lights up a cigarette, inhales deeply, and smoke cascades from his lips and nose. He takes another puff. His whole body just seems to relax. The anxiety of the day melts away. Puff, puff. This man, I can honestly say, looks pretty darn sexy smoking that cigarette. His appearance hasn’t taken on that worn haggard look that is displayed on posters. Makes me want one. He says he smokes less than half a pack a day.
So what’s my thing?
Don’t laugh. I am dead serious about this. I, too, look forward to my confection. It also melts away anxiety and mellows me. I am more content when interacting with others after indulging in it. What? you beg.
Gummy Bears.
I am addicted to gummy bears – the fat free kind. At least it says that on the bag, but considering how many of these things I eat…
I easily can go through several 11 oz bags per week. I’m out of them right now. My mind is wandering. Since I’m writing about gummy bears, I can envision having some, and I can imagine their taste. I’ll have to go to the store to get some: I only buy enough for one or two instances, and an instance can take a whole bag. They are delicious, and sweet, and mouth watering, and if have a mouthful, it’s like having freshly squeezed fruit juice.
However, I stumbled across something today when, out of curiousity about gummy bears making me fat, I learned that there is one other thing they might cause.
MAD COW DISEASE.
I wanted to LOL the first time I read it. Surely this is a bad pun. As I’m wont to do when curiousity gets me, I began searching the net for answers. Apparently, there is a connection between gummy bears – gelatin – cow bones. Mad Cow Disease is called something else in humans — Jakob something. It can cause one to literally lose one’s mind and then die. That’s the short and not so sweet of it.
It just doesn’t seem fair. One of my friend’s can drink hard liquor, the other can smoke cigarettes and there’s not a threat to their brains. Well, if they go overboard, there can be problems, for sure – the obvious ones: alcoholism and lung cancer – big deal. Now, I feel perfectly ok saying, you have your habits, I have mine. Some could make a case for all the sugar in gummy bears, but then I can make cases for the booze and cigarettes. What good would that do? We all have our peccadillos. Done in moderation, they’re golden (well, I guess an argument could be made about the cigarettes). But how in the HELL do you eat gummy bears in moderation? There’s no freakin’ way it can be done. The mere size of one lets you know you’ve got to eat a handful to really get into them. About 6-10 gummy bears = a handful. And there’s going to at least 90 of ‘em left in the bag.
If there’s a 12 step program for gummy bears I DO NOT WANT TO KNOW ABOUT IT.
If millions can risk becoming alcoholic…
If millions can risk getting lung disease…
I will just have to handle my poison like a woman. I will continue to eat gummy bears.
{ 1 comment }
I never would have guessed gummy bears :+) And these studies are always saying something is dangerous about just about every type of food out there.
I go through weird stages where I become almost obsessed with a certain food, and then after a few months or even years, I want nothing to do with that food (maybe because I had over-indulged in it)