Life in a small Mississippi Town/Small Nebraska town

My column from the Mississippi newspaper

The Hinds County News

April 2016

From the Avenue

Every year, to anyone who will listen, I go into a long tirade, about the pointlessness of daylight savings time. It makes absolutely no sense, no matter how the powers that be, shift the hands on the clock, there are just so many hours of sunlight in a 24-hour period! That said…I believe I am adjusting a bit faster this year. However, my body is still in a bit of a protest mode, body is slow to get out of bed in the morning …Maybe body is not so much slow… as confused?

But! my mind is doing MUCH better with the change! Yes, it is! Well possibly not…. when I look at the clock, I translate it. For instance, the clock on the wall may say four my brain converts it to real time three O’clock! Okay, that is that rant.

Now then, we all know soft drinks are bad for us and we should not, under any circumstances enjoy one. How do we know this? The food scientists/ police tell us so… that is how.

I do not partake in sodas often, because they are bad for me…. but if I have an upset stomach a 7up or Sprite seems to calm it and I cannot eat a pizza without having a cola, Coke or Pepsi makes no difference to me. Just yesterday I was enjoying my pizza and sipping slowly on my coke, trying not to consume too much, as I do not want to hasten my death.

You know how when you are eating cereal you pick up the box and read whatever is on it? Well I picked up the Pepsi bottle and commenced to read the ingredients. Here goes “Carbonated water, sugar, caramel color, phosphoric acid, caffeine and natural flavors”. We all know sugar has been named one of the really bad guys in the world of nutrition, but not bad enough that they are banning it in schools like sodas. So it must be the phosphoric acid right?

So while sitting there munching on pizza, sipping on Pepsi I picked up my phone and googled phosphoric acid. Well guess what folks!? According to my not extensive research, studies have shown phosphoric acid “may” be harmful. And orange juice has more of it then sodas.

Phosphoric Acid is an inorganic mineral, pretty much what I would call dirt. Who hasn’t eaten a carrot or radish pulled out of the ground…cleaned off best you could by rubbing on you pant leg…still dirt on it but ate it anyway?

I said all of that to say this: I am not longer going to let the food police tell me what I can and cannot eat or drink! They are so often wrong…over years they have warned us about butter, coffee, eggs, bacon, dairy …. the list goes on and on….and on and on. Corn syrup is high on the beware of list.

Green Tea and nuts are pets of theirs at the moment, for a while they were real high on kale. Very recently, I bought a bag of pistachio nuts, BIG BAG, just two days’ later the pistachios were recalled. That may explain my queasy tummy after eating them…I had to drink a Sprite to get my tummy to behave. So in this case I considered the ice cold soda a medicine.

Speaking of Medicine, Just Google the side effects the medicines you are taking…. the side effects of some of those are considerably more frightening, than any health concerns related to the Pepsi consumed. I am sort of seeing it this way…food can possibly shorten your life…. the medications you are taking can kill you.

And if the lawyers who advertise on TV are correct, many medicines are very dangerous. Even the manufactures of the drugs often do not speak very confidently about their meds….after they finish listing the side affects …you have to wonder, “how did this drug get approved?”

If sodas are killing us, those lawyers, whose only concern is our wellbeing, they would be on TV advocating we jump on and sue. Shouting at us through the TV to take legal action, against food and beverage companies…Right?

I must tell you all, the Girls Scout cookies, I ate for dessert, after my pizza and refreshing cola,…the ingredient list on that package was much longer and less pronounceable than the soda I drank …. but reading the ingredient list was not enough to dissuade me from enjoying the cookie…. several cookies…half a box of cookies.... they were really really good!

You all, I am not suggesting that you adopt my devil may care attitude toward food….I have had the cancer, twice, who knows if it is what I ate and drank or genetics. Also I am over weight and would not be surprised if the Alzheimer’s has been sneaking in while occasionally eating at fast food establishments.

I am 71, and consider myself healthy….However Doctors I have been to since gaining weight, seem to disagree. But I can still out work people decades younger than myself.

I hope to die digging in the garden, or running the string trimmer…. eating and avocado, bacon, cheeseburger would not be a bad way to go ether…Oh! sitting on the front porch or in the swing watching the world pass by that might be the best!