Aren’t Sugars Great!

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Hey, aren’t sugars great! Your diet sounds like mine–at least as it was for many years. I think I started on Butterfingers when I was five years old. Standing on the platform waiting for the train to take us from California to Indiana my father introduced them to me and my little brother. So don’t worry about me, I’m not going to tell you to change your eating habits.

However, over the years I have often found myself with or without any discernible reason arbitrarily changing any number of my habits either short-term or long-term. When my son was six years old I read a book called The Plug-In Drug in which the author described watching television as being as pernicious as drugs in its influence on the psyche–and it didn’t matter whether you watched Sesame Street or Clockwork Orange or Twenty-Five Ways to Torture a Cat to Death (by subscription only).

She claimed measurable results in her study of how television shapes the mind and body. What impressed me so much was that I had grown up watching television, and everything she wrote I could confirm. I’m not going to explain why television and drugs are the same in effect or how they differ in enjoyment* since both can be found in every hospital in America. Let them tell you.

So what my son and I decided after a talk was that we would unplug the T.V., which is a pretty daunting thing for any parent to agree to, because it means that you have to take an active interest in your child. You have to spend more time with them, invent things of interest to engage them, share things with them and teach them. I was actually a little worried that I might not be up to it, but it worked out all right. When he was eighteen years old he said to me, “Dad, it’s so nice to come home where it’s quiet. The televisions at all my friends’ houses are always on.”

So you say your diet is a high-octane blend of sugars “…a whole bag of mini Twix, a bag of mini assorted Mars candies, a bag of Starburst jellybeans, a bag of peanut M&Ms…and a chocolate bunny.” Professionals recommend that a small intake of real food should be eaten as stabilizers. 

Four months ago I was in similar mode gorging daily on Orion chocolate cream puffs and Vietnamese coffee–for more than a year. Then suddenly I stopped eating sugar altogether, as well as any between meal snacks.  As for liquids I now drink nothing except water and can have all I want. I have never been overweight or had health issues; I just felt like it was time for a change. Call it intuition.

But before the change in diet, almost two years ago I stopped subjecting myself to electronic noise. This from somebody who once had a playlist as long as anybody’s. No stereo, television, radio, headphones, walkie-talkies, nothing. Even though I know music heals on many levels and is a boon companion, for now I maintain my silence and know that it will not last forever.  

So my body and mind are feeling strangely healthy. On occasion in the past I’ve done these kinds of things and noticed myself seemingly healthy and well oiled. Yet what happens to most people who start to feel this way is that they (and me) start to crave the way it was before. We miss feeling a bit out of sorts and dependent on all kinds of substances or behaviors that everyone knows are not “good” for us–or are they? So I wait to see what happens.

*Yes, P.T.A. or A.A.R.P. or M.A.D.D. or K.K.K. or D.W.B. (Doctors Without Borders) or B.W.B. (Basketballs Without Borders), W.E. A.L.L. K.N.O.W. that television is much more enjoyable than drugs, extremely so. So don’t clog up my comment box with insinuations or complaints or insinuations. Am I repeating myself?

The above was written as a comment on the below blog’s post:

http://splodinpandas.wordpress.com/2011/04/28/sweet-tooth-turns-sour/