An Alphabet of My Likes and Dislikes: “D”

This is a post belonging to a new blogging project — the title is pretty much self-explanatory, I think; the project’s introductory post can be found HERE.  Credit for the idea: BeetleyPete.

As always, the only thing linking the two items mentioned in this post in my mind is that they both start with the same letter of the alphabet.

Likes:

Diet Coke

(Image source)

Alright, go on and say it — it’s about as artificial as any drink can get.  Granted.  But it’s refreshing, I happen to like it (so there), and I like it much better than “regular” Coke, too, which I find way too syrupy sweet.  I drink very little coffee — I don’t even own a coffee maker — and if I do drink any coffee-style beverage at all, it’s likely not going to be straight black coffee (with or without cream), but rather, cappuccino, caffè latte / café au lait, espresso, or latte macchiato: Thus, for all practical purposes, Diet Coke is my only major source of caffeine besides tea.

And you just can’t get away from the figures: While drinks containing artificial sweeteners carry their own potential risk of obesity if you guzzle them by the litre bottle on a daily basis, it’s up to each of us ourselves how much of them we actually drink.  “Regular” Coke, on the other hand, coming straight from the bottling plant and without any consumer being able to do anything about it, contains a whopping 46 grams or 12 teaspoons of sugar in each 14 oz (0.4 l) bottle, or taking the standard European container sizes, 39 grams = 10 sugar cubes in each 12 oz (0.35 l) container, 54 g = almost 14 sugar cubes in each 0.5 l bottle, and 108 grams = almost 28 sugar cubes of sugar in each 34 oz (1 l) bottle of Coke. That means that even with a single small or average sized single serving container of regular Coke, you’re already way over your recommended daily intake of sugar (30 g or 5% of the energy (calories) you get from food and drink each day) … even if you’d somehow manage the unlikely feat of not consuming a single further gram of sugar, you’d still be vastly “over the (sugar) limit”.  No wonder type 2 diabetes, obesity and heart disease are spiking in the Western world.

As a final side note, Diet Coke (within reason) also tends to help me get rid of headaches — I think it’s probably the combination of the caffeine and acid that it contains — and if, like me, you’ve been suffering from migraines since age 13, trust me, you’re likely to take to anything that has that kind of effect.

(Note for those who may be wondering: This is the last food item on the “likes” side for quite a while, though there are a few more to come further down the road.)

(Image sources: here and here.)

Dislikes:

Dress Suits

Business or “power” suits — for women, that is.  Oh, I don’t deny that they make you look smart and professional, particularly when combined with high heels.  And decades ago, when I was starting out on my career path, I used to wear them with pride and a great sense of accomplishment. 

But the more time passed, the more they — and especially so, their narrow waists and pencil slim / straight skirts — came to feel like corsets: maybe not quite as (literally) breathtakingly restrictive as the 17th/18th century version of corsets and stays, but not entirely unlike with a 17th or 18th century ballgown, the impressive looks they generate are being paid for with a whole lot of discomfort and restriction of movement, and I’m now at a point where I’ve come to loathe the occasions when I have to wear them.  Fortunately, even the last office where I used to work had a fairly casual dress code (it was business suits for client meetings and conferences, but as long as you were wearing dark slacks and a presentable top — and had a dark blazer handy for cases of emergency — you didn’t have to go the whole hog on a daily basis); and of course working in my own office now, I am in sole control of my dress code anyway … so guess what was the first thing to be pared down to a bare minimum in my wardrobe!

 
(Image sources: here, here, here, and here.)