nothing but the water

I used to drink a lot of soda. My all time favorite was root beer. I loved drinking root beer when I was a kid, eventually discovering the miraculous flavor transformation my favorite soda made with the addition of a scoop of vanilla ice cream. (Recently, a young neighbor of ours was introduced to root beer floats — or "black cows," as they are called regionally. He told Mrs. Pincus and me that he was going to make us root beer floats, as though he had just invented them. He excitedly ran across the street to his house, we assumed, to prepare his version of the treat. Minutes later, we saw him run out of his house — empty-handed — and head down the block. We called to him, asking where he was going. He screeched to a halt, explaining that he was lacking some of the ingredients... specifically root beer and vanilla ice cream. He said he had everything else.) My father also liked root beer, which is kind of odd, because my father didn't like anything.

Somewhere also the way, I switched my soda preference to Diet Dr. Pepper. Sure, I tried regular Dr. Pepper, but I had always shied away from sweetened soda. All I could ever taste was the sugar. I gravitated towards the diet versions. I really don't care about the alleged detrimental effects of artificial sweeteners, so I actually preferred diet sodas. I liked Diet Dr. Pepper, but I eventually started drinking Diet Coke. I drank a lot of Diet Coke. An awful lot. Then I started drinking Coke Zero, buying into that "zero sugar" claim, but I really didn't care for it. I started to search for some other carbonated beverage to drink.

After one of my vasovagal syncope episodes, a doctor recommended that I drink more water. I interpreted that to mean any form of water. So I began buying and drinking a Walmart branded product called Clear American. The label ambiguously declared Clear American to be a "carbonated water beverage." My son, a seltzer aficionado, turned his nose up at the product, calling it "no better than soda." To prove his point, he served me a bottle of Topo Chico, a bubbly mineral water bottled at a source in Mexico, for comparison. It was good, much different from the 63¢-a-bottle, artificially-flavored stuff I was buying by the case at Walmart.. But not good enough to get me to buy it regularly. I finished the one-and-only bottle of Topo Chico I've ever had and moved on to find the next thing that would become my drink of choice. After passing on another brand of soda and plethora of trendy — and overpriced — seltzers, I found what I had been looking for right in front of my face. It had been there the whole time. 

Water.

There is actually a pipe in my kitchen that dispenses it any time I want. I have totally given up every other drink in favor of water. No exotically-named water bottled at some secluded, faraway source. The plain old clear H2O that I pay the fine folks at AQUA PA to pump into my house is a perfectly suitable drink. It goes with everything and clashes with nothing. It doesn't over power that taste of any accompanying food. Sure, I still drink coffee and tea, but, technically, they are just brown water and lighter brown water. 

I don't miss soda at all. I haven't had any in years. I find it amusing when I skip the soda aisle at the supermarket. I get a laugh at the growing number of choices of flavored seltzer and sparkling water...  and the folks pondering the selection.

Those are the sort of important decisions that I reserve for the cereal aisle.

www.joshpincusiscrying.com

it's not easy being green

Yesterday, I emerged from the train station stairs at 16th Street and was handed two bottles of V8 Heathy Greens® by a young lady manning a large, gaily-decorated cooler. A swarm of my fellow commuters and fellow members of the Philadelphia workforce surrounded the young lady, all with eager hands extended. Obviously, most humans like free things. Pretty much anything, as long as it's free. Grab it while you can! Don't worry, there will be time later to give it a careful examination to determine if it is of any merit. If it's something of value, great! You just scored it at no cost. If not, it can always be tossed. No time wasted and no harm done. So, I grabbed a couple of the free, brightly-labels bottles and crossed the street to my office. Once at my desk, I fired up my computer, set the bottles aside and went to work.

I have been a vegetarian for nearly ten years (you can read that stupid story here). Over the past year, however, I took a good, hard look at my food intake. I cut out all forms of sweets — cookies, candy, ice cream, cake. I have made a conscious effort to include more fruits, vegetables and nuts in my regular diet. I began snacking on trail mix (without chocolate chips or M & M's) and banana chips instead of my usual Reese's Cups. I rarely drink soda, choosing to quench my thirst with flavored sparkling water. I have gotten more adventurous, actually eating string beans and broccoli and even the trendy kale — stuff I would have never previously touched in a zillion years. 

As the noon hour rolled around, I glanced away from my computer screen for a second and caught a glimpse of the two bottles V8 Heathy Greens® that I had shoved off to the side this morning when I sat down at my desk. I picked one of the bottles up and scanned the ingredients panel. It included such healthful ingredients as "yellow carrot juice, cucumber juice, celery juice, green bell pepper juice" and other vegetables that I was not aware has a single drop of juice in them. Less appetizing components of the product were "spinach water and romaine lettuce juice." To make the combination more palatable, it also contained apple juice and pineapple juice, two actual juices that I have had (and enjoyed)  before.

Green is the color
of my true love's juice.

I filled a cup with ice from our office's communal ice dispenser and returned to my desk. I popped the lid of one bottle and poured the contents over the ice. The opaque label had concealed the true color of the product. It was the color of some liquid that, if discovering it on your driveway, you'd be prompted to have your mechanic give your car a thorough inspection. Cautiously, I raised the cup to my lips and took a hesitant sip — probably too big a sip for something I was unsure about in the first place.

It tasted like old peas — cold, withered, left on a forgotten dinner plate in the sink.

I looked at the cup, now only partly filled with the dark green liquid. The more I looked at it, the more it resembled antifreeze. Old antifreeze.

I reread the ingredients, trying to identify the various vegetables by the aftertaste on my tongue. I couldn't pinpoint a single one. Instead, the full combination left my mouth with the flavor of a freshly-cut lawn. I wondered about a possible meeting of the Research and Development Department in the V8 Divison at Campbell's Soup (V8's parent company). "Hey," I imagined a food scientist declared, "I think I have the perfect combination!" As the other members of the team sampled the prototype, someone must have commented on the color and taste — only to have the criticism shot down by a supervisor. "No, no! It's fine! Who cares about the color of a drink anyway? Especially not the health nuts that are in our target demographic! Besides, Coca-Cola is the color of shit, and look how that stuff sells!"

I got up from my desk, walked to the sink near the office coffee machine and dumped the remaining V8 Heathy Greens® down the drain. I poured myself a cup of cleansing water and took a healthy swig.

Water is healthy, too.... right?

www.joshpincusiscrying.com