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15 december 2000

grapefruit juice isn't as gross as i thought

Week two of giving up pop for Advent. Morale is low. Throat is scratchy. Water not fizzly and fun. I would have made a terrible pioneer, where all they had to drink was backyard alcoholic beverages and beer on tap at some sleazy saloon.

Wait! What am I saying? I would have made a super pioneer! Big Red Kim on the Prairie, barmaid at your service. Get your friggin' hands off me, you masher. "Masher". That's a good word. Relevant but never shrill.

Okay, so where was I. Oh, yes. Week two of no pop, so to sate my thirst at work, I've been drinking juice and water, mostly because I should drink more juice anyway. Especially cranberry and grapefruit, cause they're good for me. In the past couple of years, I've acquired a taste for cranberry stuff, but it sure took awhile. I couldn't even choke down that goopy cranberry stuff my family would make for holiday dinners until recently. All burgundy-colored and sort of tangy-tart...blaaaagh. Give me strawberries any day. Nonetheless, I am now a bona-fide cranberry juice drinker. Yay for my vitamin-saturated innards.

Grapefruit juice, however, is another thing entirely. I have never been able to tolerate the taste of grapefruit. But I've been doing a lot of reading, and apparently this stuff is just mondo good for you. Prevents cancer, helps your belly, etc.

And it was the only thing in the non-pop juice machine the other day. In went my fifty cents.

Now, I kind of lucked out on this stuff, because there's only 15 percent juice in here. The rest of it is stuff I can't pronounce, but it's a good start. I swill it down, delighting in the sweet, very non-grapefruity taste. I gave thanks for high fructose corn syrup, and made a note not to ever give that up for Advent or Lent.

Alright, so then I went to lunch the other day, and was all thirsty again. So I grabbed this new SO-BE stuff, much to my disgruntlement. Definitely not into the fad drinks, but this one had possibility: it was a cranberry-grapefruit combo. Hm. Double-vitamin whammy. Believe it or not, it wasn't too bad. In fact, it was pretty darn good! Being a creative food-y sort of gal, I started getting all deductive or something.

It occurred to me that I could do this at home, simply purchase some 100 percent grapefruit juice (no bad-for-me sweeteners) and cranberry juice, and mix them myself. So I tried it last night. Make no mistake, it was a pucker-fest the first few sips. And it will be until I get the proportions right. But darn if drinking these two things really do make me feel pretty good in the long run.

It just astounds me what a large role pop plays in my life. I am (or was) pathetically addicted, and it frankly made me feel kind of cruddy. It makes my stomach burn, and makes me feel rather sluggish later. Plus it has warnings on it. Why do we eat food with warnings? We are dumb.

I got a sign of sorts today. That juice machine I told you about -- every time I put money in it, it spits out two or three drinks for me. That's right, kids -- free stuff! Given, it's free grapefruit juice, but still. The pop machine never did that for me. I suppose under these conditions, I can make it to Christmas...maybe even beyond.

But don't bet on it.