One of those things that once you start noticing, you can't stop noticing: so many people constantly sipping sugar-water. Not just sodas and juice, but "sports" drinks, "energy" drinks. How did everyone get convinced they needed to do this?
I went for a short bike ride the other morning, about 80 minutes, on an empty stomach and without taking so much as water. Nothing bad seemed to happen. Almost everyone exercising now seems to think that sugar water is mandatory. You see it at the gym, at the park, at the pool (most likely the ones bringing gatorade to the pool are triathletes). But the phenomenon is not limited to those in some kind of "training". I regularly see people sugaring up in the morning on the bus, or just walking around sipping the stuff. I bet if I put oversized hummingbird feeders out front I could attract a crowd of glassy-eyed commuters.
If the feeder was labelled as "vitamin water" or "amino boosting" no doubt, you could. Before moving to the desert, I also used to venture out without water. In AZ, doing so, can almost guarantee you will become greatly dehydrated - but in humidity levels above 40% RH or so, human respiration is not taxed to the point where instant replenishment is necessary.
ReplyDeleteAnd besides... 20 years ago, there used to be 3 out of 100 people with type II diabetes in the US (I don't know about England). Today, there are 8 - more than doubled in 20 years. All that sugar water is doing it's thing to accelerate liver and pancreatic dysfunction accross the population.
Color the water blue, or bright green, and it'll attract even more volume (in bipeds... the flying hummingbirds still prefer red) =)
Pretty sure it's a similar trend in England.
ReplyDeleteHere, have some ELECTROLYTES.
Yep, it DID approx double from 1996here:
ReplyDeletehttp://apps.who.int/infobase/reportviewer.aspx?rptcode=ALL&uncode=826&dm=2&surveycode=101069a4
to 2003 here:
http://apps.who.int/infobase/reportviewer.aspx?rptcode=ALL&uncode=826&dm=2&surveycode=101069a11