I'm not the sweet type. Sugar, that is.
I have fairly simple tastes: Black coffee, plain cake, plain vanilla ice cream, unsweetened tea. Don't get me wrong, I can devour a bag of Reese's peanut butter cups like the best of them.
That's normal.
The irony of a Krispy Kreme cooking up gluten overload within five miles of my house is not lost on me. On the rare occasion I do eat there, and it is rare, I get the plain, non-glazed donuts. Mr Coffee, however, makes a concerted effort to consume four days of his sugar intake in one go. The man has been blessed with some inhumanly sick ability (read: enviable) to devour half a dozen double-frosted, sugar-bomb, raspberry-filled, double-chocolate something-or-others and not slip into a sugar coma.
Mr Coffee inherited my portion of the sweet tooth. Fortunately for him, he also got my portion of keeping it off the scale.
The hot, brilliant, sugar-eating jerk.
After consuming trace amounts of sugar, I feel like my vital organs are shutting down and I'm fully cognizant of my body's equivalent of vibrating bubbles out of a concrete foundation. All this aversion to sugary sweetness has turned me into one of those label readers.
Sodium content, high fructose corn syrup, and how many servings they sneak into a pint of Haagen Dazs. It's criminal that you can devour 220% of your daily fat intake in one of those little Tardis like "four servings but are really one serving" pints.
Who in their lactose-fueled mind can stop half way through one of those? Not me, and that too is normal.
At a young age, and by young I mean still in diapers, society is indoctrinating and molding us into becoming label readers. Doctors, media, parents, school, government-subsidized farmers monetarily motivated by the US Department of Agriculture. The USDA is paying off wheat farmers, who in turn, encourage us to eat 6 to 9 servings of bread. NiNE SeRViNgS of bread. That's a round of sourdough in one day.
Since the government tells us how to eat, it's only natural that movies and TV would follow. I remember those 1980s-era Skippy peanut butter commercials getting in on the action. Don't even start with TikToks about those peanut butters with pistachios and chocolate.
My 2nd grade sister holding up a jar of peanut butter at the grocery regurgitating through a Vanna White grin and modeling her best Annette Funicello, "Buy this, Linda! It has good nutrition!"
It wasn't until I was 24 and knocked up with my first child that I began to have teeth issues. Forget the other dangers of unprotected sex. They never mention a tooth revolt with pregnancy. Not once. Nor do they explain when you are 10 years old that one slip of proper hygiene is akin to ping hammering your teeth once you turn 25.
Brushing away a few, slacking, bedtime habits the night before a dentist checkup doesn't count.
Fast forward to adulthood and compulsive flossing. I have flossing picks everywhere. I'm the OCD of the dental world. Little hand flossers packed in my purse, in the van, in a bag in front of my computer. My compulsion has paid off and my hygienist loves me. However, I still need root canal, crown, have a cracked filling, blah, blah, blah. My front teeth repair is another long story involving roller skates, a blanket, and ramming my 7 year-old face into a steel pole.
I've motivated my kids in the past, sporadically inspiring household hygiene with the Billy Bob teeth angle. I sputter out through fake plastic, black, misaligned teeth in my best redneckerson, "SMOOCH! Youse want some teeth like me?! Don'cha ever brush...hey, give yer mama some sugar."
Not that uneducated or poor means bad hygiene. Kids with parents with money to burn just have better dentists.
Armed with good dose of fear, my adult kids have good hygiene habits for life. I also have label readers that would make even Linda cry into her recommended servings of protein-filled TikTok peanut butter.
Listening to: Smile Like You Mean It by The Killers
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3 comments:
I always had great teeth. Until I moved to the UK five years ago. My dentist keeps blaming on the sweets.
I tell him, "I eat no more or less sweets now than I did in the US. Face it, you big jerk, UK dentistry sucks eggs."
It really, really does.
Trying to get Cody to brush his teeth is like, well, pulling teeth. (But then, so is everything else I try to get him to do.) I'll have to try the Billy Bob teeth. If he's 'too tired' to brush his teeth and I just can't take the whining anymore, sometimes I'll let him just rinse with ACT rinse, hoping that will wash away the day's sugar. I also believe in Santa Claus :/
My hubby? Not one single cavity in his mouth. He grew up in San Luis Obispo, CA, My mouth is full of fillings. I grew up in Portland. Huh.
I'm glad you're back!
And maybe you can answer a question for me: why do I so often see flossing picks on the ground? Who are these people who are obsessed with flossing and also with littering? Obsessed with good dental hygiene, but having no problem with spreading germs to everyone else? It baffles me.
I'm not saying you do that. I just figured as someone in that club of users, you might have inside knowledge. :)
p.s. I apologize if this comment shows up 3 times. I'm having comment difficulties.
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"One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words."
~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe