Back on the sugar wagon

  

I fell off the wagon. And by that, I mean the sugar wagon. Or I’m back on, depending on how you look at things. 

I was doing so well. I was limiting the sugar in my coffee. I was drinking Coke Zero. I even stopped eating the fruit concentrate at the bottom of my mixable yogurt.  

Then Halloween came. It’s not my fault we only got three trick-or-treaters. Someone had to deal with the surplus candy. 

Okay, who am I kidding? My sugar consumption started much earlier, in summer with those Nestle drumsticks that we filled our freezer with after a sale at Costco. It became almost impossible for me to go through an evening without devouring one. 

Then there was the Costco pumpkin pie sale (darn you, Costco!), that legendary supersized pie they sell for seven dollars before Thanksgiving. No one in my family was eating it but me... every night for 10 days straight. 

Then there’s my chocolate pudding/ice-cream addiction, which I've never gotten help for. We currently have five varieties of ice-cream in our freezer because every time I go to the store, I sense there could soon be a world-wide shortage.

What does it take to develop Type 2 diabetes? That’s my biggest question as I approach (or pass) midlife. I want to walk as close to that line as possible without crossing it. Because once you do, it’s my understanding that life is not as much fun. 

Resisting sugar is difficult because we're bombarded by it in so many forms. Even orange juice isn’t recommended to drink regularly because of its high sugar content. White bread might as well be sugar because your body converts it into the same stuff. You don’t need to be feeding on candies all day to get your sugar intake – just eat a baguette! 

Even worse, I’ve started drinking Coke.... daily. And not the zero calories kind. I don’t know how I’ve fallen so hard.

I’m sure I had more self-control when I was 20, back when I was so mindful of good nutrition that I boiled broccoli to eat with my Burger King. Strangely, I’ve become more averse to vegetables as I grow older, even though I do still enjoy them. I just enjoy other things more. 

Red meat, in particular, I’ve acquired a taste for. Unlike my daughter, I didn’t crave steak as a toddler, but as I’ve matured into old manhood, the process of preparing and cooking raw meat excites me more than it should. 

Even though I eat some of the healthiest meals on earth, thanks to my wife’s cooking, I crave things that I shouldn’t. I crave deep-fried things. I really like hamburgers. Hot dogs are great, too. I’m a big fan of lasagna and was aghast when one of my co-workers suggested it’s unhealthy. With all those crushed tomatoes!? 

The last thing I want to promote is poor eating habits. But it doesn’t help when I read about people like Warren Buffet, one of the most successful investors in the U.S., who at the age of 94, still eats at McDonald’s every morning and drinks five Cokes a day. 

I realize you can’t cherry pick like that. Everyone knows a person in their nineties who drinks like a fish, eats fast food and smoked all their lives. We mention them because they’re still alive. We forget about all their relatives who died thirty years earlier from heart disease and cancer. 

But this is getting too negative, even for me. Like the two-pack-a-day smoker, I don’t want to be reminded daily about my premature doom because of my lifestyle choices. 

So instead, some good news: According to one prominent biochemist, red wine is a super food due to its anti-inflammatory and blood pressure-lowering benefits, ranking ahead of broccoli and almonds. It’s right up there with blueberries and dark chocolate! And it doesn’t have any sugar! (I may have made that part up.) 

In any case, cheers! 

 

 

Look at me, Uncle Sam, I'm Canada!

  

I don’t get it. Every time Americans look for a solution outside of the U.S., they look to Europe. If ever they ask, “What country is remarkably similar to ours, maybe even on the same continent, but has tried different policies with different outcomes?”, the answer is inevitably Sweden. 

Sweden, Finland, Germany, France... for some reason, they all get more attention than Canada when it comes to country comparisons. I’m starting to think they believe we’re a carbon copy of them. Not as bold and defined, but if you look closely enough at our dull, faded appearance, you’ll see we’re nearly identical.

Not so! I mean, have you been following the news?! 

Sure, we’re influenced by them more than most other countries. But we often do the opposite of what the U.S. is doing simply to not be American. 

We accepted draft dodgers during the Vietnam war. We refused to join the Iraq war. We invest public dollars into healthcare, childcare, pharmacare and dental care. We even take pride in being subjugated to a monarch. We’ve got King Charles reading this spring’s Throne Speech, for goodness’ sake! 

Sure, there’s a small percentage of Canadians who wouldn’t mind if we melded with our American neighbour, but this is more about politics than anything. The U.S. tilts to the right and, since Canada tilts to the left, many conservatives feel their voices go unheard in this country. Meanwhile, the U.S. is killing it right now when it comes to right-wing rhetoric. I get that.  

It’s how most Canadians feel about our relationship with the U.S. We're largely ignored. So much so that we get excited (at least I do) when a prominent American mentions Saskatchewan. Never have I heard an American let Saskatchewan roll off their tongue so effortlessly as Rainn Wilson, the actor who played Dwight Schrute in The Office. (Can’t remember what he was talking about, but he referenced us!) 

For the most part, most Americans have no idea what our provinces are called or how we’re governed. This week I listened to an American commentator, who once worked for George W. Bush, talk about the president of Canada. 

Unsurprisingly, their current president doesn’t understand Canada either. He’s still interested in annexing us, based on his recent meeting with our prime minister, but has no idea what he’d be getting into. We'd vote him out of office in a heartbeat! 

            He also doesn’t understand our two countries’ interdependence. As our prime minister noted, we buy the most American stuff out of all the countries in the world, importing $348 billion worth of American goods and services. Mexico imports the second most at $334 billion and China comes in a distant third at $143 billion. Every other country imports less than $100 billion. 

If you remove oil and gas, Canada has a trade deficit with the United States. We loved buying American! Until now. 

Conversely, Americans benefit from our cheap oil and gas, cheap lumber, and cheap everything thanks in part to the exchange rate. The U.S. dollar gives Americans the power to buy from other countries at lower cost, while also affording them lower interest rates. This might change, thanks to Trump’s trade actions, but for now they benefit from controlling the world’s reserve currency. 

It can be hard to understand how good you have it when you’ve always been on top. Canada, which produces 72% of the GDP per capita as the U.S., isn't taking advantage of the world's superpower, as Trump claims. We’re barely keeping up.

We may be a less wealthy society, but a fairer one. 

Other than to Bernie Sanders, this too doesn’t appeal to Americans very much.