Today I am feeling frustrated. As you can all probably relate, I am often lectured or preached to by strangers about using artifical sweetener. It happens at work a lot- I'll put sweetener in my coffee and suddenly there is an eccentric health watchdog at my side asking me if I want Cancer. I have little patience for these people- and I find it even more frustrating to have to explain to them that I am a type 1 diabetic, and while sugar is (for the most part- save for the bleaching process) natural, it is also deadly to me. Then I get this longer lecture about how I should just drink my coffee black. I have had this problem so many times that I seldomly even entertain the conversation anymore.
But in the last year, with increasing regularity, I receive emails from people in my life lecturing me on my habits- stemming from using sweetener to what sugarfree drinks will kill me. I even had one doctor tell me that zero sugar powerade is bad for me. My endo told me that I should drink it if I'm dehydrated! I get frustrated by the people who seem to want every aspect of my life to be micromanaged and overcautious. I like things to have a taste. I like to just relax sometimes and not be scared every second that I'm not slowly poisoning myself.
What is with this fear mongering?!
However. I have stopped drinking the evil energy drinks, and I have severely reduced my coffee consumption. Go me.
I hear you on this one. I have a good laugh at them. I ask them whether they killed the chicken they ate last night, or hunted the game that went on their pepperoni pizza? I might even quiz them if they even knew what went into growing the vegetables that went into their salad?
I usually get a quizzical look from them, and they usually get defensive. See, to them, they actually think they are trying to help you out by passing on the knowledge that they saw on TV or read in a newspaper.
Harmones in meat, or in the grains that feed them, pesticides that are used to grow the fruits and vegetables, perhaps even the packaging can all hurt and cause dire things like diabetes, cancer and all those things that they worry about.
At least artifical sweeteners have been under scrutiny for the last couple of decades. I just innocently ask them if they are really sure about what they are eating, whether it will eventually kill them with cancer not. I figure that instead of being offended, I will just join in on their rant.
food police is a hot topic here, but it’s not just limited to PWD. One of my friends who is asian and doesn’t drink milk used to get lectured about getting osteoperosis and dying from a broken hip. She would flippantly say that was her goal since we all die of something someday
Thanks for that. I think that I get frustrated because I have no diabetic friends, and no diabetic family- nobody can relate, and because everyone is so interested and mystified by what it must be like for me, being so afraid of what they don’t know, that they get on me a lot about everything I do, everything I eat, every cent I spend. My Mom is a glycemic index know-it-all. Hahaha! So yeah, it gets frustrating having to divulge a personal thing like my medical condition to so many people so regularly- and I begin to wonder what horrible thing they’re doing to their body. At least I know this happens to other people as much as it seems to happen to me. I can usually take it from my family because I know they care- but out in public it just feels like an invasion of privacy.
