See, this is the problem. As a coffee squeezer, a waitron, a burger pusher or other service person, your opinion is irrelevant. It doesn’t matter what your tastes are, it doesn’t matter what you think what you’re handing a person will do to their diet, it doesn’t matter if you think that mixing a soy milk coffee beverage with dairy whipped cream is a sacrilege. (The burned crap masquerading as coffee at Soybucks is sacred? I think not.)
You’re there to give the customers what they want, not to coin catchy names for their orders of choice or give them weird looks or to laugh at them when they want a supersize double meat double cheese with bacon, a pie and a diet soda. Keep your comments, your looks, your giggles and your thoughts to yourselves.
This goes double for bystanders. You are not the arbiter of what anyone else is eating, drinking or otherwise consuming unless they’re making you have some. Your derision, your commentary, your stares and pointing and insults cross the boundary into the realm of intolerable disrespect and rudeness.
Shut up and mind your own damned business, the lot of you.
I’m another one who drinks Diet Coke with everything, no matter how large my meal is. I just prefer Diet Coke.
I started drinking the diet pop (yup, I grew up in the mid-West, it’s “pop” dammit) in grad school while pulling all-nighters. In those days, I drank enough of the stuff to float a battle ship (we’re talking way more than neuroman’s six a day). I’m surprised I didn’t put a hole in my stomach I drank so much of the stuff! Massive amounts of coffee made me nauseated, and if I had kept drinking regular pop I would have weighed 300 lbs.
I don’t drink nearly that much these days (though probably enough that it’s far from healthy). However, I cannot stand regular Coke. It’s so sugary it makes me thirsty.
I’m not really overweight (okay, maybe I could lose 5 lbs, but I’m no behemoth), but I do get the occassional comment when I order Diet Coke with a large meal. My favorite is when servers say something to the effect of “with that meal having a regular Coke won’t make much of a difference–why don’t you splurge?” As if there’s some sort of diminishing marginal calorie effect.
I will admit Diet Coke is nasty in some combinations. For example, Diet Coke with cheesecake is like orange juice and toothpaste. In those situations, I’ll get coffee or water. I still can’t tolerate regular Coke.
Right back at ya. If you want to perceive bitchiness in my questions, that’s your affair. I honestly did want to know if the combinations in my first post were as offensive to you as diet soda and a cheeseburger. But I guess the questions were too offensive for you to answer.
You’re the one who implied that we should all apply logic to our food choices:
So which is it, logic or personal taste? And how come your “personal taste” is A-OK, but other people’s isn’t? You’re the one who started laying out “rules” as to what sort of drink is OK to order with a “fat” meal.
You’re right, we should try this again. No one is digging on you for not personally liking certain foods. This thread is not complaining about people who say “I don’t like Diet Coke” but about people who say “I don’t like it when other people drink Diet Coke with fattening food.” I called you on being one of the second kind, not the first. Let’s talk about that, OK?
Actually, it’s all the fault of the original marketing ‘genius’ who decided to label these kinds of drinks ‘DIET’, thereby creating the permanent psychosocial implication that someone drinking a ‘DIET’ drink must therefore be on a ‘DIET’.
:mad:
I have never understood the logic of people who think it is silly to order a diet drink with an otherwise fattening meal. If you’re going to splurge, then why must you go “all the way”? Why not save a few calories by getting a diet drink instead? I’m not overweight, but I have gotten comments when ordering a large meal along with dessert, and a Diet soda. So, If I want to save a few more calories, what business is it of yours? Maybe I think the hot fudge sundae is worth the extra calories, but a soda isn’t.
You know what? Eleven years of counting calories has taught me a very valuable lesson: any calories cut out are good. Sure, a diet coke isn’t gonna negate a cheeseburger and fries, but why make it worse? Non-fat milk in your latte isn’t gonna make it any more healthy, but whole milk would be a lot worse.
I look at it as damage control, and I really don’t care if you look at it as incongruous or wonder, “Why does she bother?”
Plus, regular coke and whole milk both disgust me.
I order Diet Coke with everything…whether it’s a dry salad or banana split. The way I look at it, I am fat and don’t always choose the “right” foods. So, I order Diet Coke. A “real” Coke has what, 200 calories…I’d hate to know what a supersized one would be. I don’t need those extra calories.
Plus, I like the taste. “Real” Coke tastes like Mrs. Butterworth’s syrup.
And since this is the “pit”, allow me to send a great, big, fat, juicy FUCK YOU out to all the people who judge me (and others like me) on my weight and what I eat (or don’t eat.) They can just bite me on my all too ample ass…
It’s basically always been diet drinks in my family. My parents, and now I as well, subscribe to the theory that reducing calories is a good thing, especially the massively empty calories in a regular soda. Especially since some days it seems like I could drink an entire 12 pack by myself. I don’t have to worry about calories, at least, when I put down a 32 oz Diet Coke with my meal instead of the extra 400 calories that would come from having a Coke. Don’t get me wrong, occasionally I will drink a regular soda, but I’ve found that recently it’s when I’ve had to drive for a long time, as I can sip it while driving and get a boost of calories and caffeine.
On another note, is it just me or has Pepsi started trying to actively market Diet Pepsi to men?
Riiight. If I perceive bitchiness, it’s because I’m on crack, but if you do, it’s due to your inestimable perspicacity.
You wanted answers to all that hyperbolic list? Please. Yes, let’s debate every possible permutation of food and drink, just to analyze if aurelian thinks it’s weird - now that’s time well spent.
If people truly think this way, I can only imagine what the clerk at the grocery store thought tonight while I was checking out. He was probably 6’4" and 150lbs, if that, and I’m 5’7" and about twice his weight but I was buying two big thirty pack cases of diet soda and nothing else.
I guess he might have had a good chuckle but those will keep me hydrated for the next two weeks with no extra calories whereas if it were normal soda, it’d be 9,000 calories or the equivalent of four and a half days’ meals.
Er, you’re the one who came in here to “play devil’s advocate” and tell us all about how you think people – oh, excuse me, choices, I forgot that you like to play at semantics – like those in the OP are weird, in opposition to just about everyone else in the thread. Then when someone calls you on it and asks you to explain yourself, you don’t want to play anymore.
If you didn’t want to debate, then why did you come in here in the first place?
Yeah, I know…my dad is a skinny type II Diabetic - who has always ate fairly well and has always gotten a decent amount of exercise. He now eats better and gets more exercise.
But, if I allow myself to stereotype, I think most 19 year old skinny girls are probably on “diets” and not diabetic (though some certainly are) where I at least consider that middle age folks drinking diet soda may be watching their blood sugar. I do. Not a diabetic myself, I switched to diet when my dad was diagnosed - might as well change the habits now (I’m a moderately thin woman (5’7" 135 lbs) who “watches my weight” but seldom actually “diets.”)
Fats are also, if I understand my Diabetic 101, limited due to the correlation between dietary fat and heart disease and a correlation between heart disease and diabetes.
“But I agree with the OP in that its wrong to say anything, because when we do, we’re making assumptions. Who knows? Maybe that woman just really likes salad, and was under no misconception about it.”
I’m pretty sure that’s English I wrote, and I’m fairly certain that part wasn’t in invisible ink. Not sure why you didn’t read it.
Is it condescending for me to express my opinion that I believe some people delude themselves about their diets? If I’m not singling out any particular person, then no, I don’t think it’s condescending. If you believe that NOBODY on the face of the planet has EVER deluded him/herself in this way, I think you are hopelessly naive. That woman could just happen to really, really love salad, which is why I would never say anything in such a situation. (Besides which, even if she were deluding herself, it would still be rude to say anything to her.) But I doubt it. It’s more likely that she thought she was going to lose weight merely by virtue of the fact that she was eating salad. You guys are pretending like nobody ever deludes themselves, when you know perfectly goddam well they do it all the time.
I’ll give you another funny example. I met a woman at a party (and I’m sorry my examples are both women; it’s just coincidence). She was on some fad diet where you’re supposed to eat nuts. Well, we were BBQing burgers at this party, and she really wanted to have a burger, so either due to the wackiness of this “diet”, or due to her misunderstanding of it, she believed that if she sprinkled some nuts on top of her burger, that it would somehow “cancel out” the fat and calories of the burger.
Yes, Virginia - people do delude themselves. Is it rude to say something about it to them, personally? Yeah, I think that’s rude. Is it rude to talk about it in general on a messsage board? Not really.
It’s absolutely none of their business, and they shouldn’t be saying anything. But since you ask about the “logic” of it, I’ll play devil’s advocate here and explain it purely from a logical standpoint, since I think I understand the logic behind it. But please understand that I’m not making any insinuations about what you, personally, may or may not do. I’m just explaining the logic.
I think what it is is that people feel that it’s akin to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Yeah, you’re gonna save a few calories from the diet drink, but if you load up on huge amounts of fat and calorie-laden foods, that drink is just a drop in the bucket, and isn’t going to make any difference in the big picture.
Again, it’s none of their goddam business, and they should never say anything, but you can’t really knock people for thinking it.
I really don’t understand why it’s amusing when a person orders a diet soda with a regular meal, or why it’s any of anyone’s business to comment on it.
I’ll content myself with saying just this: When I order a fast food meal with a diet soda, what you probably don’t see is that I’m not eating the bun and my partner is eating the french fries. So laugh at me all you like; my a1C, triglycerides and cholesterol are probably better than yours, and that’s with the burger.
