Recently on an episode of normal Jeopardy (the one that mere mortals play and can get a decent number of questions right, unlike Masters with professional trivia players) the answer to "an early 1900s beverage brand that had a beaver sitting on a log at the top of a map" was "Canada Dry," the ginger ale brand. So many facts to untangle here: did not know that Canada Dry has been along that long, did not know they had cornered the ginger ale market enough that they would be famous enough for Jeopardy, and that "top of the map" part of the clue definitely made me think of a foreign country and if in doubt about any country other than U.S., one's mind should gravitate naturally towards Canada first- it's big up there apparently, partly due to Alex Trebek and success of some recent Canadian champions. But Canada Dry, damn, not all Final Jeopardy clues are built the same; none of the 3 contestants got it, and neither did I watching at home, even though I've ordered ginger ale and distinctly remember getting Canada Dry before, even with memories of forgeting how to say ginger ale and just saying "Canada Dry." It's actually ironic that the "dry" in Canada Dry means "dry wine" and that it's not sweet, which as anyone who's had a sip of one knows, it's the opposite: it's almost sickeningly sweet, enough to turn me off to it because I'm just oversaturated with an uneasy feeling that I'm going to get a sugar high or get diabetes soon.
At its essence ginger ale was probably meant to be drank with pure ginger root, but now it's just a pure soda, or as I like to call it, "sugar water," with some rumored health effects of being good for nausea, which MJ had recently and got ginger ale to cure it. 35 GRAMS OF SUGAR! That's like 75% of a daily alotted amount, just in a few quick swigs. I empathize with libertarians who say let people do what they want and have no regulation over anything, but boy oh boy these soda drinks are like handing someone pure poison, for that little dose of happiness on the first couple sips, and then it's over and it's all downhill from there. HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP! Just the sound of it makes me cringe. MJ once brought back a half full can of ginger ale and told me UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES drink ti because of the high fructose corn syrup.
I try not to buy stocks that are bad for the earth or peddle products that are bad for people and capitalize off the common person's weaknesses, but I have to admit I own Pepsi stock, which owns what I call "bad beverages." (basically for me anything that's not water or milk). Keurig Dr. Peppter actually owns ginger ale. I also unfortunatley own McDonald's stock, Chipotle stock (not the worst as they try to provide organic foods, but unfortunatley in the process slaughter plenty of red meat animals), Yum! brands, and in the non-food companies I also have Boeing (terrible reputation now), Dollar General, Walmart, etc., a bunch of corporations take advantage of the little man, and probably one of the worst of all, Amazon, Evil Empire and Eater of Small Businesses' lunch. I should really think next time I buy a stock what I'm doing morally, but then again as much as I dislike Canada Dry, a lot of America and the world does; the worse for their health, the better for the Big Beverage stocks (and probably eventually the Big Pharma stocks with medications). A vicious business cycle. The worse normal people do, the better big companies do.
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