Conversations at the Coffee Shop

The other day, while waiting in line to order an espresso at a certain local coffee establishment, I overhead the most interesting serious of commentary from two women standing in front of me in line, all of which had one thing or other to do with diet, nutrition or health.

Before they approached the barista to order, they were just wrapping up a convo in which one woman told her friend, “Well, you know what Dr. Oz says, “Those that cheat on their diets, stay on their diets”, to which the other nodded in unison.  

Did he really say that?   If so, what on earth are people eating on their ‘diets’ that makes them need to even conceive of the idea of ‘cheating’?  Who are they cheating?  No one other than themselves.  

One of the virtues of Paleo, when done properly, in its inherent, balanced fashion, is that the meals are so delectable and all made with things we are truly meant to be eating, that one wouldn’t want to cheat.  

I don’t personally agree with the idea of ‘having one cheat meal each week’; doing so implies that there’s something to be missed if one adheres to Paleo, and that’s simply not the case.  Plus, if we recognize how detrimental dairy, grains and legumes are, why would we want to eat them at all?  

Ok; down she steps from soap box.

And right back up she goes!

Moving along to the next part of the conversation, when one woman told her friend she’d found an amazing ‘lactose free cheese’, which she loved as she’s ‘lactose intolerant’.  That’s akin to saying I’m ‘plastic intolerant’, as in “I have a bad reaction if I eat plastic”.  

Of course she’s lactose intolerant!  We all are.  We not supposed to be drinking the bodily fluid of a cow which is intended for its offspring to drink from the udder.  

Finally, the women approached the barista and scanned the menu to decide what they fancied, asking a lot of questions (which was the only part of their diatribe I agreed with; asking questions, although the questions they asked weren’t the ones I’d ask.).

Not sure if they’d never been to one of theses franchises before, but they were very interested to learn about a certain whippy, milkshakey beverage.    They asked the barista what a ‘green tea frappuccino contained’, and whether it had dairy or soy or sugar.

The barista assured them that it had not dairy because it had a ‘cream flavored base but no actual dairy’.  (What does that mean?)

The woman then commented that she was ‘not worried about calories, only the sugar’ and could she please have one of the said beverages, but with no base and no syrup and no sugar.

Not sure what’s left?  Just an iced green tea?

At any case, it was both an amusing as well as a bit unsettling, yet comical exchange to overhear.

Representative, of course, of what many people think when they think they’re doing a good job of ‘being good/ being on a diet/being healthy’ which tends to equate to eating low or no fat, ‘sugar-free’ and all sorts of altered foods which would probably be less offensive if they weren’t tainted (if you’re going to do dairy, at least eating it raw and in full fat form isn’t quite as awful as low fat or fat free).

Those of you who are on board and Paleo, really Paleo, we’ve got to stand our ground and keep leading by example to show how fantastically natural this lifestyle really is!