There's a joke about how people eat a lot of unhealthy food, and then get a diet cola.
There were at least two jokes like that on Beavis and Butthead. In the first, a lady self-consciously orders a bunch of health food (salad, water to drink), then says, "What the hell!" and gets two apple pies, too.
In the other one, a lady orders tons of food - so much that I didn't get the joke at first, because I thought she was ordering for a family, not just herself - and then got a diet cola.
I get the "joke" about this sort of behavior. In fact, I am sure that I myself made this joke, before I heard anyone else make it and could have considered it my own.
But now I'm looking at it from a different perspective.
#1 -- The calories you get in a meal is simply the sum of the calories of the individual things you eat. While this means that it is true that a diet cola does not somehow negate the calories in a burger, it is also true that eating a burger does not add the calories that you would have gotten by drinking a regular cola.
#2 -- If people are willing to drink diet cola -- which actually tastes kinda gross -- doesn't that mean that they would be willing to eat other more salubrious food if it was available and tasted reasonably good? Even if it is a token effort towards healthfulness, it is still some effort.
There were at least two jokes like that on Beavis and Butthead. In the first, a lady self-consciously orders a bunch of health food (salad, water to drink), then says, "What the hell!" and gets two apple pies, too.
In the other one, a lady orders tons of food - so much that I didn't get the joke at first, because I thought she was ordering for a family, not just herself - and then got a diet cola.
I get the "joke" about this sort of behavior. In fact, I am sure that I myself made this joke, before I heard anyone else make it and could have considered it my own.
But now I'm looking at it from a different perspective.
#1 -- The calories you get in a meal is simply the sum of the calories of the individual things you eat. While this means that it is true that a diet cola does not somehow negate the calories in a burger, it is also true that eating a burger does not add the calories that you would have gotten by drinking a regular cola.
#2 -- If people are willing to drink diet cola -- which actually tastes kinda gross -- doesn't that mean that they would be willing to eat other more salubrious food if it was available and tasted reasonably good? Even if it is a token effort towards healthfulness, it is still some effort.
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