A New Yorker and now Bostonian with family and friends in Maine, I frequently travel to Portland. While a great foodie town – I have a weakness for lobster bisque and lobster rolls - the reason for my journey was for the book signing of Jim Baumer’s Moxie: Maine in a Bottle. The trip ended up being rather amusing for a number of reasons, which became the subject of a post I wrote on the topic titled Moxie, Maine, and Me: A Wicked Short Story. I was inspired to recap this story briefly here given this past weekend was in fact the annual Moxie Festival.
Oh, yes. There’s a festival.
Why so funny, you ask? Well, check out the story and you’ll see why, but I’ll let you know briefly here since otherwise this post makes absolutely no sense in the context of my usual subject matter. And I’m sure I will not be alone in my moxie confusion, either, given a great many SIF readers are not from New England. (Aren’t most of you on that other coast, with all the beautiful people and ripped abs?)
In case you don’t know what the word moxie means, I personally enjoy the brief description here.
What I didn’t know, however, is that Moxie is the official state soft drink of Maine.
There’s so much talk about sugar these days; I haven’t really felt the need to chime in yet. One say soon, perhaps, given there’s confusion that “natural” sweeteners are somehow better for you than sugar. Well, I’ll give you a hint, sugar, whether from cane or sugar beets or a maple tree, is still sugar. There’s some evidence that high-fructose corn syrup may have properties that lead to deleterious metabolic effects, but the simple fact is that most people eat way too much added sugar from all sources, of all kinds: cutting down will improve your health, manage your weight, and reduce your risk of obesity, type 2 diabetes, and heart disease. And soda is a major player in many peoples’ diets, a fact you undoubtedly already know. This is why of course I turn to such beverages as summer berry sun tea for my hydration needs. (Diet soda isn’t great, either, by the way, as it can confuse your body’s satiety signals – a topic for another time.)
The New York City health department has a great video on just how much sugar there is in soda, which is also posted on my blog alongside the moxie tale. Check out the video and the article. I hope you will be entertained, but also reminded to cut down the sugar in your diet – whatever the source.
A guest blogger on Share It Fitness, Dr. P. K. Newby is a nutrition scientist and educator – and serious cook and foodie – who blogs about food, cooking, health, science, and sustainability at The Nutrition Doctor is In the Kitchen. To learn more about Cooking and Eating the P.K. Way, you can follow her on Twitter, become a fan on Facebook, or check out her food porn on Pinterest.