A Little Less Sweet Please

I seriously can’t believe it – almost every drink here has sugar! What is up with this?

When I go into a store, they look strangely at me when I ask for my favourite hot beverage, and then complain when it comes as sweet as a candy cane and mixed with condensed milk.

Obviously this is a culture of extremes, because I promise you in the rest of the world when you order a coffee, it comes as just that – coffee – not coffee + milk + sugar. The only thing to say is at least I'm getting some form of value for money. 

I really don’t understand why all drinks come pre-sugared, and that you have to ask to have something removed from it in order to make it normal. It never came with sugar to start with people!

Even fruit juice. Hey, aren’t oranges sweet to start with? The whole idea of having fresh fruit juice is for a healthy diet – isn’t it just a huge oxymoron to then have sugar as an integral part to this?

Tea comes from tea leaves. It’s not grown together in the sugar cane fields, and it certainly isn’t rolled in sugar granules before it is placed into tea bags, nor is it dunked in milk powder. But, hey, ask for tea here and you’d think it was.

 All I want is a cup of coffee.

Ok, so what’s really my bitch? Actually, it’s having to ask to take things away from a product to consume it, when it is really an add-on.

Imagine wanting a hamburger bun. It’s like going into McD’s and ordering a fillet‘o’fish (not that I ever would, I don’t do fish, or McD’s) and then asking, no fish, no mayo, no butter. I mean, seriously, coffee is coffee.

I know, it’s unlikely to change ever, but I have this little spark of determination inside me that one day, when I order coffee, a cup of coffee (without milk and without sugar) will appear magically before me. True, I’m not holding my breath, but I am holding out hope.

Here’s hoping that we can be progressive rather than regressive – I ask for sugar if I want it (progressive) rather than having to ask for it not to be included (regressive).

And to all the stall holders who think I’m strange, try ordering overseas. Sugar is an optional extra, not an integral part.

Get on the healthy-wagon and make a change for good. Your blood sugar and diabetes will appreciate it.