Leave my Diet Coke alone

This is a real thing that has happened to me many times.

I’m drinking from a bottle of Diet Coke. Standing beside me is someone drinking a coffee.

A third party (or the coffee drinker) comments on the unhealthy nature of my beverage choice, even though the coffee drinker is consuming a beverage with more caffeine, more calories, and potentially the same or similar type of sweetener as my soda.

I know it sounds crazy, but if you’re a Diet Coke drinker, you know that this happens more often than you’d ever expect,. Walk around the world with a Diet Coke in your hand for a week and count the number of people - friends, colleagues, and strangers - who feel the need to tell you about the unhealthy nature of your beverage choice.

It’s more than you think.

Frankly, one is too many.

Yesterday, someone criticized my Diet Coke consumption even though he was admittedly on his second cup of coffee that morning (complete with cream and Splenda) and would likely be drinking 3-4 beers later that night.

I don’t drink coffee - I’ve never even tasted it - and I don’t drink alcohol, yet my three Diet Cokes are somehow worse in people’s minds than the coffee and alcohol that many people consume on a daily basis.

It’s crazy.

Here’s something even crazier:

Switch from Diet Coke to either a diet root beer or any soda from a local bottler and no one says a word to you. I sometimes drink Diet AW Root Beer. When I do, I don’t hear a single warning or complaint from anyone. And if I’m drinking an Avery’s soda of any kind, from a local, independent bottler, no one cares at all.

In fact, I’m sometimes complimented on my decision to buy local.

All of this is to say that when it comes to food and drink, people are illogical, judgmental, and full of implicit bias.

I was once fond of saying that food shaming was the last bastion of publicly accepted bigotry in this country, but then we elected a bigoted President who refers to African nations as “shit-hole countries,” tells African American and Puerto Rican Congresspeople to “go back from where they came,” separates families and cages immigrant children on the border, claims that a judge can’t be fair because of his Mexican heritage, refers to white supremacists as “very fine people,” was sued twice by the Justice Department for refusing to renting to people of color, and employs self-acknowledged white nationalists like Stephen Miller, all the while Republicans stand behind him in lock-step, so I guess I was wrong.

For at least 40-45% of the nation, old fashioned racial bigotry is alive, well, and publicly accepted.

Still, the whole Diet Coke thing infuriates me.