“You must be having a party.”

Well, he's done it. Tad's first guest post on my blog follows here. He spent a part of his afternoon hunting down a year's supply of soda for the family and he's recorded his fun for all of us to read. He's big on the links - you don't have to click on all of them if you're really not interested in various varieties of grains or the subtleties of hotdog bun styles. This posting may finally reveal the best-kept family secret - that my husband really is one of the funniest people I know.

“You must be having a party.”

I hear these words just about anytime I go shopping for the family, approaching the checkout counter with a dozen and a half each of five or six different items. Since some of the best purveyors of food “on the diet” are near my workplace, I’ll often stop by on the way home to clear Trader Joe’s shelves of whole wheat hot dog buns and other delectables, like a one-man locust swarm with a discerning palate.

Someone watching an older female do the same thing, with a couple of kids in tow for effect, would probably reach the logical conclusion that she was stocking up on groceries for the immediate future. But those eying me as an unaccompanied man with a cart piled high full of food automatically assume that I must be throwing some big debauched bash. Really! As if I had that many friends, not to mention friends close enough to part with my Trader Joe’s Whole Wheat New England Style Hot Dog Buns (no artificial flavors or preservatives).

I probably do this about every month or so. But the big excursion, the party to end all parties comes once a year. No, it’s not the post-Valentine’s day chocolate raid. It is the Passover Coke Round Up.

As some of you may know, during Passover Jews must avoid grain. Some Jewish traditions extend this prohibition from the traditional varieties (wheat, spelt, barley, oats, and rye) to include others such as rice, soybeans, and … corn. Yes, Ashkenazi Jews must avoid what is probably the most popular American subsidized staple food. This is especially a problem when one really needs to take advantage of “The Pause That Refreshes”, because since 1985 Coca-Cola is made in the USA with corn syrup instead of regular sugar. This makes it a big no-no for lots of Jews.

Corn syrup is also a no-no in our house as well, as it is eliminated by many adherents to the Feingold Diet. Once you investigate where corn syrup comes from, you would think twice about it too. Essentially, corn starch is partially digested by mixing it with sulfuric acid or various enzymes in large vats. The resulting goo is quickly absorbed into the bloodstream, spiking blood sugar and driving the metabolism into overdrive. Coincidentally, the spike in childhood obesity also begins around 1985....

So, what's a God-fearing Feingold family to do, Jewish or otherwise? Well, both Coke and Pepsi noticed the potential loss of market share around Passover time, and they filled the gap with soda made with good old-fashioned sugar. Sucrose. The way God intended a cola to be made.
So if you look in a grocery store in a Jewish neighborhood around Passover time, you will find specially-capped (yellow for Coke, white for Pepsi, both with Hebrew symbols) bottles of cola made with 100% real sugar. And you also might find me, filling a shopping cart with a year's supply of soda for the kids' birthdays, holidays, and just-because days. And, as I wheel the cart into the checkout line, you might hear someone observe:

"You must be having a party.”