Tonight on GeekNights, we consider the humble beverage. From soda to pop, orange juice to bourbon, milk to yilk, and even good old reliable "water" we consider the general concept of drinks. In the news, the IATSE is mobilizing for a possible strike, we encourage you to murder Spotted Lanternflies if you live in New York, and we encourage you to delete your Facebook account.
Things of the Day
Episode Links
Live stream:
On Patreon:
Isn’t this already an episode? Rym must have deleted it.
I made this thread a couple years ago. I don’t think there’s a show on it, though.
EDIT: The first TotD isn’t showing up in the OP.
Bonus content didn’t get to on the show:
While I’m clearly not in perfect amazing health in all areas, and anecdote != data, I do give some credit to my beverage choices for good health in particular areas.
With regards to my excellent dental health, I give some credit to rarely drinking corn syrup and sugar water. With regards to my sleep health, I give some credit to not drinking caffeine or other energy beverages. With regards to the health of my bank account, I give about $2000/year worth of credit to not drinking coffee every single day, and almost never paying for a beverage from a restaurant. With regards to not having cancer (that I’m aware of, yet, 
) I give some credit to not drinking alcohol.
For some reason I’ve just always associated beverages more with negative health outcomes than foods. When it comes to food it’s pretty much just meat and candy that are commonly associated with negative health in my mind.
It could also be because of the nature of potions, elixirs, tonics, etc. within the cultural narrative. Drinking things is associated with getting some immediate noticeable magical or biological effect. A lot of the things people drink do indeed produce such an effect. When it comes to food people think about maybe a sugar rush or a food coma, but that’s about it. Nobody’s like “Oh man, that bread really got me going! Energy bread!” Wizards don’t bake a bread of invisibility, it’s always a potion of invisibility. Food that do something are almost always just straight up poison, like the poison apple.
That’s not to say that food doesn’t have such impacts. It’s just that they aren’t part of the story we tell ourselves about food. Also the nature of the digestive system clearly plays a part. An active ingredient in a beverage will enter our bodies and start acting much more quickly and immediately than something trapped in a food that takes time to digest. Also we can drink a lot more of something than we can eat of something.
Anyone can drink a red bull and almost immediately feel more awake. Someone can drink two red bulls and get really wired. And this is repeatable. It’s just so clearly obvious to anyone that the drink had the effect. If bread was like red bull, the effect would be so delayed, would you know it was the bread? Could you eat enough bread to generate a big enough effect?
I often wonder how much of how I feel at any given time, physically or emotionally, is a result of whatever food I’m currently digesting. I’m just too lazy to make a complete food diary to reveal any patterns that may exist.
Lastly: We didn’t discuss how to drink things. If I’m drinking for flavor I like to drink slowly. A straw helps a lot. Great for milkshakes. When it comes to drinking for hydration, I drink fast. I’ll pick up a water bottle, and then it’s empty before I put it down. I actually notice at parties a lot of people leave cups around that still have drink in them. The only cup I ever put down is an empty one. This bothers me a bit because it creates a spill hazard. Also people often never pick those drinks back up and finish them, which is wasteful.
Biking waffles?
These are the waffles. Check the ingredients.
They’re just waffles.
Right, waffles to give you energy. Energy bread.
But compared to something like Red Bull. Red bull has caffeine and taurine. Even when those things appear in food, they aren’t in enough quantity to really do anything. A chocolate bar has 3mg of caffeine. A cup of coffee has 95mg. A red bull has 111mg. (according to Google). The waffle has 0.
That is why I drink Redbull, and also why I eat sucrose and glucose gels while doing long (10+ mile) runs. Those calories are nearly instantly available, and have a material effect on my performance. To get that same caloric lift from, say, bread, I would have to eat it and let it digest well in advance of the run.
Which is a problem, because I can’t eat enough food quickly enough to have those calories available for a run. My body fat is ~9% from my last physical, so I can’t rely on reserves either.
I do materially feel the same effect from food. For the reasons you can imagine, I’m usually very close to caloric debt all the time. If I’m fatigued or tired, it’s usually because I’m low on available calories. If I eat food, I feel that effect within a half-hour directly, and I perk up.
Same with different kinds of food. Sometimes I crave, because I am deficient in, protein or sugar specifically. Eating something that provides that makes me feel directly better pretty quickly. Just not as quickly as gels/pastes/energy drinks.
That’s an odd specialized case, but it shows the real effect of quickly-available sugar calories.
I literally can’t. I burn as many as 2k calories on a half marathon. That’s above and beyond my base metabolism just existing. I dare you to eat 2k calories of bread at one time. 
What was Rym’s fave beer or type of beer? I listened to the end and you skipped it!
I honestly likely all kinds of beer, and my top preferences are highly seasonal.
But the best beer I’ve had in a long long time is the Baron von Black at The Baroness.
Beer == liquid bread.
And now we’ve completed the circle.
It appears that a strike is going to happen.
Yeah, the chatter is growing slowly but steadily.
I saw someone on the subway yesterday with a bright yellow shirt and the entire back of the shirt was the IATSE logo. The shirt looked very new. They are preparing.
When Scott started talking about his reaction to carbonation versus expectation, this is all I could think of.
Amusingly, this man also dislikes tea.
Found this today at my local weird food shop–HopTea!
Unsweetened sparkling tea with hops (no alcohol). It tastes like an IPA.
