{"id":34313,"date":"2011-02-12T07:17:54","date_gmt":"2011-02-12T12:17:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/?p=34313"},"modified":"2011-09-24T16:04:15","modified_gmt":"2011-09-24T20:04:15","slug":"sweet-dreams-care-and-feeding-of-the-valentine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/by-judith-gayle-2\/sweet-dreams-care-and-feeding-of-the-valentine\/","title":{"rendered":"Sweet Dreams: Care and Feeding of the Valentine"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Judith Gayle | Political Waves<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Happy Valentine’s Day! The day when flower growers and designers, candy makers and sellers, jewelry store and spa owners rub their hands in glee. The day that most men remember at the last minute and, if they’re smart, find something to cart home to the honey, while most women have orchestrated the remembrances, cards and tokens of affection well in advance.<\/p>\n

The mythology is that Valentine’s is the day when each of us either reaps the dividends of being loved or stands out in the cold, looking in. This usually has little to do with worthiness and more to do with being partnered. I’ve always thought this holiday had a kind of awkward, sadistic quality, like a national Sadie Hawkins Dance that had the ability to turn into the gym scene in Stephen King’s Carrie<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Still, it comes every February with regularity and so, blessed are the hooked up. As with New Year’s Eve, Valentine’s Day provides a relationship perk that means this pivotal date-night is taken care of; at least in theory. How well we do with this quiet little February event may also answer the question of whether the relationship is still viable in April and May.<\/p>\n

Flower delivery, it turns out, is problematic this year. If you’re not familiar with your local flower shop, turning instead to an 800-line or advertiser, you may not get anything close to what is being promoted in pictures and pamphlets. This is particularly problematic if roses were promised and peonies delivered; worse, chrysanthemums, the kind your dear old Granny grows in her garden. On the other hand, flowers of any kind delivered in a bitter February should not be sneezed at. Not only are they a rare delight when the snow is blowing, they can be displayed in a window to let the world know someone thinks you’re IT: highly coveted. The recent problems with delivery indicate that those who want value for their buck need to hand-deliver or, perhaps, select another gift.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

When in doubt, there’s always the traditional Valentine’s offering: candy. It’s literally everywhere and easily obtained. On the other hand, if the selection is too generic, not only will your good taste be questioned but your true feelings. I’m personally a Skittles fan but — in days long ago when these things meant more to me — if the Beloved had thrown a bag of Skittles my way on The Big Day, favorite or not, trust me: there would have been little joy in his Mudville. No, these offerings need to show a bit of class, imagination or, barring that, expense. According to the tube, Kay Jewelers will be GLAD to help you with that last.<\/p>\n

Then there is the evening event to consider. The business of Cupid’s bows and paper hearts is all about romance, which requires the aforementioned imagination. The intimate meal is always a winner. I watched a bit of the Food Channel this week, and everyone had a different suggestion for food-seduction, most involving large amounts of butter and sugar, accompanied by something alcoholic that was the same color as the tablescape. OK, color-coordinated beverages are a bit of a turn-off for me, but there’s no denying that alcohol plays a large role in the Valentine’s event — which makes sense, by the way, only if you’ve secured a hotel room or paid the babysitter to take the children for the weekend.<\/p>\n

Would this be an inconvenient time to begin a conversation about the continuing evils of subsidized production<\/a> of high-fructose corn syrup? Well, too bad — we’re going there anyhow. In the last months, I’ve seen clever commercials calculated to convince us that there is nothing in corn syrup that is anything other than plain old table sugar. And sugar, of course, is good food. It must be so, available as it is in a thousand guises at every check-out stand, convenience store counter and restaurant table in the nation. But, as usual, they lied. We’ve been taught that refined sugar is harmless, but it is not. There is either sucrose or HFCS \u2013 or both — in just about every processed American food product, from hot dogs to corn flakes, baby food to soup, but you won’t hear about the dangers in this nation.<\/p>\n

Back in 1975, an odd little man named William Dufty — accompanied by Gloria Swanson, a quirky old movie star of the silent era and ex-mistress of JFK’s father, Joe — began promoting a book Dufty had written titled Sugar Blues<\/em>. Dufty told a startled public that sugar was addictive and caused enormous health problems for a nation that had been purposely hooked by a billion-dollar industry. That was 35 years ago. Since then, Sugar Blues<\/em> has become a classic, but little has changed, except a gazillion more products shored up with high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) available for fewer of your food stamps than broccoli or — heaven forbid — arugula. The sugar lobby is still winning the food war and America is losing, on that and many other fronts.<\/p>\n

Michelle Obama, having chosen childhood obesity as a national cause, catches hell from the rightwing for ‘interfering’ with our freedom to make food choices. Sarah Palin — Mama Grizzly herself — refuses to let this strange, dark woman dictate to her what she should be feeding the cubs; she visited an elementary school recently with a big plate of chocolate chip cookies. That arrogant, progressive couple in the White House are simply showing their elitist tendencies when they eat well, but we’ll show them! We like our children plump and listless. Never mind that we’re seeing more strokes<\/a> among the middle-aged and even in the young that may be attributed to obesity.<\/p>\n

Oh, and while we’re on the subject, a new study has found that people who consume diet drinks every day — ostensibly to eliminate calories — “had a 48 percent higher risk of stroke or heart attack than people who drank no soda of any kind.” Their conclusion? “… diet soft drinks may not be an optimal substitute for sugar-sweetened beverages.”<\/p>\n

Well, gosh — ya think? Have none of these people read the studies about Aspartame<\/a>, which is universally substituted for sugar in soft drinks (marketed as Nutrasweet, it comes in little blue packets at most restaurants.) Here’s Dr. Mercola on the topic, and if he isn’t enough to make you drop that Diet Coke can, consider that Donald Rumsfeld helped push this toxic additive<\/a> through a reluctant FDA when he was CEO of Searle Pharmaceuticals. I gave up on diet soda and Aspartame long ago. I need all my brain cells.<\/p>\n

Ahhh<\/em>, but it’s Valentine’s! I don’t want to bum you out with too much good sense or dire warning. The little pleasures carry us through the bad spells, and I’m not going to kick them to the curb entirely. I’m no purist, myself. Chances are you’ll receive some candy, because with the exception of Halloween where any sweet will do, nothing says I Love You like chocolate. Life is always better, just at that moment, with a piece of Ghirardelli’s or See’s tucked in my cheek (I’m showing my coastal bias, I know.) And we’ve all read the studies that say dark chocolate and red wine have health benefits. So does moderation in all things. I shall try for all three this year.<\/p>\n

By the way, if you don’t have a Special Someone to celebrate with, I would like to take this opportunity to remind you just how special you actually are. There isn’t one of you out there that isn’t a fascinating, creative, delicious and inspiring part of the human landscape, connected to me by heartstrings. One recent Valentine’s commercial does tickle my fancy; the one that says this day is to celebrate who a couple is, together. That makes sense to me. The combined energy of a couple creates a Third Entity that represents “them,” and so it goes with all collaborations. So Be My Valentine<\/strong> this year, won’t you? Collaborate with me. With or without chocolate, I can’t think of anything sweeter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Judith Gayle | Political Waves Happy Valentine’s Day! The day when flower growers and designers, candy makers and sellers, jewelry store and spa owners rub their hands in glee. The day that most men remember at the last minute and, if they’re smart, find something to cart home to the honey, while most women … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":""},"categories":[1744],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34313"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34313"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34313\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}