Caffeine Madness!!!!!!!!!

Namaste BTWGers!

While trolling through the Huffington Post to find the latest on the stimulus package, new Brangelina updates, and life lessons, I saw this:

Hi, my name is Karen and I am a caffeinaholic. I love the stuff: the smell, the taste, the color -- and of course the results.I've credited caffeine for much of my creativity and productivity. I've even often felt caffeine was responsible for 93% of my personality. I worried if I never drank another cup of coffee again, I'd become a shy, humorless wallflower - a shut in. Hence, for years I've rationalized remaining a caffeinaholic ...

Quitting Secrets From A Caffeine Fiend

Wow did that ever speak to me. Of course, I ingest my caffeine through tea, not coffee, which probably makes no never mind ,like arguing which cocaine is more healthful--powder or crack. Karen found a health food restaurant called PUMP which suggests eating certain foods for energy without caffeine.

ENERGY -- WITHOUT THE NEED FOR CAFFEINE:

1. Don't eat foods with butter, cream, mayo -- or any unhealthy fats.

2. Use salt sparingly and only from the sea.

3. There should be no Fryday in your week. Don't eat fried foods.

4. Focus in on supercharged meals - which have some healthful protein (chicken, turkey, beans) some healthful carb (brown rice), and some greens (salad or spinach).

5. Focus on whole, unprocessed, chemical-free ingredients.

6.. Eat wholewheat bread instead of white flour bread.

7. Eat brown rice instead of white rice.

8. Add protein powder to your morning shake to give you extra sustainable energy.

9. Hell, even muffins, pancakes, and desserts can have protein in them! And if you put in that protein, you can be pro-muffin, pro-pancake, pro-dessert.

10. Recognize that not all calories are created equal. And it's not about counting calories - it's about eating foods which count best for nutritional nourishment -- which give you the most bang for your calorie buck.

Most of these suggestions make sense although because everyone is a food critic, just by reading the comments, I see that some people disagree about various things. I am a huge Michael Pollan devotee & he does like butter because it's real and he loves real, but I don't injest near as much butter as I do caffeine. I don't even put it on my bread, wonder, wheat, ezekiel , or otherwise. I doubt he would find fault with anything else except possibly using protein powder when you could eat protein. I will have to make it my mission to see what Michael Pollan and Barbara Kingsolver & Alice Waters say about caffeine. That's be another post.

I suspect that this Karen chick is way more high powered, high pressured and frenetic than me and, yet, she took the cure. Hmmm. The 7% noncaffeinated part of her personality is probably way more productive and creative than mine as well. Hmm. I'll have to read her productivity tips next week.