Rhymes With Zen

Reading through Slate, I came across a reference to this fancy new Green Tea beer. The microbrewery behind this New Age tonic claims that the flavor "transcends beyond anything you have ever experienced before" and makes sense for those in search of "something more mystical... magical... wonderful."

I may be wrong, but I always pictured the beer drinking demographic as the men to the left. Whereas the green tea drinkers of the world look more like the people below.

Between them, a gap not even creative marketing could bridge. But as always, I underestimated America. This new beer can create magic (if the possibility of a drunken one-night stand doesn't stroke your magic machine already.) And it contains green tea, a substance that (if we believe the hype) prevents cancer, cures the common cold, burns fat and enhances your sex organs to mammoth proportions, all without a single negative consequence. So what's the drawback?

I couldn't find one. But before plastering pro-green-beer posters all over campus, I paused to wonder. In my ongoing attempts to sculpt myself into this, I've explored (always guiltily, while pretending to be reading a textbook) websites for various diet and exercise regimens. I've checked out the Zone after a friend told me Jennifer Aniston had been on it for years. I read in-depth comparisons of Atkins and Ornish. South Beach. Mediterranean. Juice. Color. I didn't try most of these, but I examined them, I weighed their benefits and drawbacks.

I realize, objectively, that my attitude is the function of a selfish culture (I mean, 5 pounds? There are people dying in a genocide in Sudan. I could get off my ass and help them rather than whine about Jessica Alba) and an obsession with control (the user-driven life). There's no excuse. But it's an obsession that most of America suffers from, and I wonder, how far have we taken this whole 'diet' thing? Perhaps there are limits to what your entree can accomplish as far as your general appearance goes. There is no practical difference between the Color diet and the Mediterranean diet, or at least, not in terms of my expectations. You eat. You live, sometimes healthily. End of story. The ideal waist-to-hip ratio? Transcendental peace?Enlightenment? You can't buy that in a grocery store.