Amuse bouche... Sugar slump

‘Y ou know you haven’t really given up sugar,” Gina said to Scott, without taking her eyes off the TV.

“What do you mean?” said Scott indignantly, “I haven’t had any since last weekend. And that was a beer, which I know you like to count as sugar, but really, that’s ridiculous.”

“How many of those bars have you eaten since we sat down?’ Gina asked, keeping her eyes on the TV.

It wasn’t like they hadn’t had this conversation, or a variation of it, before. Gina really wasn’t interested in getting into a row about it, though in that case, maybe she should have kept her mouth shut altogether.

It would be easier to keep her mouth shut, of course, if Simon’s mouth was shut and he wasn’t endlessly munching on the other side of the room. “Is that your fourth pseudo-health bar?” Gina asked, finally giving in, pressing pause on the remote and turning to him.

Scott looked at the wrappers on the seat beside him.

“Well, yeah,” he said, swallowing a mouthful of date-y nutty stuff. Gina felt bad. He looked a bit embarrassed.

“But they’re healthy,” he said, a little unattractively childlike, maybe even whining.

“You know they’re not really,” Gina said. “They’re full of sugar. They’re literally just sugar. You’d be as well off with a chocolate bar. And at least that wouldn’t stick in your teeth and erode your enamel.”

“No!” said Scott. “Seriously, not the dentist lecture again. When the dentist says ice cream is best because it washes out of your mouth easily, Gina, he doesn’t mean your ice creams with nuggets of fudge and stuff. Nor does he mean you can eat a whole tub of it. And that’s just a dentist opinion. Nutrionists love them. They have loads of fibre and no sugar. It’s, like, fructose and stuff.”

“Which is sugar,” Gina said. “Yeah, but good sugar,” Scott said. “Low glycemic load.”

“Do you even know what that means?” Gina asked.

“It means your body processes it more slowly?” Scott said, hopefully.

“Your body processes it, like, oh, what’s it called again?” Gina said, “Oh yeah, sugar.”

“Nothing worse than a reformed clean-eater,” Simon said. “You have to spoil everyone else’s fun just because you feel bad about your guilty past, single-handedly driving up the price of quinoa and stealing avocados from the Mexicans.” “Stealing avocados from the Mexicans?” said Gina.

“Leave me alone and put back on the telly,” Simon said. “I need some support with my sugar withdrawal.”

“Yeah,” said Gina “It looks like agony.”

“Thanks,” said Simon. “Killjoy.”