coffee too has its fundamentalists, hur hur hur:
http://disenchanted.com/dis/humor/coffee.html
personally, i am not nearly as much of a fascist as whoever wrote this, but i do like what i consider "nice" coffee, which means don't ever go near starbucks unless you're desperate. instant coffee makes me gag. americanos do my head in. i try and buy the nicest french-press/cafetière-ground stuff, fair-trade, that i can and brew it with the hottest water i can find for exactly two minutes before i press and serve. then i ruin it with "splenda"-brand sweetener which is actually pretty good. i like it nice and strong and try to stick to 2 cups a day, but as i'm up very early at the moment am having to have 3. on Shabbat i can't use a press (no filtering allowed) and lower-temperature water but i do use specialist israeli-style "turkish" coffee, which isn't the same as proper turkish but is quite nice anyway, sometimes with cardamom or even cinnamon for lebanese-style. sometimes, if i'm feeling especially ethnic, i have a spoon of honey.
i should drink more water, but i don't. at home, i tend to have what we call "apple sparklies" which is basically sparkling table water with a bit of apple juice in it to taste. not as bad or as acidic as drinking neat apple juice, but still quite acidic due to the carbonation. however, my dentist hasn't read me the riot act about it, although the hygienist gets regular visits. it's not just coffee, but red wine and other stuff that stains your teeth, so best to drink water when that happens.
i should drink less booze, but can rarely resist a glass of wine with dinner on a school night if there's a bottle open, at the occasional behest of the redoubtable mrs bb. on Shabbat we generally have wine with lunch and dinner as well as apéritifs and digestifs, which in my house tends to be aguardente, brazilian rum (cachaça), jack daniels or a nice peaty single malt, laphroaig for preference. oh - and
kiddush after Shabbat morning service, which usually involves a few shots of whisky as well. hey ho.
anyway, could and should do better, but don't really want to. i stopped having beer in the house (and ice cream and crisps) because i just used to work through it, but now that only gets bought in for special treats. i eat pretty healthily the rest of the time.
as david lee roth once said:
Seems like everything I like will make me sick, or poor, or fat...
hur hur hur.
b'shalom
bananabrain