An Earth Day Message from Alec

Yesterday, as I prepared my daily iced tea, I made an important realization: Sweet ‘n low is a miracle. Enclosed inside each iconic pink packet of delight there are no calories, no sodium, and no sugar, and yet, there is triple the sweetness of a teaspoon of regular sugar. How, I often ask myself, could this possibly be reality, this genius, everyday necessity? The answer is typed neatly in a list on the side of the packet: nutritive dextrose, soluble saccharine, cream of tartar, calcium silicate. Each of these ingredients can be found in numerous products across the country, some almost as stunning as Sweet ‘n Low. These ingredients were harvested from the earth by the earth’s own creatures, using tools constructed from nature. Why is it, then, that some people have such nasty predispositions that “Sweet ‘n Low is “fake” or is “unnatural?”

There is a place that many of these people often visit to by groceries. It is a place that would never dream of selling something as “processed” as Sweet ‘n Low, it is Whole Foods. And frankly, I find this place to be hilarious. Inside one might see hundreds of shoppers scurrying around, searching for the most expensive food possible. They’re excuse for dishing out the big bills: the food there is “organic.” They take pride in purchasing food that has yet to be “artificially” flavored, dyed colors, or encumbered with corn syrup. Whole Foods’ marketing campaign gravitates around healthier lifestyles. Yet, Sweet ‘n Low has fewer calories than every item in Whole Foods, not counting the three dollar water bottles. In my mind, it is only logical that “artificial” additives to food would have been created to make food more desirable. Thus, the entire concept behind Whole Foods is of an unfortunate waste: more money for less product.

Despite this, huge numbers of people help make Whole Foods a successful business, and so I must assume that they truly believe that it is a healthier option, that what they are selling is, in fact, more “natural.” But at what point is “natural” achieved? Yes, some food is certified as organic, but every pesticide used to aid a field of crops and every antibiotic fed to a cow was created from the resources found in nature. Even though my Sweet ‘n Low had not been grown off of a plant like sugar, it had been assembled from various minerals from the ground and chemicals from plants, and so it has to be natural.

And so, as my Sweet ‘n Low dissolved perfectly into my tea, I decided that the Whole Foods mentality sounds nice but ultimately doesn’t line up. Similarly, the only fair reason to hate Sweet ‘n Low is its rumored causing of cancer (which it doesn’t). See, Sweet ‘n Low is not merely an incredible thing, it is a natural thing, because, in the end, everything is natural.

--A