JUST SAY NO

Consider me easy.  I'm completely fine with having instant coffee.  Cool with whatever the bar has available on tap.  I'm OK with drinking unfiltered water from the faucet (even though it does taste a bit off to me).  But God knows that there are certain things in this world that I will never, ever compromise on:

Imperfect tattoo ink color:  I'm sitting in the tattoo shop 30 minutes away from getting the Picasso Blue Dove permanently marked onto the nape of my neck.  While going over the details, my inker-guy says hurriedly, "I really wouldn't go with a navy blue ink for the lines of this design. The blue will fade too fast, especially in the sun.  Go with black ink instead for a cleaner look." Excuse me, Mr. Tattoo Parlor Guy?  I most definitely cannot 'just go with black' here!  Don't you get it? This is the Blue Dove here, man.  Picasso's Blue Dove above all things.  You can't just go about your business and change THEE Picasso's blue to black. Oh, and did I forget to mention the entire tattoo is symbolic of his "Blue Period?"  

Tequila wannabes:  Jose Cuervo's "Gold" Tequila: Jose, shame on you, you really missed the mark on this one. I don't like to drink Cuervo "Gold" anymore.  I mean, yes I will imbibe, but I will never ever order the stuff because it's not genuine tequila (short-changed!  Thinking back to all of those times in college when I proudly purchased a bottle of Cuervo and thought I was splurging on high quality booze; a total rip off in retrospect).  Real gold tequila gets its distinctive yellow hue from the aging process.  The tequila is "rested" (reposado) or aged in big oak barrels allowing for richer and complex flavors to develop.  Our friend Jose chooses to skip over that little step and just inject artificial yellow coloring instead.  No gracias.

And that's really it for me in the miscellaneous category. 

However, in the food category I'm not particularly easy.  I've got some serious grief.  Consider this me, airing out my laundry list of the "foods" which I refuse to ever ever let enter my body.  Not only "food", but also other food ingredients, chemicals, preservatives, pollutants, etc. running rampant in our food supply and which I refuse to compromise for.  Things that I, and things that I suggest you, just say no to:

Trans-fat. I don't eat trans-fat simply because I don't want to die prematurely.  If I see "partially hydrogenated oil" listed on the ingredient label I immediately put the Crisco...oops I mean item... back on the grocery store shelf. In my mind, eating trans-fat is no different than eating straight up cyanide.  The New England Journal of Medicine states  that "...the consumption of trans fats results in considerable potential harm but no benefit.  There is no safe level of trans fat consumption.  This is because any incremental increase in trans fat intake increases the risk of heart disease.
This study estimates that between 30,000 and 100,000 cardiac deaths per year in the United States are attributable to the consumption of trans fats."{click here for the top 10 foods highest in trans-fats.}
Soda pop.  If you think drinking soda is still OK for you and your health, please return back to Earth.
Processed meat.  Believe it or not, it's actually quite unnatural for ham, chicken, turkey, and beef to come in perfect sandwich-sized slices.  But processed meats will come with an increased risk of heart disease, diabetes risk, and cancer.  "Eating Red And Processed Meat Associated With Increased Risk Of Death.  ScienceDaily (Mar. 24, 2009) — Individuals who eat more red meat and processed meat appear to have a modestly increased risk of death from all causes and also from cancer or heart disease over a 10-year period..."

White flour, white rice, white pasta, and all of the other albino offspring of the far removed whole grain.  Why do such a terrible thing?  Why take the whole and pure natural grain in all of its earthly goodness and strip it down until it becomes void of all nutrients....and then go on and make Wonder Bread?  Just say no.