Monday, August 28, 2006

I'm a big, fat cheater

I cheated. I'm a big cheater. And not just once, but numerous times.

I've been drinking Diet Coke. And I don't feel guilty at all.

Since I wrote the post about how I wanted my caffeine back (August 16), I did a little research. Turns out the scary book (that's what hubby and I call the pregnancy info book we bought) was trying to scare me into giving up my beloved caffeine, just on the off chance that I drink a gallon of the stuff every day. (Which I admit I sometimes used to do to pull an all nighter at work, but that's another story).

Apparently, if you get less than 300 mg of caffeine in a 24-hour period, baby is perfectly safe. So, I could do some damage if I drank 6 or 7 cans of Diet Coke in a day, but one can for breakfast is perfectly fine. My doctor also confirmed that one can, or even one of those 600 ml bottles, of Diet Coke in the morning will not hurt baby at all. (She told me that those books unnecessarily make it seem like the sky is falling, and that eating during pregnancy doesn't have to be that complicated.)

So, I have one can for breakfast and it gets me through the morning until my internal alarm clock rings at about 1 p.m. Even without caffeine, night-owl Denice doesn't really wake up until 1 p.m., and then she's good to go until bedtime at about 1 a.m. But those first few hours in the morning that society demands I be awake and productive are just TOO HARD without caffeine. Just for one week, I would like to turn standard working hours around so that all those morning people have to be at work in the evening when their brains don't work so they can understand how I feel in the morning. But I digress…

So, I haven't had one every day, but I have had a few cans of Diet Coke. When I got pregnant, I vowed that I would do everything I could to make this a healthy baby, and while Diet Coke isn't exactly great for me, I still drink at least two litres of water a day, and I've been eating more healthfully than I have in my whole life. So, I think I'm still doing alright.

2 comments:

Marcheline said...

My uncle is a chemist. He told me that the chemical sweetener used in Diet Coke is not considered a "food product" and thus is not regulated by the FDA.

This means that the machinery that processes it may also process powdered drain cleaner, or any other non-food product you can think of.

Because it's not considered "food grade material", the cleaning of machines between batches is not "food grade" either.

If not for your baby, then for yourself - you should find another beverage, and quickly!

Denice said...

I'm not sure, but since we are not regulated by the FDA, aspartame might be handled differently in Canada. All the Canadian literature I found about aspartame said that it was considered safe for pregnant women. But thanks for the heads up!