Water everywhere

...is good for you. According to this blurb (and others--plenty of research has been done about this and related topics), drinking diet soda vs. regular to help oneself lose weight has a high likelihood of backfiring. Why I am happy:

• I prefer mostly water; on the rare occasion I have soda, it's the full version or bust.
• Thanks to an aversion (of unknown origin--but I'm extremely thankful for it!) to certain sweeteners, diet/zero-calorie leaves a bad taste.

So go grab a water bottle, fill it with ice-cold H2O (the body's act of heating the water to 98 degrees burns a fair amount of calories too), and sip away.

To eat meat or not to eat meat?

Also on B13 of today's WSJ: comparing the relative effects of vegetarianism and plain ol' omnivorism on the environment. According to Slate, vegetarianism (including milk and eggs) is better if you have good soil and can therefore grow more vegetables more easily. But if you have poor soil, it makes more sense to have a chicken farm than a crop farm.

Dousing the hopes of meat-eaters everywhere: the recommendation to eat only two ounces of meat and eggs daily. The average American eats 3.8 ounces more than this recommended maximum. Rats!