I had an interesting conversation today in relation to caffeine, and techniques to eliminate it from one's diet. I offered up my opinion, which was that the elimination of caffeine should be done gradually - this is true for most lifestyle changes - to minimize the negatives (e.g. headaches) and to maximize the probability that it will be sustainable. For instance in my case I cut caffeine by alternating "real" with swiss-water decaf in increasing ratios, even mixing up the blends, and by mandating a full cup of water between cups of coffee. It worked wonderfully, and in a short while I was off the dastardly white stuff.

What was more interesting than the coffee conversation, though, was the replies that came regarding my brief background story where I explained why I cut caffeine: I had mentioned that I was preparing for a trip to Italy for two weeks, and hearing about the extremely strong coffee there, and the general lack of availability compared to here, I wanted to avoid both stomach upset and spending half the trip searching for outlets of Anthony Hortinos. So I decided to eliminate coffee before leaving. It worked perfectly. Naturally this outraged some people: "But isn't coffee in Italy the best coffee in the world?"

Ignoring the entirely practical reasons why I didn't want to do coffee in Italy (and anyone who claims that convenience coffee is as widely available in Italy has never been here in Southern Ontario), the absolutism about such a subjective point is what strikes me as ridiculous: While sometimes a region has constituent accessibility that gives them an advantage or specialty (e.g. seafood is generally better on the East Coast where it's fresh from the ocean...unless it was on a long run trawler that is), often it is subjective regional preferences that people confuse with superiority or inferiority.

For instance a common mantra here in Canada is that our beer is "better" than in the US, because there the general American consumer prefers a lighter blend than Canadians do. We get misled into thinking that we have some sort of material advantage in beer making, confusing subjective choices with absolute measures. And of course the Brits think their beer is "better" still, because they prefer a thicker beer. It's all so inane.