In Praise Of Beer, The Slim-Fast Of Drunks (And Basis Of The Jezebel Food Pyramid!)S

Here at Jezebel, "Skinny? Fuck you." has always been something of a guiding credo. Not that I have anything against the underfed, but it was a lot fewer words than: "Yes, some people look better in trendy clothes; blah blah blah, can we just call them 'carbohydrates' again already, would that be so hard?" But eating disorders get traffic, and that's how we're getting paid now, so the other day my friend Jessica and I picked up some Alli, the oily-shits drug Pillhead pussied out on, just to see what would happen. "It's none of my business," said the clerk. "But I think you two are perfect just the way you are." Ha ha, perfect. I thought about this as I took two pills and prepared for the burst.

Graphic courtesy Intern Cheryl, the Most Talented Human Being We Know

It didn't happen. Every time my bowels would so much as approach a fart I would be seized with the notion that my underwear was about to fill with grease. But none arrived, until one day I ran out of leftover hot dog buns in my fridge to eat and moved on to the leftover American cheese. "MY FIRST OILY SHIT!" I IM-ed Jess when it happened. Her hypothesis had been correct: if you don't eat much fat, you don't shit oil on Alli, but it won't give you problems. And I don't eat much fat, since I rediscovered the wonder of beer.

I should probably state here that I eat for two reasons: 1. to stop my stomach from hurting and to 2. avoid and alleviate hangovers. And the secret to that is beer.

Beer is supposed to make you fat, but that's bullshit. The huevos rancheros and hash browns and three Gatorades and leftover lo mein you eat when you combine too much red wine with skipping the bread because you don't want to "fill up" before the four cubes of steak you ate for dinner last night will make you fat. I don't weigh myself, and I'm in no danger of being anyone's thinspiration, but since I moved across the street from a bar that serves no hard liquor and started drinking four or five India Pale Ales five nights a week, I'd say that the laziness incurred by consuming 75% of my calories at a bar directly across the street from my house has been more than compensated for by the fact that beer may "fill you up," but it doesn't make you hungry. Because it fills you up! And ounce for ounce, it's less calories than Slim-Fast! Plus the whole "social lubricant" aspect. (Which is a much better sort of lubricant than the type afforded by Alli.)