Sweet Tea, you evil bastard.

Born and raised in NC, I can attest to its prevalence, and my chubbiness thereof.

crush play: Guilty!!!:

"...It seems that southerners stand out among Americans as the fattest in the nation.

...People have come up with all kinds of reasons for this. It's some sort of cultural thing or something to do with a social demographic...blah blah blah. Nonsense. I have figured out the problem.

It's sweet tea (for any Yankees reading this, that's pronounced "sweeeteee"). If you have never had this drink, let me describe it for you. It is a sickeningly sweet concoction consisting of pure sugar and brewed iced tea. That's it. It's simple, sticky, and will send you into a sugary coma after a glass or so. Southerners drink this stuff by the gallon.

I did a little digging (for nutritional info) and thought I would share that with you too. The average 12 ounce glass of sweet tea contains 27 grams of sugar. That is almost exactly the amount of sugar in a Snickers candy bar, which has a sugar content weighing in at 28 grams.

...The largest of the bunch, a woman who must have weighed at least 300 pounds drank eight glasses all by herself. EIGHT GLASSES!!! That's 216 grams of sugar! The equivalent of eight Snickers candy bars with her lunch - and she had dessert too! Good grief.

So - there you have it. Is your blood sugar off the charts? REALLY????? Diabetes anyone?? Sweet tea = guilty (actually, to be more precise, southerners are guilty for drinking it in the first place)."