Can pumpkin drinks turn you into an addict?

What’s the line between ‘guilty pleasure’ and ‘unhealthy,’ anyway?

Image by the author.

A few autumns ago, as I soldiered through a tough work assignment, I decided to head to the corner coffee shop and treat myself to one of those “tricked out” lattes — the trick being that you convince yourself that a drink topped with caramel, fudge, and whipped cream counts as breakfast rather than, well, a sundae. The drink was a rare reward for me; I had somehow purposely resisted coffee culture throughout four decades of life. I silently looked down on the coffee worshippers, and found the taste too bitter. I ignored co-workers’ warnings that they had once found coffee bitter too, but eventually acquired the taste.

But I sometimes lean on my favorite foods to get through hard tasks, and learn to set boundaries on guilty pleasures to avoid overindulging. Back in college, when the dining hall offered unlimited ice cream toppings, I designated two days a week “ice cream days” and “chocolate days” so I wouldn’t scarf the Sno Caps at every study break. The guy across the hall laughed at me. “You girls with your ‘ice cream days,’ he said, shaking his head. At least I knew I wasn’t alone.

I’m not sure whether it’s psychologically normal to strategize so much about one’s guilty pleasures, and I’ve heard more talk about it from women than men. I’ve wondered…