Presidential Note
Dear beloved Vonk reader, Merry Christmas and a happy new year! Maybe a little bit late, but I think we can all relate that during this pandemic it does not really matter. Time feels relative and days blur together while trying to concentrate on your study or work in the same 12m2 that you sleep in. It feels like it was just yesterday that we still had some drinks on the O&O square or that we started as the 91st board of E.T.S.V. Scintilla. But luckily if you go outside now you know that the summer is definitely over.
Sadly, we did not have a white Christmas this year, but I hope Greta helps us on the good path to sometime having one again, preferably in my lifetime. Still, I hope you had a good Christmas. Going over to your parents, staying in Enschede with your housemates or even tuning in to the share and take care events of the UT. But whatever the situation was, I hope you all enjoyed eating lots of food during ‘gourmetten’ for example and of course ate yourself sick with delicious oliebollen during New Years. I already discovered that this holiday for sure added to the coronakilos. While eating healthier and exercising regularly would be the best solution, you must know that I am very lazy. Which is why I turned to the internet for a better way of fulfilling the new years resolution of losing some of that weight.
After some research I found some tips from someone that I knew I could trust, Koningin Juliana. In the early 50s and late 60s she was an ambassador for a ‘Sherry Diet’. It advertised with a weight loss of 5 pounds in 5 days! The diet had a lot of followers which led to an increase in the import of sherry from 650 thousand liters in 1953 to 1.5 million liters in 1955. The diet was based on eating less and drinking lots of alcohol in the form of Sherry. The alcohol would widen your blood vessels which in turn lets your body burn through more calories doing mundane tasks. With that you eat lots of protein which, as we all know of course, lets you breathe out the alcohol from your bloodstream more easily.
The diet was based on eating less and drinking lots of alcohol in the form of Sherry.
—Wouter Nijenhuis, President 91st Board E.T.S.V. Scintilla
The scheme was as follows: The first two days you start your day with breakfast consisting of 1 egg and a cup of coffee. Later, you drink a glass of sherry and eat 100 grams of cheese at around 11. At 1 in the afternoon you start with lunch, you drink a glass of sherry and eat 100 grams of steak with some cooked vegetables. At 4 you snack the same as you did at 11 in the morning and for dinner you do the same as during lunch. At day 3 you half all the portions, except the sherry, and then you are finished! If we want to believe the tabloids in that time Juliana lost almost 15 kilos using this diet. The supporters of the diet want to stress however that you hold yourself to this diet of 3 days a maximum once per month and maybe first consultate your doctor before starting.
The diet lost its charm in the mid-70s, largely because Sherry became known as the drunk old wife drink. I cannot help but notice that scintilla was founded and got its royal recognition during the craze of the Sherry diet. So, I wonder why our association drink has become red wine instead of Sherry? Maybe we can start giving Sherry its good image again as a dieting drink for trendy young people?
That said, I hope I helped you with your new year’s resolution. And with cheese in one hand and sherry in the other:
Dames en Heren, op de koningin, op Scintilla!
