Ice cream and beer. The two finest dietary creations in history thanks to the invention of the grain mill and the ingenuity of squirting the lactic liquid from the tit of a large animal or soybean. Some have even been brave enough to mix both into one common glass, but I prefer to mix them in my stomach. When it is a good night with friends, or a lonely night with myself, the greatest down to the lamest, these two often end up conversing in my belly.

I saw a band play on Coney Island one time, their best song was ‘We’ve Got Fireworks and Beer.’ When I am an old, fat, John Goodman look-alike, I will write the Coney Island hit, ‘We’ve Got Ice Cream and Beer. And It’s Running Down My Leg.’

In an attempt to reach the peak of my physicality, that is, to avoid a daily case of the shits and to avoid passing out after standing up every time, I have been looking into nutritional deficiencies lately. Every day around 7pm, just after eating a supper of either dal and rice or dal-burgers on a bun, it seems like my body runs out of carbohydrates and is surviving only by feeding off of the slight amount of fat and/or protein that remains on my bones. Despite, or because of, all the ice cream and beer, I am thinning. Here are some deficiencies that might be currently affecting me:

Iron, a common deficiency for someone that doesn’t eat the environmentally-slaying red meats. Iron can be found in lentils, spinach, molasses. I eat lentils four times a week, spinach two, so I thought I’d go out and try some molasses. The so-sweet-it’s-bitter viscous by-product I now pour into my oatmeal one tablespoon at a time, to create a coffee-coloured slurry that goes down smoother than a coffee-coloured beer. At 8am.

Beer, a common deficiency for someone in Canada that doesn’t like spending money. Although I maybe mention it 1.3 times per blog post, I am a far step away from being addicted, unless you can be addicted to something without ever using it, because I think about it a lot. I’ve been craving an evening to cut loose, like the good old Eastview days, consisting of summer and too many skunky beer. Due to a lack of energy as highlighted above, and a lack of friends and appropriate events, the deficiency will likely continue.

Protein, another common vegetarian problem, and another piece of nutrition that could be solved with a gulp of cow-blood. Another one of life’s problems that is easily solved with peanut butter and lentils. (Lentils and Peanut butter, the answer to the following issues: climate change, Conservative government, Instagram, tank tops, affordable housing, protein deficiencies). Almond butter may be substituted for those that like to compromise taste and tradition.

While at the ice cream shop one day, I marvelled at the invention of the ice cream cone. Bland and dry alone, infinitely delicious when dripping with frozen cream, sugar and artificial flavouring. Why not make every disposable plate ever used into a somewhat nutritional, enriched-flour and tapioca-flour based staple food? I just solved world hunger and unnecessary paper/plastic waste in one brilliant invention. I’ll wait for and accept my Nobel Prize at Dairy Queen, Sask Drive and Elphinstone.

Ice cream and beer. The two finest night-caps in history, thanks to the invention of hanging out and the ingenuity of gluttony. Put them together and what have you got? Two competing dragons of flavour that steal money that should be spent on properly dealing with nutritional deficiencies. But summer isn’t about deficiencies. It’s about a surplus of good, outdoor-based times.

So pass the beer-battered Blizzard.