Americans on the whole apparently don't like the idea of being healthy.

There's a sizable, although I doubt a majority, of people who fight health-care reforms. They deem it socialistic and the end of our freedoms if Americans are guaranteed fair-priced health care that won't allow insurers to reject a claim for trivial reasons.

While opponents warn of these fictitious “death squads,” real people die because insurance companies won't pay out. What can be more American than dying because you can't afford medical care? Answer? Nothing is more American, because this is the only industrial country where it happens regularly.

OK, that ends my commentary on health insurance. Americans also apparently don't like being healthy because they eat poorly, fall for the fast-food commercials and sugary drinks reign supreme.

You may have read in this newspaper about another suggestion by health professionals, printed in the New England Journal of Medicine, that we should tax sweetened beverages a penny an ounce.

So if 12-ounce cans of pop in your company vending machine right now are, say, 75 cents, the plan would boost that to 87 cents. Of course, no vending machine would charge that, they would absorb the two cents and charge 85 cents. OK, OK. I was joking. They would add three cents and your cost would be 90 cents per can. That would cause mass grumbling.

Before I continue, this will never happen. The soft-drink industry is too powerful. People would scream. If people like to drink soda pop, they will continue to buy and drink it. If it costs more, maybe they will put back the bag of frozen lima beans or apples to make ends meet.

In an alternate universe, if this passed, what would be considered sugary drinks? Would it include sweetened ice tea, lemonade, sports drinks, Kool-aid? What about diet drinks that have artificial sweeteners. Would they be exempt? Scrape up 90 cents for the full-powered Coke, but only 75 cents for the Diet Coke?

I have my own theory on America's love affair with soda pop and it's based somewhat on personal experience. You want to hear, don't you?

As a baby boomer, soda pop was relatively rare in our house. It was cool to go to Grandma and Grandpa's house because they had Teem, a lemon-lime soda, available.

But pop at our house was for rare occasions. Milk was the preferred drink (yuck then, yuck now.) Pop was reserved for celebrations and treats. I remember rationing for myself a three-quarter full coffee cup of the elusive,oh-so-tasty fluid. We would ride our bikes when old enough to Anthony's Market where a machine would dispense 16-ounce bottles for 12 cents (that's less than the proposed tax.) But with an allowance of 30 cents per week, you couldn't blow it all on pop.

So as we baby boomers got older, we rejected the previous generation’s belief that pop should be rationed and kept for special occasions. As a kid, soda pop in a restaurant cost maybe a dime or 15 cents, but if you wanted a refill, it cost another dime or 15 cents.

Today, every restaurant offers bottomless fill-ups, although at $2 or more a crack. We didn’t get what we wanted as youngsters so we’re gonna have it now, baby.

If I decide to drink a soda, often for its helpful caffeine, my choice is Vanilla Coke Zero, which tastes like it is full of tasty sugar, but isn't. (You folks at Coke, if you want to send me a monetary reward for saying that, feel free.)

A very interesting Web site, www.twofoods.com, compares any two foods for calories, carbs, fat and protein.

So I compared Vanilla Coke Zero and regular Coke. For an 8-ounce serving, Vanilla Coke Zero had no calories, carbs, fat or protein. Regular Coke had 100 calories, 28 grams of carbs and no fat or protein. A can of Cherry Coke (which presumably would be another 4 ounces) has 150 calories.

I'm not sure diet sodas are the answer and it wouldn't take much research I'm sure to find my beloved Vanilla Coke Zero has all kinds of unhealthy additives. Nothing that tasty can be problem-free.

But maybe America should spend some time at the twofoods Web site for its health-education value. For example, the tasty Morning Star Farms Grillers, a vegetarian substitute for deadly ground beef, has 170 calories per burger. A 101-gram serving of ground beef is 278 calories. The Grillers have 4 grams of carbs vs. zero for the beef. The beef has twice the fat too. Ground beef has 25.56 grams of protein vs. 17 grams for the Grillers. Americans, by the way, eat far too much protein. It causes us, among other things, to age faster.

Compare McDonald's Big Mac at 540 calories to Taco Bell's meatless Seven-Layer Burrito Fresco (extra tomatoes but no cheese or sour cream) at 340 calories. The Big Mac has 29 grams of fat. The burrito, 8 grams.

If you really want to get gross - and grossly fat - check out Wendy's Baconator, at 830 calories and 51 grams of fat.

Sure it would be nice to regulate and tax us into being healthy. But maybe Americans should want to do it themselves. Maybe people should go to twofoods.com and compare products. Then think about their choices. Preferably they think over their choices during a long walk, a run, a bicycling trip, while swimming, or some other exercise. Then with their brains properly engaged from exercising, they choose the right food.

Or if we really, truly believe another tax is the answer, how about if a small software program is downloaded to every computer in America. It tracks how often Americans go to twofoods.com. Those who go often get a tax credit. Those who don't must shell out more in taxes.

But then, the government tracking us on our computers? Maybe not.