You probably saw the story I'm referring to in the paper last week. According to researchers, plastic water bottles are breaking down and releasing toxins into the water, and it's especially dangerous if you reuse the bottle, which is what I often do.

People kept telling me I needed to drink more water. So I gave in. Gave up the Coca-Colas and started drinking several 16-ounce bottles of water every day.

But I didn't want to pay nearly two bucks a pop for the water, so I simply bought one bottle at the convenience store and refilled it over and over for several days.

Now I find out I may be ingesting harmful toxins along with the supposedly healthful H2O. But what else are we supposed to do?

Tap water? No, can't do that. Our drinking water supply in this country is apparently full of dangerous prescription drugs such as antibiotics, birth-control drugs and anti-depressants.

Back to Cokes? Can't do that, either. Cokes have too much sugar.

Diet Cokes? Can't stand the aftertaste, and the chemicals they use to sweeten it will kill us.

Coffee? Negative. The caffeine isn't good for us. Plus too much coffee can cause cancer.

Beer? Beer makes you fat.

Bourbon? Nope. Cirrhosis of the liver.

Trying to decide what to have for dinner is just as difficult. Seems like every item I have in my pantry is something I've been warned not to eat.

Being the proud Southerner that I am, I love fried chicken and country fried steak and fried pork chops. Really, I like anything that you can fry. Batter and deep fry a sneaker and I'd probably try to eat it, especially if you cover it in gravy and serve it with mashed potatoes.

But, of course, we all know that eating too many fried foods will raise your cholesterol and clog your arteries.

Steaks and burgers, especially those prepared on a charcoal grill, can contain carcinogens. And it's just as well. The butter and the sour cream you put on the baked potato to go with it ain't helping your cholesterol level, either.

And don't even get me started on all the bad things they say can happen to you if you eat bacon and eggs in the morning.

So, in the last year or so, I've tried to cut back on the carcinogen-carrying, cholesterol-raising, artery-clogging foods that I eat. I've tried to eat more fish, more vegetables, more fruit - the things people say you should eat when you want to eat healthy.

But fish sometimes contains high levels of mercury, which can cause serious health problems. So can many kinds of shellfish, so there goes the seafood buffet as an option for dinner.

It used to be that your mother encouraged you to eat your vegetables. But now, I read that the pesticides the farmers use can seep into the vegetable itself. Same deal with fruit. You can wash that apple, but it doesn't get rid of the pesticide that soaked through the peel.

Even Glory, the black and white Springer spaniel who lives at my house, has to worry about this. The brand of dog food I feed her touts itself as "now better tasting," but, after all those brands were recalled last year, I'm always concerned that her food has been contaminated.

If you really worried about all of this, you'd be at your wit's end. This is precisely why I've decided to not worry about it anymore.

Instead, I'm going to turn my back on all these warnings of doom. I'm pretty sure none of us have any hope for immortality, so that means we're all just biding our time on Earth.

I'll continue to try to eat healthier and smarter, and I'll do my best not to consume too much of something I know is bad for me. But we've all got to go sometime, and if something's got to get me, it might as well be the bacon cheeseburger.

Besides the only other option is to go out in the backyard and gnaw on a pine cone.

On second thought, that probably isn't such a good idea, either.

I'd probably end up with splinters in my tongue and die from an infection.

Mitch Clarke is executive editor of The Times. His column appears Sundays in The Times. Read previous columns online at gainesvilletimes.com. Originally published April 13, 2008.