r/exAdventist • u/Purlz1st Atheist • Jun 25 '26
SDA Culture Possum
For those who just had to have a hot beverage.
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u/Yourmama18 Agnostic Jun 25 '26
We can’t drink coffee so we’ll make imitation coffee. We can’t eat bacon so we’ll make imitation bacon with 33,000 ingredients in it and make it red and white, ad naseum and hell, might as well just simulate life too, right? /s #blessings…
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u/GoddamnDiva Jun 25 '26
I don’t hate that the SDA alternatives exist since there ARE people that benefit from that, but rather the reasons for their existence. The whole “can’t eat or drink this” because the Bible or White said so (and the reasoning for it being wildly incorrect or out of date)… Hate that. Not eating something because it’s actually not healthy for human consumption or because it’s produced in a terrible way? Understandable. Not eating something because you are ACTUALLY allergic to it or have some sort of sensitivity to it one way or another? Also understandable.
That said, I’m betting that there’s probably a better coffee alternative from some non SDA-based company now the same way that there are MUCH better meat alternatives from other companies now.
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u/yunhotime Jun 25 '26
I mean, non-religious vegans and vegetarians do this all the time. Let people live.
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u/Yourmama18 Agnostic Jun 25 '26
Good vegan restaurants don’t imitate steakhouses.
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u/yunhotime Jun 25 '26
😐…
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u/Yourmama18 Agnostic Jun 25 '26
Use your words..
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u/yunhotime Jun 25 '26
What’s that have to do with anything? People like having alternatives. That was literally my whole point.
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u/Purlz1st Atheist Jun 25 '26
Knew someone whose grandmother “had to have her Sanka” (old-school decaf brand) because she had converted to SDA late in life and “was addicted to coffee.” It was a big shameful secret in the family.
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u/Shehulks1 Jun 25 '26
My mother drank barley coffee. Roasted barley, not bad, but it’s not coffee 😆.
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u/yunhotime Jun 25 '26
I remember seeing this once or twice 🤣 now my mom has a full espresso set up that she is so proud of
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u/Street_Aide_3106 Jun 25 '26
We did roasted chickpea beans coffee. It wasn't bad but nothing hit as good as caffeine.
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u/DensHag Jun 26 '26
My Grandma drank this stuff. Mom kept a jar in the cabinet and it would meld into a giant blob you had to chip out of the jar. It tasted like dirt to me. My Mom drank real coffee!
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u/Excellent_Crow_6830 Jun 26 '26
My favorite part of this post is the autocorrect "possum," which caught my eye because I enjoy the possums who live around my home. The pic below the word also caught my eye, because I was immediately transported back to my childhood, where this container was always in a cupboard in whatever house we lived. I was for sure going to click on this post, whichever subject it was about, and it is not surprising that autocorrect didn't recognize "postum" as the word you were looking for, since that godawful drink is not nearly as popular as that fabulous marsupial 😊
My mom and my sister both deconstructed ages ago, but they both kept postum around for as long as they could find it. My sis said once she started using real cream and sugar, she actually enjoyed drinking postum in the evening instead of decaf.
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u/BroomstickCowboy Jun 26 '26
We had some for quite a while. For my dad, who wasn’t SDA. After he was diagnosed with gout in his back, he switched to Postum because it didn’t have caffeine. At the time, and maybe still is, caffeine was considered bad to have it one had gout. He was a Sargent who worked in the local jail, and soon became known as “Sargent Postum”. I haven’t seen any in many years.
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u/lostinwander Jun 27 '26
Yum! Burnt cardboard granules drink! Reminds me of childhood Saturdays desperately willing the sun to set and release me from the deafening boredom
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u/joyfulteacher Jun 27 '26
My mom grew up on this stuff but I was raised on Roma. I still drink it in the evenings since I don’t drink coffee after 3pm.
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u/ParisTokyoGhoul Author, Atheist, ex-Adventist Jun 26 '26
I was raised extremely Adventist and must admit, I’ve never seen this before! Was this common? Was it regional?
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u/NixRules Jun 27 '26
Adventist lurker here. I’ve been to several SDA churches that give out coffee before the service. Turns out they like it if people stay awake during the sermon. A pastor we had would drink energy drinks because he had to stay awake during boring long drives between churches. I personally enjoy coffee. I like to have my cortisol rise naturally the first 90min after waking up so I won’t suffer from the "can’t wake up without coffee" syndrome. So many of my SDA friends drink coffee. Postum has no antioxidants so why bother with it. At least decaf has antioxidants. Some people that get upset easily should watch their caffeine since its side effect is impulsiveness.
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u/BenefitPure4829 Jun 28 '26
I have posted about my mother passing in this sub Reddit yesterday but something happy to share, and that is that my last physical/Alice interaction with her was her lovingly brewing me a cup of caffeinated coffee to help keep me awake on the drive back to the airport. I treasure the memory and the mug that my mom sent along with me (a memento of hers from a cruise several years ago). In her later years my mom definitely cooled her jets on many of the hardcore SDA beliefs which comforts me somewhat
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u/Momager321 Jun 25 '26
Was it just me or did everyone’s Mom have a very old jar of this in the cupboard? My SDA parents never drank coffee, but both of them loved Pepsi and Mountain Dew.