Can cold drinks give you a cold? The Kyiv Post has had many great writers in its nearly 15 years of existence. Jake Rudnitsky and Olga Kryzhanovska were among the finest. In this November 1999 entertainment column "He Said, She Said," Rudnitsky and Kryzhanovska debate the wisdom of consuming cold drinks. It's another Kyiv Post classic, one of thousands of articles in our exclusive database available free online in our searchable archives. Here's the story:

Jake Rudnitsky writes:

Chill! ice doesn't make you sick. Now, I am all for a degree of cultural assimilation. I try to respect certain cultural norms; I don't speak loudly on the bus. I offer guests tapochki. I even give long-winded toasts occasionally. But sometimes Ukrainians are just too wack for me to handle. I needn't describe how many times I've had the conversation about cold drinks with Ukrainians. We all have. But no matter how many times we've done it, the shock never wears off. How, in the twilight of the 20th century, could an entire industrialized, educated, urban society really believe that drinking a chilled Sprite is the equivalent of getting sneezed on while touring a tuberculosis ward? They have doctors; they have nurses, specialists and biologists. Haven't any of them discovered germs yet? Thinking that ice in your drink causes sore throats is little more than a throwback to the medieval logic of spontaneous generation. People used to think that a rotten chunk of meat would just inspire flies to appear out of thin air, just as Ukrainians are convinced that somehow a cold liquid in one's esophagus inspires illness. No germs, no nothing. Just, ice makes you ill. Spontaneous generation was handily proven false by putting some meat in a bottle and, low and behold, no bugs. Haven't Ukrainians ever noticed that, no matter how diligently they avoid contact with the cold, they still get sore throats? Haven't they ever seen anyone down something cold and live to tell about it? No, they continue to live in their deluded world, avoiding anything out of the fridge, except of course chilled vodka. Cause that, you know, is healthy.
Jake Rudnitsky was born in Boston. He has traveled all over the CIS, and has lived in Kyiv since June.

Jake, go jump in a (cold) lake. I admit that some Ukrainian customs seem weird to a foreigner. We believe that salo is healthy and tasty; garlic prevents the flu; and 50 grams of vodka per day won't cause any harm. But avoiding cold drinks has nothing to do with beliefs or cultural traditions. It's simply a fact that has been proved by doctors and has been borne out by the experience of many generations. Cold causes illness. People here knew that long before either America or germs were discovered. Centuries ago, people cured colds and sore throats by drinking warm liquids because the human body needs warmth, not cold. When I hear all this obsession with germs, I think of Michael Jackson, the American dream personified. Poor Michael is so scared of germs that he sleeps in an oxygen tube and breathes through a bandana while outside. Still, for some reason he doesn't look very healthy. Following the American logic, we should all sleep in the fridge so germs can't reach us. And if we wake up in the morning with sore throats and runny noses, we would blame germs and Ukrainian refrigerators, which are not cold enough to kill them. No matter what biologists say, they will never convince a Ukrainian mom to give her sick child an ice-cold cola instead of warm milk. She is guided by survival instinct, and it will never deceive her. We may live in our "deluded" world, but it is the natural world, and we prefer to tackle colds with warmth, while you do it with ice and aspirin. And if infection is the real problem, then drink vodka -- it will kill your arch-enemy, Mr. Germ, and you can save the aspirin for the next morning.

Olga Kryzhanovska was born and raised in Kyiv.