EATING WELL AND STAYING HEALTHY

"Hey, if you eat fruit that's slightly contaminated by mold can it give you the runs for two days?" This was a question from my apartment mate. Who owns a bag of oranges. One of which was moldy, so she threw it out. But she didn't wash the next one she ate. Nearly three days ago. The answer to her query is "well, um, yeah". She's Chinese American. Meaning that unlike Caucasians, she doesn't have as powerful a cultural memory of drinking ditch water and dying, eating rotten oats and dying, consuming meat improperly preserved with either not enough salt or absolutely no Prague powder and dying, or ergot poisoning, or just generally speaking food poisoning from three day old leftovers at room temperature .....

While the West invented mayonnaise, the Chinese invented tea. The difference being that one is a good breeding ground for all kinds of microbes, the other boils the water and kills all the buggie-wuggies. Plus they wrapped foods in bamboo leaves, which work somewhat antimicrobially, due possibly to lignin and traces of zinc .

Also, she survived her mother's queer kitchen practises.


Raw fruit should be washed thoroughly. Ditch water must be boiled ere drinking. Macrobiotic should be avoided, because of contamination with micro-biotics. And why are Chinese so taken by oranges, fercrapsakes? It's NOT the most exciting fruit.
Despite being the source of much marmalade.
Mmm, buttered toast!

When you find yourself having digestive disorders, reach for the bottle of kaopectate.
Eat plain boiled rice. Hydrate. And have some yogurt.

And postpone delicious food for a few days. It might not agree with your delicate guts. So it's a good thing she and I have different eating schedules -- and she's snarfing a bag of cheese flavoured chips right now, that can't be good -- hence whatever I stuff into my gob will not leave her envious because she should avoid it till fully over the gallops.

Of course, seeing as I am at work in Marin for the next few days, I'm eating garbage from the convenience store nearby. Not the most appetizing of sustenance. I keep a bottle of Sriracha in the fridge at work. It's an essential supply. If you are going into the depths of Antarctica for several months to tabulate the number of penguins that went the wrong way and died, pack an entire crate of it. Frozen rancid blubber tastes MUCH better with a dynamite condiment. As well as lots of hot tea to stay properly hydrated.


If you are heading into Marin, get your shots and take your anti-malarials. Cholera, typhoid, dengue, foot fungus, and parasites. Which you don't have to worry about in Antarctica.



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