A Condescending, Wheat-Free Lunch

Have you ever tried to cut wheat out of your diet? I suppose a lot of people are doing that these days, although it may be part of your diet to cut out all simple carbs or ridding themselves of all gluten. (My personal opinion, after reading thousands of pages on health and nutrition, is that high-protein, low carb diets work well because you are eliminating wheat. Some diets also eliminate other things, like fat, which is stupid, but it's the wheat that is the important part and why so many of those diets are successful.)Whatever the reason you're cutting out wheat, it's hard to do! You have to plan ahead, make a lot of food from scratch, and spend your money in different ways. I'm following the suggestions Dr. William Davis makes in his book Wheat Belly, which I find to be incredibly compelling. I have already been taking notice of wheat's effects on me, so reading that book was even more eye-opening.

What I had already determined not to do was try to eat like I have been. In other words, I have no plans to eat all the baked goods of former times by purchasing tons of gluten- and wheat-free breads, muffins, biscuits, etc. Even if Dr. Davis didn't make a good argument against buying into the thriving gluten-free industry--manufacturers simply replace wheat flour with starch flours that are equally horrific on your blood sugar numbers--I simply don't have the money. Even insisting on homemade pancakes and cookies and muffins made with nut flours or coconut flour would bankrupt me in no time flat. My solution: figure it out another way and be creative. Add vegetables in as many situations as possible.

To that end, I went pantry diving today for lunch. I was hungry, but as there was no bread in the house to tempt me into making an easy sandwich, I pulled out the Vietnamese rice paper Husband and I recently bought at the Asian grocery store in The Big City.

We adore the fresh spring rolls at the local Thai restaurant, so I rummaged around in the fridge to see what I could find. I emerged with iceberg lettuce, cabbage, carrots, and some lunch meat, which I shredded or julienned. 

Then I dipped a sheet of rice paper into a bowl of water to get it completely wet. Dry rice paper feels like stiff vellum. It's hard to imagine that it could end up being flexible enough to wrap around a filling.

Once you dip the paper in water, it goes transparent. I laid the now completely transparent rice paper across a plate and loaded up the fillings. Joseph wanted salad dressing in his, so I poured a bit of bottled Ranch dressing over the top of the filling. I personally hate bottled Ranch, so I left it out of mine and dipped the roll in soy sauce. 

You have to look hard at this picture to see the rice paper^. It's still somewhat stiff, but that makes it easier to roll because it isn't very sticky yet. The paper will continue to absorb water, and in a couple minutes will be quite soft and more sticky. I rolled it up like an eggroll, et voila! Forkless salad!

I was thinking of other ways to Americanize the rice paper rolls. Salad items work really well (as the Thai people have already proven), and you could put in just about any vegetable you want as long as you julienne or chop it finely--green peppers, green onions, regular onions, ginger, Romaine lettuce, spinach, mushrooms, jicama, cucumbers, raw zucchini, sprouts...you get the point. The Thai restaurant puts shrimp, shredded chicken, and rice noodles into their delicious spring rolls as well. You could also add cheese, other types of shredded meat, cilantro, or other herbs.

Plenty of soft, unheated fillings would work marvelously. Chicken salad or tuna salad, for instance. Even a Waldorf salad would work well. What about mixing the shredded meat and salad ingredients with basil or sun-dried tomato pesto? 

The package of rice paper that I bought cost $1.59, which is cheaper than most loaves of bread. If you only have a couple rolls, you won't be overdoing the rice and shooting your blood sugar up to dangerous, fat retaining levels. Plus, you can eat your salad with one hand, leaving the other free to update your Facebook status or send out a tweet about your fantastically righteous lunch. Be sure to go for a slightly condescending tone so that others will feel stupid and fat for not eating like you. And don't forget to Instagram your plate, either.

Just so I don't sound too condescending here, I confess I had pizza with wheat crust for dinner. You eat what you got, and sometimes change is difficult to accomplish. If nothing else, the heartburn and digestive discomfort I feel will continue to remind me that planning ahead is crucial to my success in completely eliminating wheat.

Vignette on a Sunday

I slip through the door to the assisted living center's public meeting room as unobtrusively as possible, vowing yet again to match up the times of all the clocks in my house and then set them five minutes fast. I'm not so late the meeting has already started, but I am late enough to not get a seat on the couch with the other ladies from the Stake Relief Society presidency. Lynne motions vaguely to a truly massive wingback chair beside her, but it's facing exactly the wrong direction and I don't care to wrestle with it when there are plenty of empty seats nearby, even if they don't look nearly as comfortable.

Almost as soon as I sit down on the end of the front row, Sister Stewart shuffles up with her walker and takes the chair next to me. She's a frail-looking, tiny woman with a huge cloud of white hair floating above her head. There is a wrapped candy cane lying loose on the seat of her walker, and I vaguely wonder what her plans are for it and if it's been there since Christmas. She smiles at me while she hauls her heavy large-print manual off the walker and sets it beside her on the next seat. I ask her how she's doing. She says she's doing very well after I repeat myself a little more loudly.

The scent of cooking ham or sausage wafts out of the nearby kitchen, and through the closed door I can hear the cook smacking the edge of a bowl in a series of sharp raps over and over. My stomach growls. I focus on the organ music playing quietly in the background. The organist is blind, I remember.

Wait, the organist is blind! Why did I not think about this before? I guess I just assumed that of course a blind woman could play the organ for church because she's just that determined, and there's nothing weak about Sister Neal despite her inability to see. What does it take to play a keyboard without being able to see it? I wonder. The opening hymn is announced and I listen to Sister Neal hit a few notes to find Middle C. Then she plays a chord to figure out the right key, and then she's off into a simple introduction. She plays all the hymns from memory, obviously, focusing on the melody and adding a simple accompaniment.

Sister Stewart and I share the large-print hymnal between us. The only problem is that the hymn we are singing is obscure enough that even I, who was the ward chorister from the time I was 13 until I left for college at 18, am not sure of the melody. The large-print hymnals contain only the text of the songs, not the musical notation. Fortunately, Ada, who is sitting nearby on the couch, is singing loudly enough that by the second verse everyone is a lot more confident about the melody. We finish the fourth verse strongly, all 12 or 13 of us in the room.

When the meeting is over, I shake Sister Stewart's hand gently just in case she has arthritis. I've learned there's no call for hearty, bone-crushing handshakes in an assisted living center or nursing home. I shake hands and say hello to the other white-haired sisters and one brother who attended today, as well. They are all so kind, happy to see us and welcome us to their home. Then the other ladies of the presidency and I drive over to the nearby chapel, where we will attend another Relief Society meeting.

We've been sitting in the sparsely populated Relief Society room for a few minutes when I wonder out loud if this ward has a pianist, as no one is playing prelude music. Sure enough, the president gets up to start the meeting and announces that we will be singing a capella today. When I raise my hand and offer to play, she smiles with relief and gladly accepts. The chorister stage whispers a loud "Thank you!"

There's a spiral-bound hymnal already sitting at the piano, and as I flip it open to the right page, I think about how glad I am that I can see. I'm also glad I'm still young enough to walk unassisted and be able to take care of my family. I hope that when I have a cloud of white hair and am bent over my walker, my veins clearly visible through the parchment skin of the back of my hands, that I will still be determined to do as much good as I can. I hope I could even be brave enough to play the organ blind, if it came to that.  
 

This Ain't No Diet

So, if I'm going to diet and lose weight, I have some requirements:

1. This must be a lifestyle change and not a temporary fix.
2. No food groups can be eliminated. One or two elements of a food group can be eliminated or reduced, but not the entire food group.
3. I will not count calories. Ever.
4. I will not give myself points for food eaten. Ever.
5. I will not suffer from debilitating hunger. If I am hungry, I can eat without guilt or reservation until I am not hungry anymore.
6. I will not follow a rigid eating plan, menu, or ideology for the rest of my days unless I want to.
7. And I don't want to.
8. Nothing I do will require my limited stores of will-power to be used up unless I first understand that the situation is temporary, such as in a detox program, or if I am going through withdrawals from eliminating something I know is bad for me.
9. I get to enjoy the food I eat and not have to think and stress about it constantly.

Impossible? I thought it might be, but I wasn't willing to compromise. Because I know myself well enough, I now know that any compromise with any of the above points will spell failure, and I'm done with failure and regret and self-recrimination just as much as I am done being fat and tired and brain-fogged.

So I set out on a journey some years ago, some of which I have blogged about. I have read, I have experimented, and I have observed the results. I have conducted my own very unscientific empirical study of lots of available data--some of it contradictory and confusing--and have figured out what seems to work for me. What really works for me is knowledge and education. After cobbling together things I've learned from various resources and experimenting on myself to see how useful or valid it is for me, here is what I'm doing now:

1. I have not replaced the batteries in my scale in nearly a year because I tend to judge my self-worth based on a number. Since I haven't been able to stop doing that, I've eliminated the temptation altogether.
2. I use coconut oil, butter, and EVOO for all my fats (unless I cook bacon, in which case, I save and use the bacon grease because it's so tasty). Nuts are also perfectly fine. I also eat a tablespoon of coconut oil before each meal (or just a tablespoon three times a day if I forget to take it before a meal).
3. I pull oil twice a day using organic, cold-pressed virgin coconut oil.
4. I use coconut oil on my neck and face as a moisturizer and microbial deterrent.
5. I am reducing the amount of wheat products in my diet, working on eliminating them altogether. This has led to some fun and interesting solutions to things I normally eat with bread or wheat flour. I'm not trying to eliminate gluten or all grains, but I am done with modern wheat.
6. I am taking a magnesium supplement and will also start a B complex and multivitamin.
7. I get gentle exercise, but I never force myself to exercise for hours at a time or work out to the point of exhaustion and/or nausea. Sorry, P90X enthusiasts, but you guys are nuts.
8. I am working to reduce sugar in my diet, although my main focus for now has been to eliminate wheat and wheat products.
9. I consciously include more veggies in my meals, sneaking them in whenever I can. In order to eat pizza (which I love) without the traditional crust (which has wheat), I used thinly sliced, baked eggplant as the crust. It was delicious! And I didn't get the tired, achy, sluggish feeling that I now know wheat produces in me.
10. I do not berate myself or call myself names for not being immediately perfect. In fact, this whole experiment has been kept very loose and flexible. I'm generally easy-going, but I will almost immediately rebel if told to do a lot of things I don't want to do, even by myself.

Results: good. Overall, I've seen improvement in my energy levels. I did go through the Herxheimer Reaction with the oil pulling (which was interesting), but I never did get more than a couple hours of the sniffles even while several of my children suffered through influenza, pneumonia, and sinus infections after Christmas. I am sleeping more soundly, my mind and thoughts are more calm, and I think my mood is more even. Also, I noticed today that when I put on a pair of freshly laundered denim jeans, I didn't have to suck anything in to zip them up. That's new.

Added bonus: after using coconut oil to moisturize my face at night, I smell like a tropical vacation.

I know some people love having meal plans and do-and-don't lists which provide a lot of comforting structure and a solid  foundation on which to build. I have nothing against that sort of thing, except that it doesn't work for me at all. We'll see if my way works or not. I'd love to have my younger shapely, svelte figure back, even if the stretch marks and certain flabby bits are permanent now; but almost as much, I also want to feel energetic, clear-headed, and powerful. So I'll keep you informed of the progress I'm making. I might review some of the books and studies that have led me to these conclusions, but that's just because I love an excuse to read.

For the Lady in the Pickup Truck and All You Other Lights in the Dark

Yesterday, for the second time in my life, I drove a car so far down the gas gauge that I actually ran out of gas. The first time I did that was a number of years ago when we lived in The Big City, and the car died just as I pulled up to the pump, which was oddly satisfying. I congratulated myself on the great timing, even though I knew I should have visited the gas station about 10 miles earlier.

Yesterday, however, I ended up on the side of the road. Fortunately, I had already dropped the kids off for school, and also fortunately, I was close enough to home to hoof it back easily. I grabbed the gas can out of the back, locked the doors, wrapped Marmite the dog in my jacket, and headed home to trade my shoes out and drop off the dog before walking back to the gas station to fill the gas can.

About 45 minutes later, I was heading back to my car with a nearly full 2-gallon gas can weighing me down and stumbling over large,  frozen chunks of snow and ice on the side of the road because there are few sidewalks in that direction. The day was warm--nearly 40 deg. F!--and I was glad to get some exercise out of doors, even if I now stank of gasoline despite all my efforts not to.

When I was a couple blocks from my car, a big pickup truck chugged up alongside me and a female voice called, "Do you need a ride?" I did a very quick evaluation (as any woman does) to see if it was safe, and then accepted the ride. She dropped me off about a minute later, and I thanked her warmly. Then I poured some gas into the tank, drove to the gas station, and put more gas in the tank.

I didn't know the woman who picked me up, and we didn't exchange names. We did find out our kids go to the same elementary school. The point was that she took some time out of her day to show kindness to a stranger, and what took her 30 seconds meant a great deal to me. I could easily have made it to my car, but she made my day a little easier. It was her willingness to do that for me that warmed my heart so greatly.

People don't know that the small things they do mean something. When someone smiles at me in the grocery store or neighbors stop to chat for a few seconds, I am truly touched. I also love watching my friends and neighbors do kind things for others. A few weeks ago, some people in our congregation (but who don't actually go to church because of their poor health) needed some help cleaning their home, and a crowd showed up one Saturday morning to answer the call. Only a couple people in the crowd had met the people for whom we were cleaning, but everyone eagerly pitched in. A few hours later, some significant inroads had been made. No one complained about the work, and everyone worked hard. Things like that happen all of the time.

One of my friends posted on his Facebook page an article criticizing the LDS church because we don't do more service. The article complained that while the church in general provides plenty in donations and commodities for humanitarian needs in various parts of the country or world that are ravaged by terrible weather or other horrible situations, individual congregations are not more actively involved in recognizable charity programs. He then used a particular non-LDS church congregation as his example of righteousness. This congregation worked each Sunday in feeding the homeless and working with a local charity to provide relief services and donations for women and children. The tone of the article was very critical. Why don't we do more of that? the author wondered. Here we are just going to church on a Sunday. Is that just paying lipservice to Christ's admonition to clothe the naked and feed the hungry? Shouldn't we be doing more recognizable good works and not sitting around in Sunday meetings talking about it?

I was pretty disgusted and upset with the article, and I read a few comments some other LDS people had made that also sounded equally miffed as the author (and self-righteous at the same time). But further down, I read a comment that made my day. It was written by a non-LDS woman living in Utah, and she chastised the author and earlier commenters a little bit. She said she had seen numerous instances of LDS people helping others out, whether they were members of the church or not, and she also noted that most of those people wouldn't dream of publicizing their good works. What they did was done quietly and with no fanfare. What astounded her was that people were showing up to help neighbors before she even knew there was a problem. Meals were brought in or help showed up, and none of the do-gooders bragged about it later or felt the need to make a big deal of it.

I don't know if the woman who picked me up yesterday felt a warm glow about helping out a stranger. I hope she did. Her act of kindness was small and seemingly insignificant, but little acts like that, compounded over thousands and thousands of people, equal tidal waves of goodness. Such kindness and charity combats the rising tide of evil that champions Law of the Jungle thinking, that declares that individuals do not matter, and that compassion is only acceptable if it conforms to the tenants of a particular religion or ideology or government program. I think people are generally good, and I think that given the choice, most people prefer choosing to do a small, kind act if given the chance. There are the exceptions, of course, but for now, the hearts of most men and women have not yet turned so cold that the plight of another is not a beckoning call to do something, anything.

If you are the kind of person who smiles at strangers, offers help when there is obvious need, or even just holds a door or says "thank you" and "please," I am glad I'm in the world with you.

Sharing Controversial Opinions in Order to Start an Argument? Ain't Nobody Got Time for That!

I obviously write a lot about myself on this blog because it's my blog. I also write mostly about myself because my family have made it clear that they don't necessarily enjoy being written about, and I also don't want to breach any friends' privacy, either. Therefore, when I mention any of them, I keep it fairly neutral. If they want to share their opinions of things or write about interesting personal experiences, I guess they can do that for themselves.

Until then, you've got me. All me, all the time.

Ain't it grand?

And why aren't there any fonts specifically for sarcasm or laughing at oneself?

Facebook is not a good forum for spouting opinions. I don't mind if people disagree with me, but I am very, very tired of it all in general. There seems to be this trend toward loudly disagreeing with anyone whose opinion is different than your own, as if you are somehow not being true to yourself if you don't make your voice heard. And why would I particularly care about making my voice heard if all I am doing is stirring up strife? Who would I convert to my view? How is that making the world a better place? Am I a better person because I become offended by someone's opinion--as stupid and uninformed as I think it may be--and seek balm for my troubled soul by responding in the heat of anger or even just startled incredulity?

I've quit sharing my opinion on anything controversial in social media spaces like Facebook. I don't think it's a cop-out, since I don't think there is any honorable reason to share my opinion at all unless someone asks for it and sincerely wants to know it. If it saves me or someone else a bit of stress or anger to still my fingers on the keyboard, then I'm keeping my mouth, as it were, shut.

There is a reason one of my English teachers in high school stopped me outside the classroom one day and asked me, "When am I going to see you more involved in the discussions in our class?" Flustered, I answered too quickly, "When everyone stops arguing." He was taken aback. "We don't argue!" I didn't argue.

What I really have a hard time with is that my brain doesn't work when my mouth is talking. Debate Club was the stuff of my nightmares. I never would have joined, even if you paid me. I don't think fast or strategically when my adrenalin is up or when I feel completely out of my depth. In an argument, I rarely feel in my depth. No matter how much I may know about the topic at hand, I will forget all of it in a stressful debating situation. Then I stand there, gawping like a fish, unable to make any good points and numbly watching the triumph grow on the other person's face. Besides, as a debate coward, I find that people with quicker wits usually put forth my argument for me if I wait long enough. That's what I didn't tell my teacher in the hallway, though I thought about it afterward: I'm thinking and listening the whole time, but when I come up with a point, I let others make it (which they almost inevitably did) and then quietly ponder the response for validity. The pondering and reasoning part breaks down the moment I open my own mouth, and my mind goes totally blank in the bargain.

To be fair, it was high school, which was not a time of supreme self-confidence, but I haven't changed much in other ways over the last couple decades. I still don't go looking for arguments. I prefer to read or hear others' opinions that I heartily disagree with quietly and ponderingly and then quietly accept or reject their position. If someone honestly wants to know what I think, I'll share. If someone is looking for a fight, I'll back away. Unless the result of the argument would be harm to myself or my loved ones, it just isn't worth it (though I have to say that I have stood my ground when it counted and actually cowed the other person into submission, but that was because I felt my children were in danger and suddenly there was no hesitation or fear in any part of my body. There was only authority and confidence. Nice to know I do have it in me, right?). That sort of thinking did make me a good telemarketer in the sense that I would listen sympathetically to the customer's complaint and then do all I could to restate their position and see what I could do. I can't count how many customers calmed down when they knew I was listening and trying to help. Many of them thanked me profusely at the end of our conversations, even those who started out yelling at me.

I still hated being a telemarketer. Ugh.

I'm rambling here. Thinking out loud. Feel free to click away, as this may go on a while. I totally understand. But you're probably a lot like me, too--at least, if you've read this far.

So I see no dishonor in refraining from sharing my opinion on Facebook. I also don't see any honor in sharing my opinion here. I have opinions, definitely, and some of them I'm dying to share, and that's what this blog does for me every once in a while. It relieves that pressure when it becomes unbearable. No one has ever argued with me here, and I'm fine with that.

Rallying the Troops and Feeding Them Chicken Soup

We've got casualties. They're lying around like zombies, moaning pathetically every once in a while, stretched out on the living room couches and watching all the seasons of Parks & Rec over and over. Every once in a while I nag them to drink something so they stay hydrated, or I offer some natural remedy that admittedly sounds disgusting and which they immediately reject.

What? An anti-flu concoction composed of cayenne pepper, sea salt, chamomile tea, and Bragg's apple cider vinegar diluted in a glass of filtered water doesn't sound good? Fine. I'll drink it. You'll notice I am not sick.

Gabrielle was diagnosed with influenza and pneumonia. Sian seems to have escaped with just influenza, and Elannah is exhibiting the symptoms of a very bad cold that is making her increasingly miserable (but not miserable enough to stay away from the computer). Joseph has vomited a couple times, but there is no fever or respiratory distress (hallelujah, as he is one of my asthmatics). Also Joseph's version of throwing up sometimes constitutes choking a little on some food and then spitting a lot. I'm hardly ever impressed when he tells me he's thrown up. Little Gary seems to be just fine, and Sophia has a stuffy nose but isn't coughing or feeling like an elephant is sitting on her chest (another hallelujah for Sophia, who is also asthmatic). I'll keep a close eye on that.

I hate to jinx myself, but I have barely even had a sniffle. I'm still doing the oil pulling thing twice a day (as is Husband), and I'm drinking the anti-flu remedy and eating the mung beans I sprouted like they're candy and taking a daily magnesium supplement. I vow to hold strong, brandishing my coconut oil in one hand and the fizzy Vitamin C tablets in the other. I've got my arsenal of deep, leafy greens and my essential oils. I'm sprouting some more mung beans. If I go down, I will go down fighting.

Now it's time for me to get back into the battlefield and start nagging the troops to drink more fluids.

Supporting a Very Lazy Habit This Yuletide Season

What have I been doing, you ask. Aren't you busy enough without worrying what I'm doing with my time? But I get it: you're living vicariously through me. Why not? If you're living vicariously through me, you'll certainly be doing less of anything productive and a lot more things that range from slightly weird to decidedly indolent. 

For one thing, I've spent the last 1 1/2 weeks reading. I've been on a fiction binge the likes of which I haven't indulged in in years. Or months, anyway. There have been one or two non-fiction books thrown in, as well, just to make me feel better and slightly less guilty. But for the most part, during the Christmas break while all the kids and Husband have been home, I've holed up in my room pretty much all day and stuck my nose in a book. I occasionally emerge to cook something or make sure the boys are getting their teeth brushed before going to bed. 

I've read:

The Black Prism, by Brent Weeks.

Then, because I was interested in Weeks' first trilogy, I read The Way of Shadows, Shadow's Edge, and Beyond the Shadows. 

We went to the library and Husband found Scarlet, by Marissa Meyer, which is the sequel to her very interesting Cinder (which I read when it first came out). Because Husband was already finishing up another book, I snagged Scarlet and read that.

Then I read Jonathan Stroud's Lockwood & Co.: The Screaming Staircase. I really enjoyed Stroud's Bartamaeus novels. Very inventive and well written, and I wasn't disappointed with this new one.

Husband, noting that I had put a certain book on our Amazon Wishlist, but also knowing that we had agreed not to get Christmas presents for each other, cheated by ordering another, similar book (he believes in reading reviews, and the one I'd put on the Wishlist didn't have great reviews) and having it arrive a day after Christmas. So I read that book, which is Oil Pulling Therapy: Detoxifying and Healing the Body Through Oral Cleansing, Dr. Bruce Fife. After I read it, I gave Husband a book report. I was very intrigued by the premise of the book, which is that the health of your mouth reflects the health of your body. Having written too many dental articles to count, and having already researched oral health in relation to overall health, I was already somewhat knowledgeable, and Dr. Fife didn't have to do any hard selling to convince me. So I started oil pulling, and Husband decided to try it out as well.

Here's what oil pulling is and does: you stick some healthy oil in your mouth and swish it around for at least 20 minutes at a time. I use coconut oil because I love coconut oil and because it's lighter than other types of healthy oils, such as extra virgin olive oil or sesame oil. Every morning when I wake up and every evening before I brush my teeth before bed, I pull oil. 

Your mouth is a hotbed of microbial civilizations. Bacteria and other microbes populate different parts of your mouth, including between the gums and your teeth, inside your teeth's tubules, in the fold between your gums and your cheeks, and on the tongue. Different areas of the mouth support different microbe growth, and without saliva to help wash them away, you would suffer greatly. (In fact, even if you brush and floss religiously and stay away from sugar, you might still get lots of dental cavities if you suffer from dry mouth of low salivation rates.) 

A Dr. Westin A. Price figured out in the early 1900s that people often recovered from serious illnesses when their bad teeth were pulled, so he decided to try some experiments. He took the decayed teeth he had pulled, washed them, and stuck them under the skin of unfortunate but healthy rabbits. Every time a rabbit hosted a diseased tooth, it developed the same ailments as tooth's former owner, from arthritis to liver problems. Eventually, Dr. Price figured out how to make a bacterial extract from the teeth and injected that into the rabbits instead of using the whole tooth, and the rabbits still contracted the same (or extremely similar) illnesses and ailments as the formerly diseased human owners of the teeth. Coincidence? I think not.

Anyway, without me re-writing the entire book, Dr. Fife concludes that the ancient Ayuverdic practice of oil pulling is, indeed, incredibly effective in helping to  maintain overall health. The oil attracts the fatty surfaces of bacteria and other microbes as you swish it through your mouth. After 20 minutes of such swishing, the oil, mixed with your saliva, is now a bacterial soup, which is why you spit it into the trash and do not swallow it (you also spit it into the trash to avoid coating your plumbing pipes with congealing grease, which is bad for water flow, a thing I know because plumbing is another frequent topic of my SEO articles). 

The reason you want to remove those bacteria is because they get into your body via your bloodstream or through the tissues and cause havoc elsewhere. Imagine if you have an abscess, which is an infection of the gum. As the infection worsens, nasty bacteria get into your bloodstream and travel to your heart, damaging the muscle and making you more susceptible to a heart attack. Even a little gingivitis can increase your chances of stroke. Cuts or sores in your mouth also allow bad bacteria to get into your bloodstream. I won't even delve into the fascinating world of amalgam fillings and root canal issues. By removing the bacterial threat in your mouth, you allow your body to put its resources toward healing itself. 

Plus, it's easy enough to do and doesn't require any special equipment. That's my kind of weird experiment!

Husband has gone through the Herxheimer Reaction the last couple days, when toxins that are being removed from the body cause you to feel worse for a bit before you start feeling much better. He felt pretty yucky on Sunday and had a bad headache that didn't readily respond to pain medication on Monday. He seems to be rallying nicely, though. As for myself, I haven't noticed any significant changes except maybe sleeping more deeply. I have a pretty strong immune system, I think, as I hardly ever catch "what's going around," but if I'm going to encourage my children to do something weird, I'm going to try it first. They're going through various illnesses at the moment. I suspect more sinus infections, and I took Joseph to the doctor on Monday for a mysterious pain he's been having in his side. I was worried it was his kidney, but his urine test was fine, as were his various blood tests for gall bladder, liver problems, and mononucleosis. He still has the pain, though, and it's not getting any better. If I can teach him how to do oil pulling, I wonder if it would help?

So that's me and how I've spent some of my time lately. 

Sian brought two of her economics books home for me, knowing I would be very excited to read them. As it's time to get back to real life and responsibilities, non-fiction will serve me better than fiction. It is certainly easier to pull yourself away from an economic textbook than from a gripping detective story in order to do laundry or cook meals or manage chore completion or do the grocery shopping or get my paid word finished. I'll soon be diving into Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science, by Charles Wheelan, and The Armchair Economist: Economics and Everyday Life, by Steven E. Landsburg.

Wish me luck!