This is Saturday morning at around 9:45, and I have already run to the stores for coffee, distilled water and sardines..
3 large tins of that storied, iconic fish.
There was a Latino guy, about 18 years old, but maybe 15, stocking the shelves at the Ideal Market, right by the sardines, who attempted to help me select cans -probably so I would be out of his way sooner- by locating more of the kind I had picked out from the half dozen of so varieties they sell there.
Only the "La Serena" brand in the "in chipotle sauce" and "in jalapeño" varieties don't have xanthan gum nor "thickener" listed as ingredients, so I was focusing on those.
I have yet to research xanthan gum as a food additive, but I can already imagine Dr. Sten Ekberg -bald head and all- in a "I ate only sardines for 30 days, and here's what happened" video, which I imagine he has, if the sardine fast is worth its salt, cautioning his sardine-adventurers: "If the ingredients list mentions 'xanthan gum' or 'thickener,' you want to avoid it," type of thing.
And then going on to say that xanthan gum is the same thing they use to boost the octane of Formula One racing fuel, or that they distill it from orangutan feces or something."
"...and does that sound like something you want to put in your body?"
But, I was trying to load up on the chipotle and minimize the jalepeño variety, but the kid had retrieved more of the latter from the maze of cans, and had offered to hand them to me.
I didn't know how to say: "If I just live off the jalepeño kind, I'll develop a burning irritation in my rectum, and I'll wind up having to shove a Q-tip up my asshole to scratch it..."
As a 2nd year Spanish student, that was out of my league.
"Siri, how do you say 'Q-tip' in Spanish?" type of thing...
Is Xanthan Gum Bad For You?
Foods contain a very small amount of xanthan gum. In these small quantities, xanthan gum is not bad for you, and it’s considered safe to consume. It also doesn’t cause side effects for most people. -WebMD
I left there with 2 cans of each, having rushed a bit to facilitate getting out of his way, lest he think I was intentionally trying to be a pain in his ass, standing there reading the fine print on 12 different cans.
Having run out of food money a week ago, and then having lost the spotlight (again) that I use to illuminate the stage at the Lilly Pad -concurrent with Jacob being put out of commission by car troubles- put me in a position to conduct an experiment upon the box of food that comes, as if by magic, the third Thursday of every month, to each resident of Sacred Heart, who is over 60, from some charitable organization.
It is about a one week supply of The Standard American Diet.
Having the proclivity to be a conspiracy theorist, I have looked at the "senior food box" (as it is referred to by the residents) with a shadow under my eyes, so to speak.
First off, the words of my late father come to me: There's nothing free in this world; you're going to pay one way or another, I paraphrase...
Second, I think about the tacit implication that "a nigga's" food stamps have been kind of pre-calculated to have run out by the third Thursday of every month, and, isn't that interesting?
People who are strangers to intermittent fasting might not view these last few days of every month as being divinely ordained as a time of fasting and prayer. Rather, they might have the notion that one has to eat 3 meals every day or starve to death..
"At least I got this to eat," they might think, before going to work on the 3 pound brick of "process" cheese product. (See Dr. Sten Ekberg's video entitled something like: "This Ain't Even Cheese, Dog!" for more on the 'government cheese...').
There was a guy who lived here named Lionell. He was known to really love the orange cheese. If you didn't want yours give it to Lionell, type of thing.
Lionell died of some kind of cancer about 3 years ago. He was 57, I believe.
The way the box got me was through the low-fat powdered milk. I added it to my coffee while ostensibly a couple days into a one week water-only fast. I figured I would remain in 'ketosis,' although the lactose in milk is technically a sugar, I believe Dr, Sten said..
But, after being driven by demons to go out and get some alcohol on or about the 3rd day, with that being straight liquor (no carbs; though alcohol is technically a sugar, according to Dr. Sten) I was beset with the urge to cook one of the "spaghetti's" from the box, rationalizing that I was going to use a lot of extra virgin olive oil and/or real butter on the finished product. That would give my body a choice of fuels to burn, carbs or fats, the good kind of Omega-3 fats...
This led to me waking up feeling depressed for the first time since before I started the sardine fast 5 weeks ago. It was just about 10 minutes of thinking that human beings were just animals, a baby step up from cockroaches in intelligence, and only through our self aggrandizement do we envision our consciousnesses as composing a dream in the Mind of an infinitely loving God, and that anything we do is eventually going to be reduced to minerals as we dissolve into irrelevance...like, how are we going to preserve the music of Gustav Mahler once the universe has collapsed upon itself and there is the next Big Bang? type of thing...
Performing the exercise of thinking up "3 things that I'm grateful for" before stepping out of bed, was proof against this; and I felt back to my 'normal' self within 10 or 15 minutes; But I had had to induce the actual "feeling" of gratitude the way an actor might make herself shed tears by willfully thinking of sad things.
There is usually a sense of: It's not going to work this time; but it did; and, by the time I had had a tablespoon of kratom with creatine monohydrate powder, I felt pretty good. Although squatting down to do certain chores, I noticed the stiffness in my knee joints, which had disappeared about a week into the sardine fast, threatening to encroach upon me...
A couple nights later, it was the peanut butter, fully hydrogenated cottonseed and/or soy oil and all that I stirred into the crunchy rice cereal that comes in the box, in powdered milk, sprinkled with pure cocoa powder and cinnamon, creating chocolate cinnamon peanut butter crunch...that I pigged out on, like it was an addictive drug..
I concluded the next morning that the peanut butter definitely gives the government cheese a run for its money, as far as bringing on inflammation and the kind of brain fog that can make one forget about a pot of water left to boil on the stove.
"My" eczema started to come back, in the form of itchy skin on the scalp and face, after just two losing battles against the senior food box.
I'm not sure if the CEO's of Big Food are in cahoots with Big Pharma and/or Big Medicine. I've heard it said that there is a 'you keep them sick, we'll make money treating them, you'll make money overcharging them for drugs, the insurance companies will be the money movers...just tell us what we need their life expectancy to be, so we can adjust their medications accordingly, to make it all work...keep up the good work, we're killing it this quarter!" types of conversations behind closed doors..
Not in this country, though, I ultimately conclude.
Putin, Zelinski or Xi (not Netanyahu, though, let me be perfectly clear on that..) might do their citizenry that way; like sending millions to their deaths -they would probably even bomb a girl's elementary school, the sociopaths!
Ukraine's population of white Christian men may have been decimated, and are now being replaced by a diverse group of immigrants, for example...
But this is the west, where patriots are valued like loyal beagles. There are no such evil machinations going on here.
It's ultimately the same individuals holding the reigns of power. but they know better than to try to exploit the U.S. citizens.
This is the land of free cheese! Come and get it, niggas!
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