Cutting Through the Fog with a Pickle

I wanted a pickle last night.  So I ate one. I ate a big, full-size baby cucumber preserved in a cloudy brine of salt and garlic. 

Not too long after that, I wanted some sleep.  So I got ready for bed.  I brushed my teeth, found some pajamas and took off my rings.  There were visible grooves in my fingers where my rings had been.  Some 8 hours later, upon waking, I put the rings back on...my normally average-sized fingers still looked pudgy.

Edema. Water retention.  We've all gotten it when we've gone overboard with the sodium.  My one cucumber, though only 5 little calories, manages to pack in nearly 300 milligrams of sodium in its pickled incarnation. I'm sure there are products out there with lots more sodium, but all things considered, that's a pretty high sodium-to-calorie ratio.

But I don't want to give you a sodium lecture.  I want you to see what the pickle showed me.

Within an hour and a half of eating that pickle, one of its ingredients changed my body. The change still lingered on 8 hours later.  Although I know I will eventually flush out all that retained water, it will take a while for my body's homeostasis to win out.

Consider the hours and hours of power that that one pickle has had over my body.  It is impressive and sobering.

Think of the other homeostasis-altering things we put into our bodies everyday. The steak we ate at the restaurant may still be laced with antibiotics and bovine growth hormone.  The cereal we ate at breakfast probably has chemical preservatives to keep it shelf stable.  The lovely apple we had as a snack was hosed down with pesticides in the orchard and was then waxed (yes, WAXED) to an attractive sheen to make a better display in your grocer's produce section.

Your body has a lot of stuff to filter out.  And it might take longer to filter out some of that stuff than it took to filter out the sodium-bomb pickle.  If all of your systems are tip-top, you'll do fine.  If there is a weak link in the chain that is your total body mechanism, you might start to feel not-quite-right.  If the weak link goes unfixed for a long time, you might come down with some sort of disease.

Kinda makes you want to eat more cleanly, doesn't it?  If one little pickle can throw a human off balance for hours and hours, what can that other stuff do?  And how long until it's out of our systems?

We just don't know. So hedge your bets, people:
-Eat a lot a lot a lot of fruits and vegetables.  Nature put 'em here for you and you've evolved to thrive on them.  Organic is great, but if you can't afford it or it's not available, wash your produce.
-Eat just a little meat.  And find out how it was raised.  If you are in doubt, just order the salad.
-Stay out of the bakery...talk about processed/refined/chemicalized.  Ugh.
-If it comes in a box, can, or bottle, read the label.  If you don't know what half of the ingredients are, don't buy it and don't eat it,even if the front of the package says "natural," "healthy," or "organic."

Remember that one little pickle owned me for hours and hours.  It temporarily made a negative change in my body.   Don't willingly let bad food choices own you for months or years.  The cumulative effect could make a negative change that is permanent.