Breaking News: Mugger claims Scurvy made them do it!

Some day it will come to this.  One day I will hardly be able to fend off the scurvy and the madness and I will simply snap.  This will be my headline.  Mugger claims "Scurvy made me do it!"

I can tell you are confused.  That furrowed look on your brow, that raised eyebrow, that slightly narrowed eye tell all.  You cannot understand what I am talking about.  Well how could you?  YOU do not have scurvy.

At first I just thought I was tired from working too hard and maybe the tiniest bit lazy.  But then I realized the terrible truth.  I was in line to buy my handful of bargains at M&S when realization struck.  Out of all the things I could have selected to buy I had chosen to buy a lemon cake, a lemon mousse and a grapefruit.  I wasn't just tired and lazy.  I was craving fruit.  I had scurvy!  The hard yellow evidence was staring me straight in my scorbutic face.

Maybe the presence of this pirate cake alongside my lemon cake subconsciously started this whole thing? Nah, it was the scurvy.  Had to be.

Scorbutic, that's just such a great word.  No, focus Madder Hatter, you must stay focused.  Don't let the scurvy take you like this.

Ok, produce wallet, produce change, pay for citrusy products.  Almost safe.  No, the madness is taking over.  The scurvy... It. Is. Too. Powerful.

I stumbled back to my desk at work, delirious with laughter and the sickness.  I managed to obtain a spoon somehow in this state, peeled back the lid with trembling fingers and dug into the lemony mousse.  Ahhh.  The cure.  I could feel the sugary lemony goodness fixing me.  The madness slowly receded to a normal level and I went back to my work.  I had been saved from the scurvy, but not before I had realized my fate.

You see, it seems to be my fate to constantly battle scurvy.  I do not eat enough broccoli obviously, as I have explained before here.  So it is with a heavy heart that I must realize what my eventual fate will be.  I am destined to battle with scurvy my entire life.  Yes, tragic, but true.

I will not always be so lucky as to be within reach of a cure, however.  So, I am doomed to be the madman on the loose grasping at anything that even looks like a cure.

Mad with the scurvy I will scuttle down the street.  Nobody sitting at a quiet breakfast with grapefruit will be safe from my ravenous need for citrus.  I will be forced to grab lemony desserts from people's hands and down them without elegance or dignity.  Scorbutic hands trembling I am doomed to terrify the lone bearers of fruit flavoured cakes on public transportation.

With wild and anxious aspect I will spy the cakes from a distance, perched prettily on the lap of an unsuspecting bus passenger.  My desperate deficiency heightening my senses and screaming that I act now to restore my health, I will leap to my feet and race to my supposed salvation.  Muttering in demented demeanor aloud to myself about the scurvy I will pitch back and forth with the motion of the bus.  The scurvy will feel the motion, reach back into its ancient memory and believe with renewed audacity that it is afflicting a hapless sailor, demanding satisfaction in a fruit flavoured cake sacrifice to its honour.

I will battle with the scurvy.  I am a good person and won't want to take the poor passenger's cake.  But the scurvy will be strong and I will eventually be forced to steal their cake.  Unceremoniously, I will be found tearing into it to relieve my scurvy and become the world's weirdest and wildest mugger.  Stealing cakes from innocent people.  Once the scurvy has been sated and my sanity has returned to me it will be too late.  I will try to explain that the scurvy made me do it as I am led away in handcuffs for mugging some poor old lady bringing a lemon cake to her friends birthday.  But it will be too late she will already be terrified and traumatized by my public scorbutic debacle.

I am doomed.  Summer days may find me trying to pry orange popsicles from unsuspecting little fingers.  Fingers that will point me out as the orange-handed culprit.  Sure, sure I could have asked where they got their popsicles from, but scurvy doesn't heed logic.  Scurvy does not brook disappointment.  Scurvy is a law unto itself.  It is a bleak bleak future that awaits me.

Even if I try to stockpile on citrus products there is no telling when scurvy could strike.  I could be anywhere and nobody will be safe from my scorbutic mania.  Maybe I should get a lawyer.  Perhaps a good lawyer could explain that these innocent victims had knowledge of the whereabouts of the popsicle and cake vendors and that they were withholding that information from me.  I was forced to steal the popsicles and cakes out of great underprivileged need.

Or insanity.  The insanity plea could work.  The terrified lady from the bus could probably testify on my behalf even.  Insanity may just be my salvation. 

Rabbit Food and Ruffage

I came home this evening at a quarter past ten in the evening and in sheer desperation I ate two tomatoes.  Yes, two.  I picked up first one baby tomato and then another and chewed them up whole, unceremoniously and completely unmasked by other foods, flavours or tastes.  What has happened to me?

Photo Source: flickr by Swaminathan

Perhaps I should explain that I have always hated vegetables.  And just like everything else in my life it was not a casual dislike and reluctance.  I don't do things by half measures.  I have always hated vegetables with a passion that stemmed deep from my five year old soul.  I declared them rabbit food and refused to eat them.  I am not a rabbit so why should I eat rabbit food? Do people eat dog food or cat food I ask you?  NO.  Nobody would reasonably expect me to eat a dinner comprised of bird food.  I didn't see why the delicacies of rabbits should ever be placed upon my plate.  I wasn't an ambassador to the rabbit population of my town, or any other town for that matter.  I didn't need to improve human rabbit relations by symbolically accepting them and their culture by dining on their foods.  No, I didn't eat rabbit food.  I waged war on it.

Smart cat knows if he waits by the rabbit food the rabbits will come to him.  Cool as a cucumber he waits.  I bet you can't get him to eat rabbit food.      Photo Source: Flickr by Psyberartist

It was ruffage.  Or more properly spelled, roughage, and roughage is defined as "the coarse indigestible constituents of food".  Indigestible!  And you want me to eat it why?  Ick.  No thank you.  Now people will tell you that tomatoes are good for you.  That tomatoes are a fruit.  But they also come from the night shade family and are therefore a nightshade food. Nightshade foods produce these things called alkaloids that can affect the nervous system and digestive system.  You see alkaloids can inhibit this enzyme, cholintesterase, which is found in nerve cells.  If it is very strongly inhibited it can disrupt the nerve-muscle system and cause trembling, twitching, paralyzed breathing or convulsions.  Great, right?  They say that these certain nightshade foods do not block the enzyme to a great enough degree to cause any trouble.  Yet, there is no definitive research on the subject.  Some researchers recommend cutting it out of the diets of those people with arthritis and other joint problems.  And there are many individuals who swear that nightshade foods do cause them joint pain.  

Do you know what foods are nightshade foods?  It may surprise you to find that the list includes:
Tomatoes
Potatoes
Eggplant
Sweet and hot peppers (bell peppers, and cayenne etc.)
Ground cherries (not real cherries, whatever a ground cherry is...)
Tomatillos
*And a few others. This is not an exhaustive list of nightshade foods.

Some researchers claim that the level of alkaloids in nightshade foods are too small to have any real effect.  Yet the alkaloids do exist in these foods and can be shown to inhibit cholintesterase at least to a small degree and cooking only reduces the alkaloids by 40-50%.  So, you can make up your own mind.  Don't believe me, check out more reputable sources and ask your doctor.  But I will argue that these nightshade foods are poison.  So, these "oh so healthy for you" tomatoes could in fact be poisoning my body and ruining my joints.  Why should I trust your health advice after you advocate poison and indigestible foods.  No, thank you, I'll pass. Or at least that is what I used to say to myself.

Look at all those colorful poisons!         Photo Source: flickr by moon angel

Yet desperate times called for desperate measures and there I was standing in my kitchen munching down tomatoes.  What on earth was happening?  I was starving and it was the only food in my house that could be eaten post haste without any cooking, preparation or waiting-time involved. There was no extended longing for that moment of sweet delight when your food is done and you nibble on the first mouthful.  No, immediate gratification was what I needed in order to satisfy the monster growing restless and growling from deep within.  But it did not end there.  The monster demanded a further sacrifice.  It demanded I give up my cause.  It demanded I eat... a salad.  Yes, a salad.  complete with leafy green lettuce and carrots, a rabbit couldn't have been happier.  I, the Madder Hatter, the crusader against people eating indigestible rabbit food, succumbed and ate not only two tomatoes but also an entire salad.

I can almost hear myself, that logical side I try so hard to suppress, saying desperate times luv, in a Yorkshire accent of course.  But this does not excuse my behavior.  It is a mere platitude.  Who I am?  What have I become?  There is no going back from what I have done.  What will happen next?  I may be lead inexorably downward.  Next I could be eating dog food, or bird food.  Why stop there?  I could move on to worm food and just eat dirt.  But there is something else about it that is bothering me deep down.  It is the slippery slope to all things bad.

Not only do I feel like I have abandoned my morals (see my struggle with technology) I feel I have also lost my identity.  I am no longer a rampant ruffage destroying, rabbit food protesting rapscallion.  I'm becoming something else. Dare I suggest it, an adult?  Gasp, the reality of such a concept is too horrible to even contemplate for one instant.  The unadulterated boredom of responsible adult life swept over me for the milisecond I even considered considering that thought. Cringe. No, no, that can't be it.  I'm still five.  I must be turning into a rabbit.  You are what you eat, right? I'm sprouting whiskers and a little bob tail, aren't I?  That is the only logical explanation.  I'd better do some research on rabbits next.

Smart cat guards the rabbit food knowing I must come for it.  He is waiting.  He sees through me.  There is no escape.       Photo Source: flickr by Psyberartist

Broccoli is proven to be creepy

I accidentally stumbled across this post about broccoli on somebody else's blog the other day.  In light of my last post about broccoli I thought this was oddly appropriate.  If my strange pictures were not enough to scare you I imagine that this will be.  Just look closely at these pictures.  Creepy.

I am a scavenger.

At university, my friends and I used to joke that we had to go scavenge for food in the cafeteria.  Not everything they served was edible.  If you have eaten in school cafeterias you know what I'm talking about.  Sometimes the only things that looked edible were the desserts, other days it was cereal for dinner and some days you had to choke down something before you had time to wonder what it was actually made of.    I have to say, if you can keep an entire table full of intelligent people guessing at the contents of your dish you have skills.  Perhaps not the set of skills I would recommend as necessary for being a cook, but nonetheless an impressive set.  Although we did often amuse ourselves at guessing ingredients, it was not always a joking matter.  Scavenging was what we termed the desperate search for real food that often led to an assorted plate of things you found edible.  Usually it meant not eating the main dishes that were being served and instead returning with a collection of gummy bears, gold fish crackers or if you were lucky fruit that you found on the salad bar or hidden by the sandwich stuff. 

It wasn't all bad.  We had fun with even this sad lot in life.  We took the song savages from Pocahontas and gave it our own lyrics. "Scavengers, scavengers barely even eating.  Scavengers, scavengers through the caf we're creeping." The frequent presence of gummy bears at our table led to the creation of Gummy Bear Theatre.  We adapted Shakespearean plays and large historical events and had them performed by Gummy Bear Theatre.  It may have looked something like this.

The best one was probably our highly fictionalized retelling of Hannibal's crossing of the alps with elephants in tow.

Apparently I was destined to take scavenging to another level as a post grad.  I often found that I didn't have time to do proper shopping trips.  So I had to scavenge in my cupboards for things that could be eaten together.  It was not uncommon for me to have peanut butter and jelly but no bread, cereal but no milk, and pasta but no sauce.  I did try to get food but studying just ate up my life.  What kicked me out the door and into the grocery stores though was the lack of chocolate.  Realizing this about myself I had to limit the amount of chocolate I bought at one time.  This way I would have to go out to buy it more often and then be out to buy more real food too.

Now that I have graduated I seem to do better about buying food regularly.  Yet, last night I managed to take scavenging to a whole new level.  I have progressed further into my scavenger lifestyle by moving on from food.  I now collect things.  A few days ago I noticed a table out on the street with the trash bins.  I was too tired at the time to really think about it.  A few more days of passing by it had given me time to contemplate the table sitting on the sidewalk.  That poor three-legged table was going to be thrown away.  What a sad fate.  How could somebody waste such a perfectly good three-legged table?  Well, last night I was sitting in my room thinking that I could use a little table for craft projects.

So, I put on my coat and shoes and went out to the street just behind my house.  I rescued that three-legged table from it's sidewalk grave.  I was undeterred by the slugs that had already decided to make it their home.  I brought it home and cleaned it thoroughly.  I resurrected it from useless discarded furniture to craft table.  Where better to create things then on a three-legged table?  If it can be rescued, if it can still work then there is no limit to what can be repurposed.  And if I get a little paint or glue here or there, what matter?  That is what it is there for and it will only add to its character.

I had better go do crafty things before I decide to start scavenging for more things.

Death by Broccoli.

People love telling others what to do, especially when it comes to eating.  Eat your vegetables is a favourite command among parents.  "Vegetables are good for you" everyone says as you grow older.  People love to tell you how good veggies are for you.  And everyone loves to tell you how good broccoli is.  You aren't allowed to dislike it.  It is rich in fiber and vitamin K.  It can even provide you with vitamin C so you aren't at risk of scurvy.  A common problem on land, of course.  Lord knows, if it weren't for those forced mouthfuls of broccoli I would have succumbed to scurvy on many an occasion in my youth.

"Ha", you think if you are reading this as a child, "when I grow up I won't eat broccoli anymore".  I hate to break it to you kid, but I thought the same thing once.  It is not as simple as that.

When it comes to broccoli you are rarely allowed to refuse it, even as an adult.  If broccoli is involved in a meal and you choose not to eat it everyone is suddenly very concerned about your health.  It doesn't matter that it tastes bitter and bland all at once.  It doesn't matter that you can't mask its taste in butter, cheese or any substance known to man.  It doesn't even matter that its prickly little florets cling to your tongue, taste buds, and throat, refusing to be swallowed and putting up a desperate fight all the way down to your stomach.  No.  If you don't want broccoli you MUST be unhealthy.  Clearly you aren't eating enough fiber.  You must not be getting enough vegetables.  No other food will do.  You must eat the broccoli.

Well, I won't stand for it.  I've had enough of being told how wonderful broccoli is for me.  I just don't like it.  I'll eat other vegetables, and in great quantities too, if that will make you happy, but I'm not eating broccoli anymore.  I can get my vitamins from other sources.  I'll make sure my diet has enough fiber.  But I am through with broccoli.  I simply won't buy it and you can't make me eat it.  I AM an adult after all.  I can make this sort of decision for myself.  And yet, here I am staring at broccoli.  What happened? 

The other day my housemate was getting ready to leave for a week and was trying to empty out her refrigerator before she left.  Along with some other edible substances I suddenly found myself in possession of broccoli, that dreaded vegetable of tongue-clinging fame.  I didn't want to just throw it away.  That would have been wasteful and I hate wasting food.  This put me in an awkward position.  I realized I might have to suffer through eating the broccoli.  So, I placed it in my refrigerator with a heavy heart, postponing the inevitable torture for another day.

Then I had a brilliant idea.  I couldn't throw away the broccoli, but I could play with it.  I could turn my broccoli into an art project.  Then it would no longer be wasted by me AND I wouldn't have to eat it.  So I decided to take photos of broccoli that portrayed its true nature.  Photos that penetrated deep into broccoli's soul.  Photos that warned others about the true dangers of this horrifying vegetable.

Have you ever looked at broccoli and noticed how strange it looks with it's funny arms and leafy head?  Does it not seem a little creepy to you?  Can you imagine it with a pair of mean, slanting, narrowed eyes and a gaping mouth?

Can you not see a killer?  I can.  I'm just saying that maybe we shouldn't eat things that have faces like that.  Not so fast, you say, what harm could broccoli do?

Let us examine this case more closely.  Look closely at its face.

This is not the lovable face of a vitamin bearing vegetable.  This is the vicious face of a murderous veggie.  Now, let us think about the things that this face is capable of.  Is it the sort of face that could commit this kind of atrocity?

Killed by a murderous broccoli.

I think so.  Is it the sort of face that would also be capable of this?

Why, Broccoli, why?  What did the strawberry ever do to you?

Yes, I think it would.

To die so young... it is such a heartbreak.

Such senseless waste. 

Killer Veggie Strikes Again Murdering Innocent Fruit

This is the face of a heartless murderer.  It is the face of a monster capable of murdering innocent fruit.  And why you may ask?  Greed.  The distinction of being rich in fiber was not enough.  Broccoli envied the strawberry for it's nutritional value.  Strawberries do provide you with fiber, and vitamin K like broccoli does, but they also have vitamin A (for healthy skin), D (the crucial "sunshine vitamin"), E (to help build blood cells), C (about as much as an orange to prevent that troublesome scurvy), B (I don't know all of what it does, but it appears to be good for brain health) and a host of other nutrients including magnesium that are all good for your body.  What really made broccoli raging mad though was how good the strawberry tasted.  All those nutrients were packed inside one beautifully red, amazingly sweet and sugary, yet good for you, piece of fruit.  How could it be so?  The broccoli wanted to be the most nutritious so it decided to eliminate its competition.

If you want to help stop the fruit genocide...

or you are concerned about the possibility of an army of undead broccoli...

Act now!  Boycott broccoli!  Save the strawberries!  Prevent the Broccoli Zombie Apocalypse!  And enjoy your meals at last!

For the record, I am a healthy, moderately responsible adult.  I do not eat broccoli.  I do get enough fiber and vitamins and nutrients in my diet.  In case you don't believe me about strawberries and their inherent nutrients (and in light of the post I have just created I don't blame you), then check on strawberries yourself.  You can see a list of vitamins that strawberries contain and a chart of some of the other nutrients that strawberries and other fruits contain, from slightly more reputable sources.  I did warn you I was mad.  And I'm not even saying that we should never eat veggies.  I just don't want to eat things that look like this sort of face belongs on them.    

I don't trust them.  Can you blame me?  Look what they did to my beloved strawberries.  Now if you'll excuse me I have some fruit I need to consume.