Psyllium For All

Maybe it's all the graduating I did in May, or maybe it's the fact that I am attempting to make the first in-roads towards an honest to God career, but for whatever reason, I find myself drawn to, even obsessed with, the very mature (geriatric?) idea of intestinal health. It started out on a pointed health tip from a friend of a family friend about the preventative wonders of proper fiber intake (coupled, of course, with proper hydration). The friend, the kind of guy who takes fistfuls of supplements and wears earplugs* like I wear glasses, looked me over and said, "You're young enough that if you start paying attention to your fiber intake now, it could save your life." A compliment AND a preventative medicine tip? That was all I needed to hear.

Over the next few weeks I started dabbling with Metamucil: a teaspoon here, a tablespoon there. Not only did its plant fiber'd viscosity make it feel like an elixir that worked, but it also tasted like orange. It was somewhere around this time that I also discovered fiber cereals. One in particular, FlaxPlus Rasin Bran, ($2.50 at Trader Joe's, made by Nature's Path), struck me with a love arrow. This cereal, in just 3/4 of a cup, provided me with 11g of fiber. Between that, the Metamucil and my old standby of blueberry soy milk shakes, I was getting almost all of my fiber in one meal!

I grew cocky. "Who's better than me?" I thought as I looked down at my coworkers. I even, for a period, developed the habit of pop-quizzing those around me about their own fiber intake. Whenever my interrogation was met with a stuttering, "I dunno," I would launch into a lecture about the benefits and relative ease of proper fiber consumption. My morning and nightly BMs became exemplary and were analyzed for my family members' well-being around the dinner table. My father's frustrated sighs informed me of his own fiber deficiency. I was on top of the world.

But this proved too good to be true. While my enjoyment of the fiber triumverate never wavered, the gaseous side effects of so much fiber in so little time made me weary. I became a vessel for gas, a host for the psyllium parasite. It controlled me, I realized. Plus, at work I am around people constantly, so my impulse to network was constantly overwhelmed by my fear of embarrassment.

So I lowered my early morning fiber intake and tried to spread my intake out through the course of the day, a task which required planning and even restraint (the cereal really is addictive). This plan soon withered and before I knew it I was back on the fiber train hurtling towards the unknown.

Weeks later, now, it seems my body can handle the fiber better than it once did, and the side effects are minimal. I find that it takes a certain kind of maturity and Zen-like appreciation of synergy to really understand the wonder of a perfect bowel movement. Just like Matthew McCougnshneyfhy's (sp) character's obsession with clipping toenails in one piece in EdTV, so do I take interest and pride in having one solid, healthy looking, S-shaped specimen in the bowl beneath me.

Also, it seems that with all this comes a solid assurance that I will avoid many types of cancers from the belly button down. Oh, and by the way, I've also started wearing earplugs at work.


*This friend of a family friend wears the earplugs due both his raging Tinnitus as well as a deep-set fear of noise pollution-related hearing loss. I will say this, it's amazing how loud things sound when compared to the 29db that make it through the foam earplugs. This friend of a family friend also warned me against the evils of tonic water when I told him that my drink of choice was Tanq and Tonic. Apparently Liza Minelli's father, a famous film director of his day, drank the stuff "like candy" and was stone deaf well before his time. Pity.



Next: Greg reviews Choline Cocktail.