water runs through me

I sometimes go through a whole day drinking loads of drinks and very little water. Coffee, canned drinks and allsorts from the mamak - all of them tooth-clinky sweet and chockablock with stimulants. Headaches, abdominal twinges, joint pains and soprano teeth (you know when your tooth reacts painfully to sugar or cold, and then you go "aaaaahhhhh" just like a soprano) finally remind me that I haven't had a plain glass of water for two days.

That's when I reach for the Aitch Two O and glug down a bottle. Despite the sudden desire to pee every 15 minutes, I feel much lighter, much better and more alert.

So I put it to you that maybe that horrible, chronic feeling of bleurghness you've been having is really just your thirsty body telling you to get some water down your gullet. Don't overdo it though, kids. Too much water can upset the NaCl (salt, for all you chemistry dropouts) balance in your body, and cause all sorts of problems, like swellage of the brain and death!!

I kid you not. Salt levels in our body cells hold the cell together, so to speak. Too much water means that the salt gets diluted and then can't hold it all together, lah. Then your organs expand (and in this case it ain't a good thing) and pressure builds on them. That's why you read about kids on ecstacy dying because they drank too much water and exploded their livers - because the pill had the effect of making them feel thirsty and at the same time inhibiting their internal body sensors, so they couldn't tell when they had had enough water.

Two litres a day is good. Drunk over the course of one day, not all in one go.

And so is fibre, natural fibre from fruit and bran. Basically the bulky stuff goes through and de-plugs you from the inside. And no, caffeine and laxatives aren't the same thing.

Oh, my god, I just saw the newly skinnnified Peter Jackson on TV, and he looks so weird. His forehead is now much too big for his face. Must be a reel thinker. Har Har.

Anyway, why this sudden infomercial ? Good diet has been on my mind for a while, ever since I caught Jamie Oliver's School Dinners on TV (Actually, I've always been concerned with the quality of the stuff I put in my body, though my habits and my will keep letting me down. sigh) Much respect to the man for trying to turn around Britain's institutionalised school lunch system. He proved that good food can be made for the same budget as the mush and crap being fed to kids there.

Children everywhere are getting more access to sweets and non-nutritious food such that obesity, diabetes and poor health are becoming common in children everywhere. Jamie Oliver inteviewed a doctor who said that he was seeing more and more kids with constipation, caused by lack of fibre in their diet. All they eat is that deep-fried eraser food commonly known as nuggets, and chips. They don't eat fruit or vegetables, in fact react violently toward the suggestion that they do.

So this doctor told the tale of the day a 5 or 6 year old came in, whose faecal matter was so impacted that he was vomiting food up FROM INSIDE HIS INTESTINES. That means that because his paip dah blocking he was vomiting up his stool.

That is really gross and also I think of it as a form of abuse on the parents' behalf. What are they feeding him? They're not stuck in a third-world country, for goodness' sake! Then I realise, how time and being busy become excellent excuses to turn to nuggets and sodium and nitrate-rich products like sausages and frozen dinners.

So I have resolved to cook proper daily food for my kiddies, and if time becomes a problem, at least freeze some healthy home-cooked meals to have on hand when I'm not around or too tired or too busy or whatever excuses I come up with. After all, I chose to have them, and I knew the responsibilities I would have before they came to be, so I must!

So. Water, water, water! Fibre, fibre, fibre! And the next time you reach for that nuggy-poo. think yukky-poo coming out the wrong way...

Cheers!!

Christina