Being hollowed out

The truth/lie about stomached ulcers.

Being a retired person, one has time to enjoy life’s experiences, whether they be work or family related.

This morning, while pondering over my possible last fatty breakfast of coffee, bacon, eggs and buttered toast, my mind examined every tasty mouth full of food. I chewed every morsel of bacon, egg and toast until it became fluid, in order to extract each and every flavoring particle for the absorption by my taste buds.

I am not sure if I will be able to enjoy the nice crispy bacon fat mixed with the yoke of the nicely fried egg again.
It tasted like the best breakfast I ever had.

My mouth welcomed it, my esophagus carried it happily to my stomach and my gallbladder said: 'let’s get to work breaking this fat load down while we can'.

Every part of my anatomy was happy and the last remnants of the tasty breakfast still linger in my mouth.

So why all this fuss over a little breakfast? Why this post?

As from now I am on a diet of clear fluids prior to gastroscopy and colonoscopy procedures tomorrow morning.

Tomorrow a little camera will be passed into my stomach and bowel to exclude any nasties, like cancer or polyps, prior to removing my gallbladder, which is believed to be the cause of the chest pains that feel like heart attacks, which I have been having...

Personally I think they have the ‘kat by die stert beet’ but then that may be one of those labels the doctors put on patients who do not want to accept their medical conditions. That label called 'denial'.

Just last week I had another imaginary label stuck to my forehead, by my GP, when I described my gastric and chest discomfort. That one was called ‘Hypochondria’.

A nice name for a baby: Imagine saying ‘Hypochondria go and do your school work’

My name is no longer ‘Hypochondria’ because I now suffer from a

‘delayed bile flow condition’ due to a gall-stone. So they say.

So I have a little gall-stone. So what? It is mine, it does not necessary need to be removed, so I redekavel. Surely if my gall-bladder was so troublesome, why can I enjoy this large breakfast of bacon and eggs so much?

The surgeons of today are far too eager to chop people’s body parts out because they feel it is not essential to health.
They think God created people full of needless spare parts, it seems.

I think it is man who is unable to understand the full glory of God’s creation. One day, perhaps we will understand just how vitally important each and every organ in the body is and aim to preserve, or replace it, rather than ‘chop it out’.

I was fifty when they chopped my uterus and ovaries out, pushing me into menopause overnight.
I was told that it was better to remove it because it would cause problems later in life.
(The removal of the ovaries was due to a surgical accident but that is another story).
The argument, at the time was that I did not need it anyway.

They possibly took my appendix out too because they believed that I did not need it either.

If they could they would remove my tonsils because ‘I do not need it’

Now the surgeons are about to remove my gallbladder because it is not necessary for health.

Soon I shall be like an empty vessel that can only make a lot of noise. (So I shall still have my tonsils – I hope)

Anyway, what this post is about is what I was thinking while I ate my last fatty breakfast. I was pondering on the mechanics of eating.

The food enters your mouth then it gets mechanically mashed by your teeth.
The more you chew your food, the less work your stomach has to do in order to break it down.
One can assume that people that chew their food well have to secrete less stomach acid.
Failing to chew food well will place a strain on the stomach which has to break those hunks of un-chewed food down chemically. (Using a strong acid)

Un-chewed food remains in the stomach longer, because an acidic chemical process is needed to make the food useable to the body.

The food beaks up in the holding-tank (stomach) and gets released in small amounts, as it digests, also causing a hold-up in the gallbladder (that has to break down the fat) and the pancreas (that breaks down the sugar and other nutrients)

Can you see how by neglecting the simple process of chewing food properly, we can have such a host of other gastric stress and congestions.

We all know that stress causes ulcers. We know the bigger the hurry, the faster we eat.
Acids can burn through the bowel linings and cause ulcers.
The shorter the time that food remains in the stomach the less chance there is of developing ulcers and indigestion.

Perhaps if stressed people can only take time to eat regular small meals and chew each mouth-full to a masticated pulp before swallowing, many stress-gastric symptoms can be avoided.

Chewing food well, from childhood, can possibly prevent obesity, stomach cancer and a host of other gastric problems in later life.

Eating and chewing with consciousness can possibly be a key to a longer life. Think about it.
It could prevent being surgically hollowed out in old age.

Perhaps parents should train their little children to chew their food, rather than delight in seeing an empty plate.

So mum, next time you hurry your little one through his plate of food, consider the surgical problems you may be training him to have later in life.



Of wat praat ek alles.

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Narrowing the gap or leveling the playing field

Are we narrowing the gap between rich and poor or leveling the playing field to dirt level.


We had to change our M-net decoder, so we decided to have breakfast at a nearby well-known chain-restaurant.

The restaurant was packed, which meant that the food was as good as it has been for decades.
We chose this particular restaurant because they make nice coffee. We also like the breakfasts they serve at a very affordable price.

The waitress took our order and brought our very hot coffee. The cups were also hot, and I wondered if they heated it up in a microwave. It was very nice, but not “second cup” nice. It was just too hot. You do not get a choice of hot or cold milk, just Xxxxx coffee. Nice Xxxxx coffee, but. I mentioned the microwave suspicion to my husband and he said “What do you expect from a Xxxxx restaurant?”


Next the waitress threw the cutlery, partially wrapped in the serviette, onto the table. No place mat or side plate, we are expected to eat from the snotty-kids-fingers' table. I picked up the knife and fork and, using the serviette, I started polishing the invisible snot from the cutlery. Then I placed my cutlery on top of the serviette. My husband watched my antics and said: “What do you expect from a Xxxxx?”

The breakfast came and it looked very tasty. I ordered, the smallest breakfast of bacon, and soft egg and toast. My husband ordered a man-sized one with his egg well done.

I waited for the side plate, butter and jam, and hoped the place mat would arrive late, but none came. When I said “Is this it?” My husband said: “What do you expect from a Xxxxx?”

We asked for marmalade and butter. It arrived with no side plate and butter-knife.
I looked at the narrow pointed steak knife I used for my breakfast. It was full of egg, so I used the second serviette that came with the butter to wipe the egg from the knife.
I was staring at it and thought it would have been so much easier to use a butter knife.
My husband looked at me and before I opened my mouth to say something, he said:
“What do you expect from a XXXXX?”

Eventually, my husband got up and asked for a butter knife. Another waitress took one from the tray and handed it to our waitress to pass it on to him. The other waitress was not going to serve someone from another table.

I looked at the snotty finger table and wished for a side plate. I said: “I don’t suppose they will bring a side plate?”
He answered: “What do you expect from a XXXXX?”

My dinner plate was a bright egg yellow so I discarded the idea to butter my toast on it.
I considered tipping the butter and jam out onto the table and using that saucer, but decided it was too small. I then spread the second serviette on the table and used it as a side plate.
As I looked up at my husband, he opened his mouth and started to say: “W ...” And I said: “Don’t say it again.”
“I do expect a side plate, butter knife, place mat and butter and jam with my toast.
Whether I pay R17 or R170 for my breakfast, that is what I expect in a sit-down restaurant. I want Spur quality service - even at a Xxxxx!”

“Is this an example of narrowing the gap or just treating everyone like pigs?” I thought.
When the waitress brought the bill I noticed for the first time how sad she looked. She looked as if she was going to burst out in tears any moment. I tried to cheer her up by saying how nice the food was, but she ignored us.

I said to my husband he must give her a nice big tip to cheer her up. We left - never to return again.

One can be so quick to judge, but we never know what is happening in the lives of those we meet in passing.

Of what praat ek alles.

16-04-2009

Are we eating Africa?

It is a scorcher today, here in Cape Town.

When I suggested to my husband that the least the conservationists in the area could do was to put monitors on duty to keep people and dogs away from the Oystercatchers, that are in their breeding season, here on our beaches. His reply was: "Wat jy waar gaan kry? "(*1) He said that the conservationists are spread too thinly and the other workers would not work over the weekends.

Perhaps we should be grateful that this is Blaauwberg and not Zimbabwe.

In Zimbabwe those little Oystercatcher eggies and chicks would have looked very inviting on the breakfast frying pan, especially if the Oystercatcher was lying next to it. People would kill for such a feast. When one's own life is endangered by starvation; Who cares about the life of a bird?

Could you imaging what would happen if the resource mismanagement strategies from Zimbabwe has a domino effect in other African nations?

If the Armageddon and a global meltdown is not upon us, could you imagine a "heaven on earth" in first world countries with the balancing factor of "hell on earth" in Africa?

Could "Die geween en die kners van tande(*2)" that the Bible predicts, run concurrently with the "Heaven on earth" which is also mentioned in the same scripture?

If we eat, tread on, and build on everything that makes Africa unique, is it possible that Africa will in the, not so distant, future, become a cesspool of disease, crime and dust with no clean water or food?

Already the symbol of the "African lion" and "the wildlife paradise in Africa" is being replaced by the image of dying babies suckling from empty breasts with flies looking for a bit of moisture in their eyes and on their dry, cracking lips.

All African leaders should study what is happening in Zimbabwe and what was the turning point for this prosperous country, and then make sure it does not happen on their own turf.

One cannot blame the first world and past inhumanities any more. We need to look at recent history and blame ourselves. The first world countries poured multi-billions into Africa and created quite a number of billionaires, but how much of that money filtered down to the people it was intended for?

The African leaders have never been so rich and the people never so poor.

Even during the days of slavery, most people had food on the table and many more ate very well.

Translation: Afrikaans to English.

*¹(Wat jy waar kry? - where would they come from?)

*²(Geween en kners van tande - Weeping and grinding of the teeth)

Most people in South Africa are bilingual and mix expressions from two or three languages in one sentence. Perhaps this is the beginning of a new South African language. A rainbow nation lingo.

National eat a dead animal day

24-Sept 2008

With the changes happening in South Africa, there is a suggestion that “National Heritage day” be changed to “National Braai day” which is “Eat an animal day”.

We are celebrating the burning of animals that have previously been killed and chopped up prior to eating them.

It is a great day for celebrations because 99.85% of all Africans have evolved beyond cannibalism.

A staggering 20% of South Africans have evolved even further because they have by choice given up the barbaric practice of eating animal flesh.

Another 30% had to evolve to that stage due to the price of meat.

While killing of animals for pleasure, is still a widespread human indulgence here at the southern point of Africa; We no longer kill people with weapons of war and leaving them on the streets to rot.

I must go now, Hubby just called, my ^* “choppy” and “wors” is on the braai.

· ^* Choppy and wors = lamb chop and beef sausage (also called “boerewors”)

· ^* Braai = BBQ = a method of cooking meat outside on hot coals or on a portable gas cooker