I am back on the Atkins (lost 15k, gained back 5k after eating like a PIG for a year) so I am reading labels a lot. Had the brain wave thought of how marijuana stays in your system for 30 days while reading about E634 and E612 (preservatives and chemicals are listed as ‘E’ numbers in Europe: E621 is monosodium glutamate) on some can of tuna. Asked myself: “Tomcat, when was the last time you were completely drug-free? What about chemical free?” (Of course I was meaning chemicals in the sense of man-made, not scientific definitions).
Wow. Probably never. My mom probably had preservatives and chemicals and anti-biotics while carrying me, and since then I am sure I have had some form of something introduced in my system ever since.
My wife likes the organic stores here. So do I, tell the truth. Even then I see some preservatives that are needed so we all don’t die of food poisoning. I wonder if I could really ever be completely ‘clean’. Sorta sky-pixie/nature/me clean. I don’t think we could anymore…fertilizers everywhere, antibiotics in everything, flavor-enhancers in stuff that tastes pretty good to start with…
To be completely clean I’d have to grow everything au-natural, live in the countryside away from ANY pollution, drink purified water and live that way long enough for everything to wash out of my body.
Realistically, the only way that’s ever going to be the case for me is if I was to do like the guy that wandered around lost in the Australian outback for a month or so. First off, there are too many things prevalent in my environment for me ever to be completely clean. Secondly, I’m not sure I consider that a problem. Tell you the truth, I kinda like some of the chemicals and drugs I ingest. Not really ready to part with my allergy medicine, some preserved foods and the glass of good wine or micro brewed ale that have become part of my self inflicted regimen.
Yes, I’m curious about how much better I’d feel and how much clearer I’d think were I to be completely “purified” . . . but not that curious.
I’m doing this full-on intestinal cleanse right now which requires me to be completely drug and chemical free. Not to mention taking obscene amounts of herbs and drinking these nasty-ass shakes multiple times a day.
Lemme tell you man, it’s no way to live. No way to live at all.
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When one thinks of coffee, one often thinks of caffeine, which, in turn, leads one’s mind to think’ drug’.
Coffee, though, is entirely natural. I’ve got a can of organic ground sitting on my shelf right now: in terms of preservatives, additives, chemicals, and bad stuff in general, it’s better for me than anything they’re serving in the cafeteria on campus. It does have caffiene in it, but that doesn’t make it bad, does it? Caffiene is an entirely naturally-occuring product, no different from, say, vitamin C. I’ve decided this is becoming a pet peeve of mine.
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I’m on medication that I’ll have to take for the rest of my life for my health and well-being, and would consider it a catastrophe to be chemical free.
You couldn’t possibly completely cleanse your body of all man-made chemicals, etc. No one on Earth can, at this point. We all carry a load of POPs*–long-lasting chemical compounds that are deposited into our body fat and that take 50 years or so to break down. DDT is one, and we all have some amount in our systems. One excellent way to begin collecting your personal load of DDT is to be breastfed as an infant, since it is transferred from mother to child through milk. (I must have a pretty large amount, since my mom, as a child, lived on Navy bases where they routinely drove trucks down the street, spraying DDT into the air. I’m also her first child, and so came in for the largest share. Now my daughters have some of it. Hooray!)
Breastmilk is still healthier than formula, mind you, and everyone has a certain amount of POPs in their system, no matter how they were fed as babies. Manmade chemical compounds are now all around us, in our soil, water, and air, and we can’t get rid of them completely, no matter how organically we live. At least, not in my lifetime.
*From “What are POPs?”:
The closest I ever came was while I was pregnant. I didn’t drink, took no over-the counter drugs (except once when I had a cold) or prescriptions, stopped caffeine, etc. I was much more conscious of what I was eating than usual and ate more ‘real’ food. I can’t say I noticed a huge difference, but anything I did experience was likely written off as a side effect of fluctuating hormones anyway.
Until labor, that is, when I was pumped full of all kinds of stuff
True. The difference is that opium has undebatable side-effects and often, in it’s processed forms (don’t know about ‘naturally’) is hugely addictive, to the point where quitting cold-turkey can be life threatening.
Now, having tried several times to give up caffiene, I can attest that quitting coffee can feel life-threatening, but AFAIK, caffiene has exactly zero health/life-threatening side effects (barring the possibility of, say, swallowing a bottleful of No-Doz or something).
Caffiene gets a irrational bad rep, all I’m sayin’.
