~ the reluctant herbalist

Although I think of myself as a staunch rationalist, some of the things I do don’t quite fit the picture. For starters, I’ve always been addicted to the emotional thrill one gets from certain moments in sport, film, music and politics...

Yesterday morning I was walking around carrying dream-like expectations in my heart. Could America again be something other than a villain? With Obama in the van, it seems possible. But on what am I judging that? Probably some propaganda spillage. Media bullets aimed at wavering voters in marginal American states which hit me instead. Yet I was certainly not the only one ... And this morning the US seems like a wholly different land.

Sometimes I just take it on trust and hope and faith. Because it’s so important that I mollycoddle my liver, my ears are open to tall tales of herbs that can protect or nourish it. Or even ‘aid in the secretion of bile’.

Western medicine recognises these substances, but rarely recommends them. You are left relying on the wisdom of the naturopathy industry which is veined with homeopathy, witchcraft, Ayurvedic, Chinese and Thelemic medicines, and a whole lot of other things which, though interesting, aren’t strictly evidence based science, and which provide green fields for mountebanks and quacksalvers.

Never mind, I’ve decided to trust Microgenics. I’m fairly certain what they sell is actually Milk Thistle. And they’re one of the few companies that supply the high dosages used in clinical trials. The medical establishment does take the active ingredient, silibinin, seriously. After all, House even mentioned it once, (albeit at a moment of desperation). And a company in Belgium has created an injectable form, (primarily to treat poisoning by Death Cap toadstools).

Turmeric with its active ingredient curcumin is something no one’s going to make a lot of money on – somewhat like aspirin - so perhaps that makes it a good safe bet, as unpleasant as it is to ingest. Currently, I’m mixing 2 measured grams with a teaspoon of marmalade to form a semi-edible bolus. Curcumin is said to dissolve amyloid protein deposits in the brain. This, apparently, is why Indians have far less Alzheimer’s. It’s also supposed to be good for the liver, but at least one naturopath has told me this is ‘because of the colour’. I’ll have it just for the brain thing, thanks.

Shisandra, the five-flavoured-fruit, is the latest addition to my regimen. It’s an ancient Chinese herb with a good safety record. It’s easy to find as part of a liver tonic, but not in a discrete form. I’m getting mine from a Chinese herbalist in Springvale. Wikipedia speaks of studies done in China which suggest benefits for sufferers of chronic hepatitis. Should one trust studies done in China, after the hair-sauce thing? I don’t know, but this herb is really delicious as a tea. Something like rosehip.

After watching a recent episode of Sixty Minutes, I’ve started buying a trans-resveratrol formulation. Now this is a very good money maker, as it’s showing marked life prolonging properties in laboratory mice. Only problem is the dosage. T-resveratrol is made from red grape skin. My current daily dose is equivalent to 6 bottles of red wine. The dose that helped the mice was a massive fifteen hundred bottles of red wine.

I also consume dandelion, goji berries, artichoke tea and probably others I can’t recall just now. I spend a fair amount of time on what is ultimately an act of faith. You swallow this pill or drink the tea and then what? It all melts and joins the complex digestive soup in your stomach. Certain molecules shear off and work their certain magic in a biomechanical operation of mind-boggling intricacy. Without vast scientific expertise, how can you really know what's going on?

I’ve no idea whether I’m feeling better as a result. I am feeling good, but that could be the exercise, or the almost-vegetarianism, or the near-total exclusion of alcohol. I’d hate to think I was being taken for a ride. Especially someone as rational as I. But then a sense of looming mortality can lead you in directions you might otherwise not take.

~ hair sauce

I remember little about Camberwell market. I was too tired. But I did come away with a wad of small denomination bills, a jacket heavy with coin, and far fewer books. No sign of the recession biting.

Polly, whose mother blanched at the idea of rising earlier than six o’clock, set up her own micro-stall, selling small shoes and videos. She made a few dollars too, but I was particularly intrigued by an obvious growth of her interest in commerce. With the prospect of a pay-off, any shyness evaporated, and she was happy to sit right up the front, hawking her wares with a combination of cuteness and rock bottom prices.

Countless times, I’ve tried to get her on stage in front of an audience, but failed. Perhaps I should have been offering a fee? I’m going to attempt to do a stall at Oakleigh market in a couple of weeks and this time I’ll set Polly up properly. My neighbouring stallholder at Camberwell – who was very impressed at Polly’s mercantile skills - suggested baking bread and getting her to sell it. Perhaps biscuits will do. Or chocolate crackles ...

With perfect timing, Barack Obama’s grandmother has just died. There was a sound bite from him on the radio this morning, culled from one of his speeches. He was speaking of his grandmother, who had a large hand in raising him. “She poured everything she had into me.”

I immediately felt inadequate as a parent. But, I guess, so would any other parent.

Again on the radio: a news item on the melamine milk-poisoning scandal. Apparently, in China, there are many other incidences of food substitution by greedy manufacturers. The reporter reeled off a list. What stuck in my mind was ‘soy sauce made from human hair’.

Could this truly be? I did some googling and found what was clearly the text I had heard broadcasted ...

‘They've found meat filled with hormones, eggs containing poisonous paint, soy sauce made out of human hair ...’

Are unscrupulous operators setting up deals with hairdressers? Sending their trucks on weekly hair pickups? Like the biodiesel freaks who buy used oil from fish and chip shops. [note: instant noodles are said to be fried with pre-loved oil sourced from hotels and restaurants]

Do impoverished families, with no other option, surrender their hair to the soy sauce people for a few measly yuan? In what system can human hair be a cheap substitute for soy beans? Or does it add a certain texture, colour or odour? Is there anything wrong with using it? I believe hair contains a fair amount of protein. Or is it just cannibalism?

And the process? What do they actually do to the hair to turn it into sauce? What’s the recipe? Is there a purpose built machine? A hairdresser once told me that by the end of the week the hair-bin at her salon was always very full, and if you burrowed right down to the bottom you would find that the oldest hair had begun to liquefy. Perhaps this is a clue ...

Investigating further, I learnt, on a particularly breathless site, that soy sauce was also made from blood clots and animal bones. I began to feel sick. Whatever the truth of it all, I think I’ll buy a better class of soy sauce from this time on.

PS: Interestingly, this site also speaks of ‘toxic fungi processed with trashed fungus products and soaked with ink’, ‘toxic shredded meat made from dead pigs and processed with bad bread crumbs,’ and ‘toxic duck blood made from cheap pig blood.’

The Grey Creek

I am doing all the right things; I am taking long walks along the Grey Creek; I am swallowing fish oil and regulating my intake of red wine; daily, I vitamize many wholesome ingredients into a nutritious drink - yet the workings of my mind remain sluggish and without direction.

In nine days time I am performing the role of Prospero in a production of The Tempest and I have a massive quantity of lines, few of which I have by heart. As quickly as I learn them, my mind releases them. It's like handling a slimy fish. There's no traction there. Yet, learn them I must. I cannot disappoint Lynne, the director, nor the others involved. No matter that it is a small student production. No matter that its standards are not quite professional and that there's no payment. I must yet prevail. I urge myself with the image of my wonderful costume - the shimmering silver jumpsuit, the towering silver boots... I shall be the cynosure! All shall cower at my majesty!

So, as I follow the meanderings of the Grey Creek, I mumble to myself, concentrating on my task. The creek exists in the buffer zone between a howling motorway and the dormitory suburb of Mt Waverley. I have known this creek all my life. I knew it before it was landscaped, formed into wetlands and filtration ponds, before it hosted at least five species of water-birds. When I was a child it was a pungent sudsy vein transporting vile substances through poisoned quagmires, bestrewn with blackberries and rusted machinery, to the Yarra and thence to the Bay. When I dream of the Grey Creek and its surrounds, they are always in this original state.

Soon, my wife will be home and I must show, not only strength, but compassion. She has been labouring desperately against the Spores, and has found the will to form a battle plan. It is a poor one, I think, for it relies on strengths I doubt she has - but some independent will remains and that is something to be thankful for. I'll wind up fifty and looking like one of your old girlfriends, she said today. A wise observance. Many of my dearest friends, both male and female, have been slowly mutilated in long and strenuous conflict with the Deadly Spores. The Spores treat their enemies and their slaves with an equal lack of pity - and it is not just the flesh they sour ...

>As with age their bodies uglier grow, so their minds canker ...

Then there are those who will never live to suffer old age.