The other day we watched an episode of Two and a Half Men when Jake, the 11 year old kid in the show, has been grumpy all week long. His parents keep asking him if there is anything wrong, and even his ‘cool’ uncle Charlie has a go at trying to get him to open up. Assuming it’s a reaction to his parents’ divorce his mother books him an appointment with a child psychologist. The housekeeper suggests what’s really wrong with him, but her idea is waved away and so Jake is dragged off to the shrink. Even she can’t get him to open up about anything, and Jake’s family get increasingly worried about the little chap, especially when he asks to go to bed at seven that evening.

The next morning, however, Jake bounces into the kitchen back to his chirpy self. He grabs himself his usual bowl of ‘wonderfully nutritious’ (not!) maple loops, sloshes on some milk (ahem!) and bounces out of the kitchen again leaving his dad and uncle with questioning looks on their faces. Then the housekeeper tells them that she paid Jake a visit before he went to sleep and gave him a bottle of prune juice. “I told you” she said “ He was just constipated. And what do you expect, all you feed him is pizza and pancakes!?”

So all that Jake needed was a nice relaxing poo! So simple! But I wonder how many people just laughed at the story line and left it at that, as a bit of light comedy relief from the day’s grind, or if many actually reflected on the situation. How insane is it that people – and I know this is not limited to sit-com characters – will send themselves or their kids off to a shrink or a medicine pushing doctor before even considering something as basic yet so crucial as the link between what we put in our body (food, drink etc) and what comes out (energy, emotions, poo!). And we can’t leave it up to the ‘professionals’ to figure it out. Doctors have a frighteningly small amount of hours dedicated to nutrition during their degree.

Fear not, I am not about to digress into another blog about “number twos”. I have already done that and there are plenty of other people out there informing us of the perfect poo and celebrating with a Facebook update or tweet when they have produced such a perfectly formed plop.

But what I do want to convey is that I am constantly fascinated by the effects that food can have on our bodies and our moods. Several studies have shown, for example, that improving the diet of prison inmates and ‘problem kids’ have improved behavioral disorders. So imagine what it can do for you, or your kids, or loved ones who are perhaps struggling through the day, are constantly tired or just swing from mood to mood.

I have recently started a course in Vegetarian and Vegan Nutrition Consultancy and while I was buying some of the books on the reading list, and I decided it was time to order Gabriel Cousens’ books Conscious Eating and ‘Depression-Free for Life. ‘Conscious Eating’ is based on Dr Cousens’ 30 years of research into the “art, science, and practice of optimum nutrition” and ‘Depression Free for Life’ shows how to heal depression without the use of drugs but instead using mood-boosting substances (sounds almost a bit dodgy!), vitamin and mineral supplements, and a mood-boosting diet and lifestyle. I haven’t had enough time for more than a flick through these books – the former being over 800 pages long! – but they look that they are going to be a seriously fascinating and useful read.

The reading that I have been doing for the course is deepening my knowledge of the vegan diet and re-fueling my passion for promoting plant-based food for a healthy and happy life. We often read of the vegan diet as ‘beneficial’ to our lives, but based on the facts that I have been reading I now consider the vegan diet to be crucial for a healthy and happy life.

I am so excited that the food I create is really life supporting and not just kick-ass tasty! How could I possibly serve you up a collection of recipes using ingredients that toxify your body, cause cancer, heart disease, diabetes, stroke, obesity etc etc etc etc? I love and respect you more than that and I would feel that I would be doing my fellow humans a sincere disservice by offering them anything less.

The Perky Lime Pie (raw and vegan) that I perfected today is an excellent example. So tasty; rich yet refreshing, and bursting with goodness. It’s made with….whoops, nearly revealed my secrets. You are going to have to wait for the book to find out. Sorry, I know I am a dreadful tease!

So now I have gotten you all worked up, here are some sexy facts for you to think about:

Interesting Facts – Diabetes:

Fact 1:
Studies carried out in Finland and Canada show a strong link between childhood-onset (type 1) diabetes and the consumption of cow-milk protein
(Source: Food for Life, Dr Neal Barnard, NY, Three Rivers Press, 1993)

Fact 2:
A raw vegan diet can reverse diabetes!* Check out this amazing film that documents the journeys of 6 diabetics who go raw for 30 days and remove their need for insulin: Raw for 30 Days
*“The program featured in the film at the Tree of Life Rejuvination Center is most effective with diabetes type 2 but is also very effective at increasing quality of life and reducing insulin levels for diabetes type 1 “

Image: Piku

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A few weeks ago I shared with you the tale of our blocked toilet. If you have not yet read this piece of life-altering material than you can find it here.

The blockage is now thankfully clear but shortly after we had fixed the problem an emotional block that I was experiencing cleared too. I have read that emotional issues can be manifested in seemingly unrelated physical occurrences. For example your front door may be difficult to open, representing a problem that you have with ‘letting people in’ and making yourself vulnerable and open to other people. I am wondering if this is what had happened to me.

About the time that our toilet problem started to occur (which was several weeks before it became completely apparent) I had come up against some problems of a technical and practical nature in the setting up of my venture www.miss-best.com . It was a bit of a stinker at first (much like the first signs of our toilet issue) but I didn’t think it was going to be much of a problem. Well, it needn’t have been if I had just gotten on and tried to resolve it as soon as possible, but I sort of sat on it for a while (the problem, not the toilet!). I knew it would have to be dealt with eventually, but the more days that passed, the more of a block it had mentally created for me until about the time of the peak of the toilet blockage when I really felt I had ground to a halt. This had prompted me to question my ideas, my ability, commitment and enthusiasm to a point that it made me want to give up on the whole idea and go and work for McDonalds. Well, not really…I would never be that desperate. I would rather work as a go-go dancer than for that company. That place is the antithesis of my planned venture. I am hoping to inspire people to live a joyful and fulfilled life and to reach good health. I hope to promote earth, animal, body and soul friendly food and to choose respect over profit.

Anyway, having almost giving up on my planned projects, one can say it left me with a sense of lacking purpose. But it took me a while to figure that out, and in the meantime I was going around with a confused question mark above my head. I knew something was up, so I decided to award myself a ‘free day’ to try and heal and figure out what was going on. So, on that day, instead of plowing on lovelessly with practical things, I stayed in bed.

I woke up without an alarm clock, trotted downstairs and made myself a yummy and healthy breakfast and a big pot of tea, and went back to bed where I allowed my thoughts to wonder freely as I stared at the ceiling, propped against a comfy cushion with a pile of books and notepads at my side. I wasn’t cured of my blockage immediately, but it treated my inner self to a restful day. A day that I prize more than a stay at a 5 star spa. (Why do we only allow ourselves to linger in bed when we are ill and not able to enjoy the experience as fully as we would do were we not coughing and sneezing or nursing a pounding head? It really is such a restorative and healing thing to do for ourselves – you should ask for a day in bed for your next birthday/anniversary/Mother’s day present. Find a nice distraction/minder for your little ones, turn off the phone, resist plugging in online, make a pot of tea/jug of juice or smoothie and just delight in your duvet enshrined paradise.)

But a couple of days ago, for no apparent reason, I felt inside of me an unblockage (and not in the bowel department either!) I suddenly saw my projects with rested eyes, and realised the potential that I have to create the life that I want to lead.

Since then I have resolved the initial problem that initiated this little diversion of mine which then opened up a new phase in my start-up plan. The seeds that I had sown have started to grow a little. Well, you can after all grow pretty flowers from a pile of shit. There I go again, I think I am getting a bit obsessed with toilets. Wonder what that is a sign of?

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Apologies for the rather tabloid-like play on words. In fact during the past few days it seems that most people we have spoken to have managed to come up with some amusing toilet humour. It’s not that we have suddenly starting hanging out with a bunch of Viz readers (http://www.viz.co.uk/) or anything it’s just that we have had a – shall we say – less-than-fully-functional toilet for a short while.

All of Christoffer’s colleagues all know about it; the guy at the hardware store who sold me some unblocking tools knows about it – ‘Skitkul’ was his gleeful reply to my problem; the guy who we bought from the house knows about it; and now you, dear Reader, know about it. (Am sure my translator friend would come up with a good English equivalent for the Swedish ‘Skitkul’, but I have a pot of green chai to drink and so will have to leave you with a literal translation of ‘Shit fun’. ‘Skit’ is often used in Swedish where us Brits might use the word ‘Bloody’ like ’skitbra’ meaning ‘bloody good’ or in this case ’skitkul’ meaning ‘bloody fun’.)

It all started last week when I noticed a strange flapping sound coming from the toilet. The next day things weren’t disappearing as quickly as they should, and soon after began our five-day long battle of the bog. (For the benefit of those of you not familiar with the British vernacular, ‘bog’ is a rather inelegant word for ‘toilet’!)

Day 1: We started with buckets of water, and random stabbing with the toilet brush. We couldn’t see anything that was blocking it, and things would gradually flush away, but our ’special thinking seat’ certainly wasn’t working like it should do.

Day 2: Christoffer bought a plunger. Then Christoffer needed a shower. No luck.

Day 3: Christoffer found a number of a local plumber, but I didn’t want to book one until we had had a proper go at resolving it ourselves, for financial reasons as well as wanting to save face. I mean how silly does it feel to call a plumber to poke around in the household poopments when one can have the pleasure of doing that oneself?

I had a go with the plunger and quickly found out why C had needed to shower afterwards. I rummaged around the house and created myself a ‘plunging mask’ consisting of a pair of workshop protective goggles and an old vest top that I used as a bandanna to protect my mouth from…well, you get the picture!

No luck. Another evening of tentative toilet trips, multiple flushings and prayers to the Bog God.

Day 4: Determined to fix the problem without the need of a plumber, I went to a hardware store near work and came back with a 7m wire thingy, and a can of ‘environmentally friendly expanding gas drain cleaner’. I also tried to call the previous owners for advice in case it was the septic tank, but I couldn’t get through to them.

No luck with my new fancy gadgets, though I did learn a handy trick from the internet. When plunging, cover the toilet in a large plastic dustbin bag…didn’t unblock the toilet, but it did save me from an icky shower!

Day 5: Finally get hold of previous owners. We check the septic tank…looking a bit damp around the extraction pipe…good sign that it should have been emptied – oh about a month ago!!!

Call the kind folks who dedicate their days to driving out in a big truck to suck clean the giant poo tanks of us country dwellers. An emergency call-out would cost 4.000 SEK (approx. £300 / $500 / 370 euro) but if one was to come within 24 hours it would ‘only’ cost about a third of that. If you book one in time so they can come within 5 days, the price sinks to a less depressing figure.

1.500 SEK to empty our septic tank!! Shit! When you work part-time there are not a lot of pennies left over for such ‘fun luxuries’ as spending 1.500 SEK on getting your poo removed. But they had the upper hand, and there was not much we could do about it, except learn from the experience and realize that the previous owners’ estimate of emptying the tank once every 3 months (we have lived here just 2 months) only applies to households of people who don’t eat quite as much fiber as we do.

A friend confided in me that before he turned veggie he would only poop about twice a week. Now he visits the little boys room twice a day! If most other people go around with 3 days worth of food (mainly meat and processed cereals) rotting in their bowels no wonder there are a lot of glum faces around!

Anyway, between us and our fellow ‘regular’ guests we managed to fill up the tank pretty quickly, and even if the regular price of emptying the tank is around a third of the price we had to pay then we would still be paying rather a lot every year for, let’s face it, nothing but shit.

So out came the calculator. And what followed was a rather ‘interesting’ conversation. Christoffer calculated the volume of the septic tank, estimated the amount of water per flush and the cost per toilet visit and cooly gave us a ration of 4 flushes a day each.

Horror!

‘Why, how many times a day do you poo’? he asked.

Horror!

Now that I have already shared so much personal information about our toilet, I may as well share with you the fact that I am a little toilet shy. Some couples are quite comfortable peeing in front of each other. Not us! Or rather, not me. We have been together for nearly 7 years, and I still maintain that some things need not be shared.

And number two’s?? Well since I am a fairy princess from Planet Avocado I expel my waste products through my leaves that I cleverly hide under all my hair and don’t ‘do number two’s’…

… so this question left me with the beginnings of what could have turned into a fit of hysterical nervous laughter.

God! 4 flushes day!?? I am fine about ‘letting it mellow if it’s yellow’, but let’s say for arguments sake, that I was a mortal human and do pass the occasional solid, would 4 flushes a day cover it? And what happens when we have guests? Whose rations do they get? Do I start having to find friends and families with lazy bowels? How do I find that out – issue a poo questionnaire? I could see it in front of me: ‘You are invited to a party at Miss Best’s house – but only if you don’t intend on having a poo while you are there’. Or do we start charging them per flush? Make them go in the garden or the forest??

Horror!

And we were still going to have to wait 24 hours before the tank was emptied. Rations or no rations, we had agreed not to flush again until it was emptied to save any more toilet water overflowing in to our beautiful garden. When you know you can’t flush the loo, that’s when your body starts to mess with you. ‘Ha ha, Miss Best…remember all that fruit you ate this morning, it’s got to come out some time…’ ‘Is that a poop, or just a bit of wind lurking? Well whatever it is, do you dare try and find out?’…

Horror!

And so I went to bed and dreamed of blocked toilets and laughing neighbours, and pipes and drains.

But joy! At 9.30 this morning a truck pulled into our driveway, and I had to stop my self from running downstairs and covering this hero of bowel relief in grateful kisses. Fifteen minutes later I was happily wasting 25% of my daily flush ration to test if the toilet was back in business. And it was! All is good again.

So life in Miss Best’s home is back to normal. Well, apart from the fact that we still have to work around our flush rations. Maybe it’s time to get eco (and wallet) friendly and switch to a compost toilet. Then we can have the pleasure of dealing with our own shit. And we and our guests can poop all day long if we so fancy.

Oh, by the way, if one of my neighbours ever tells you that they saw me sneak in to the forest at 7.30 this morning, with crazy bed hair and a pair of blue flowery wellie boots and a pocket full of tissue, then you know that they are just talking crap.

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