What’s the Problem with Poo?
One of the biggest anecdotal observations that I have had since changing my diet and lowering my carbohydrate intake has been my pooing habits. You know … what comes out the other end of my digestive tract after it goes on the journey from the original entry point through the whole digestive process.
Isn’t it hilarious that it’s one of those rare things that all living 2 and 4 legged creatures have in common and there is still a huge stigma attached to discussing it. The need to excrete the waste material after we’ve used the nutrients and micro-nutrients to supply energy and materials to rebuild our bodies and get things done .… the simple yet necessary act of shitting.
There’s even the controversial artwork at MONA in Tasmania, people queue to see it. But that’s art and it sort of makes it OK.
Tasmania’s Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) is home to Cloaca Professional — also known as the poo machine (that’s a picture of it at the start of this post)..
The large assembly of hanging vessels connected by tubes is the work of Belgian conceptual artist Wim Delvoye, which was unveiled at MONA’s Berriedale location, north of Hobart, in 2010.
Specially commissioned by MONA’s founder David Walsh, Cloaca replicates the gastroenterological journey food takes, beginning at mastication and ending several hours later in defecation, complete with the authentic smell.
Having now addressed the taboo subject of shit I can more easily and diplomatically talk about my own habits. Past and present.
What comes out the other end of my digestive system now seems to be far more “appropriate” than what came out two years ago.
There’s so much information available about the microbiome now and it’s a subject that I need to spend some time and effort studying and understanding.
The microbiome is defined as the collective genomes of the microbes (composed of bacteria, bacteriophage, fungi, protozoa and viruses) that live inside and on the human body. Apparently we have about 100 times more foreign bacteria and viruses hitching a ride in and on our bodies than our own cells. These hitchhikers have a huge influence on how our bodies, bowel and immune systems function and consequently how we feel.
So before I get too verbose about something I know very little about I just want to say that based on my observations alone since I have been doing a ketogenic diet and since my body has become “fat adapted” my shit is a lot closer to what I would expect waste material to be like.
As gross as this might be and as much as I probably will become a social pariah for writing about my bowels I think that realistically it is quite an important subject and the more that we face up to what comes out the other end the more chance we have of being healthier.
As I’ve said before … you’ve got to face up to things/problems/situations and actually take an honest look at them before you can then take steps to remedy whatever needs fixing.
Over the years I have done some crazy things that seemed to make sense when I was doing them but I’m not so certain anymore. The first big detox that I did directly related with my bowels was a program that I did in early 1996. It involved bentonite and lots of different powders and tablets. For the life of me I can’t remember the name right now (Got it. Arise and Shine) but I did it pretty thoroughly and ended with a week of juice fasting. The idea was to get the built up plaque out of the intestines. It seemed to have good results. Soon after I started doing colonics. I made it a bit easier by offering to do lots of framing for the business “Colon Care Clinic” so there wasn’t any actual financial outlay. I kept this up for many years on and off. I’m not certain whether colonics are the way to go but once again at the time I was doing them they seemed pretty cool. In the same period I started doing coffee enemas. These were pretty weird. The idea is to get enough coffee in and hold it long enough to flush out the gunk from the liver. Something happened because there were times when all of this grain like gelatinous stuff came out. Who knows whether what I was doing was harmful, helpful or harmless. It just seemed that while smelly, dark stuff was coming out that I must be doing something that helped.
The problem was that I didn’t always replace the intestinal flora so god knows what was happening to my microbiome. The whole enema/colonic thing was based on a series of books by a guy named Norman Walker.
More to come……
