❧
There is no real good reason why I haven't written today. I've sort of been confused, maybe addled. Yesterday I spent researching an idea I gained by reading about gut bacteria. Even before my brother sent me a link to read about the latest finding I had seen the headlines.:
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/04/gut-bacteria-types/
This article claims there are three basic types of humans when it comes to gut bacteria. The article is not that clear about how to tell what type you are. As usual they claim there is much more research to be done before any general conclusions can be reached. To me, it seems like what the people who research gut bacteria are saying is that when we eat, the main purpose of choosing what foods we eat are to feed the bacteria in out gut linings. Typing "gut bacteria" into Google will provide you with lots of reading if you're interested. I'm interested.
I've written a little about probiotics ere now. Probiotics is about those friendly bacteria that live in our intestines. I've been using probiotics for a month or better now on a regular, daily basis, and I've seen some good results and some results that weren't so good. The not so good results drove me to research probiotics even more.
The reading I have done on probiotics lead me around to the term "prebiotics". Prebiotics is about products that help friendly bacteria multiply and crowd out the unfriendly bacteria that can cause lots of problems, including autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis and diabetes and lots of other unpleasant ailments.
One of those products that help the friendly bacteria prevail is a substance call inulin. Reading about the positive benefits of inulin made me wanna get hold of some. I definitely wanna support the growth and well being of the friendly bacteria. Naturally, I turned to Googling up the term, and then to find out where I could buy some inulin for my own use.
This desire to acquire some inulin had me driving over to the health food and vitamin shoppes in Fayetteville. I found one container of inulin with the brand name Now. I have used Now products for a while. I kind of trust the brand, but the health food store only had one bottle of it that costs me $10.26 with tax. A franchise called The Vitamin Shoppe had some inulin, but it was their own brand and I didn't trust it because it didn't say what it was made from, so I came back home.
Once I got home I got back on the internet and started researching again to see what I could come up with. When I did another search on "inulin" the name Metamucil came up a couple of times. I ignored it at first because I already knew that Metamucil was made from psillum husk or the inside white pulpy stuff inside of citrus fruit.
I got tired of trying to find what I wanted, that is, I wanted inulin made from either chicory root or from the roots of Jerusalem artichokes. I ran into the name Metamucil again, and since I couldn't find what I was looking for I decided to check the link out.
What I found out was that Metamucil made another type of diet aid that did not come from citrus pulp. They made another product called Clear and Clean. When I checked out the ingredients I was delighted to find out it was generated from pure chicory roots, and was considerably cheaper than the inulin I bought at the health food store that was made from artichoke roots and other plants.
I immediately got up and drove to Wal-Mart SuperCenter a couple of miles away not two miles from home. Damn, I wasted a lot of money and time by not connecting to that Metamucil link the first time before I drove a hundred mile round trip to Fayetteville. It was the pure stuff I wanted in the first place.
The thing about chicory root inulin is that it isn't digested in either the stomach or in the small intestine, but it is digested by the biofidobacteria in the large intestines and the colon where it does the most good.
The probiotics with the billions of the various friendly bacteria in them are enteric coated with stuff to get them past the stomach acids and being destroyed in the small intestines, but the chicory root inulin doesn't need any protection to get to the large intestines and colon to feed the friendly bacteria.
I'm very pleased to find a source of inulin that I can buy locally from a company like Metamucil that has high standards. I still have to go out of my way to buy probiotic capsules, but if that proves difficult I can at least feed the existent friendly bacteria that's found a home in my body.
❦
I do not attempt to tell the God's own truth here because I don't know what the truth is or hardly ever. I try to capture the drifting thoughts that randomly appear in my imagination for reasons I may not understand. I don't know if the content I capture with these words is true or false. The Comments settings are turned off to prevent me from having to defend what amounts to little more than fanciful, sometime crude speculation. Great moments in our lives never return.
