For the longest time, months? Maybe a year or more? I'd been having, along with iced coffee with heavy cream for breakfast, 1 oz, of raw "shells" (the pale white ones) sesame seeds. They're pretty "keto", I felt like they were giving me some fiber, and they were fun to munch on and tasted pretty good.
But I was getting some nasty pee. A sign of a bladder/kidney infection is darker, foul-smelling, pee. And I sure had it. I started taking d-mannose before bed when I remembered it, and a bottle of that is not cheap, on the order of $35 or so. The bad smelling / dark urine kept up, though, and I thought, OK time for an experiment.
I quit the seeds, and have been having macadamia nuts with my coffee. And the problem's cleared right up. I found a study by the NIH where they were feeding volunteers 2 oz. of the same seeds a day and noting the health effects, but the study was probably not long enough to have the same effects I experienced. Or, I have less tolerance for various reasons, maybe all the drinking I've done in the past.
It turns out sesame seeds have more oxalates that just about anything. And lots of oxalates can really fuck with your kidneys. The good news is I'd been taking a calcium supplement and calcium is needed to combine with the oxalates and get rid of at least some of them. But better is to remove the oxalates, which I have. Now my pee is 100% normal as far as I can tell.
Since access to medical care is so abysmal here, I was really starting to worry about how I'd get tested, maybe given antibiotics, for an infection. Like most Americans, medical care = "Wait until you're about to die, then go to the emergency room". But in this case, the idea of quitting the seeds to see if that changes things was a good one.
I left here at the usual time and after tossing out trash and dropping off packages at the post office, had wings and a beer (it was HOT outside!) at Whole Foods then rode over to do my study at the Starbucks on Willow and Meridian.
Bad news, there were a few scumbag looking types hanging around outside and I didn't feel good about leaving my bike out there. So I tried Gong Cha several doors down, where there was a place to lock my bike, the coffee's a little expensive but good, and it's a perfect place to study. Nice tables, good light, etc. So now I have a new favorite study place.
I rode over to the class and our regular Hebrew teacher is back. Now we're to sing the "Aleph Bet" song by Debbie Friedman at the start of every class, and another one sung by her called Oseh Shalom.
The class portion of the class was pretty interesting, lots on tzedakah. The class went into overtime when someone asked about lashon hara / lashon hatov and that could easily go another hour but I figured I was done and left, along with a couple of other people.
I got to Whole Foods at 9:30 amazingly, and got one of those little 4-packs of little bottles of wine because I'm serious about going to sleep at 1 or not much after. I got back here, washed my hair, and was probably going to do some trumpet practice when I heard someone fiddling with the door. It was Ken.
I told him it's Tuesday. "Oh well!" was his reply. He brought me a burger, fries, and my pay check so I can't complain. We talked about stuff until about 11:45 then he took off.
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