After Dr. Davis said the other night that L. plantarum may reduce some of the effects of the herbicide glyphosate (which is everywhere), I'm re-running my recipe for fermented bread and butter pickles. Pickling cucumbers naturally have L. plantarum bacteria on them, and fermenting them with some brown sugar multiplies these bacteria. (Just don't use chlorinated water to wash them.) And if you're growing your own cucumbers, avoid spraying the fruits with Bacillus thuringiensis , or Bt (leaves and vines are OK). It's unclear what effect a big dose of Bt would have on humans. Another benefit of DIY pickles: no emulsifiers like polysorbate 80, which is a common ingredient in pickles. If you have GI problems, it could be from emulsifiers. These sweet-and-sour pickles are the tastiest I've ever made. There's just a little added sugar (some of which the bacteria will consume) and turmeric that gives the pickles their bright color. Special equipment Quar...
Let me tell you about the time I stepped on a nail. It was Friday, November 20, 2015. I remember the date because it was the night before moving day, the day I spent making dozens of trips from the house to some Relocubes on an injured foot. I was walking to Walgreens when there was suddenly such a sharp pain in my foot that I started screaming. There was a thick nail sticking out of the bottom of my tennis shoe. It wouldn't budge. A couple of passers-by (in town for a wedding) came over and, thinking it looked like a screw, didn't want to pull it out. They sat with me for a long time while 911 tried to figure out where the alley between Street A and Street B along Avenue C was. I eventually got to the emergency room where they took an x-ray that showed the nail didn't hit any bones. The doctor offered to either give me anesthetic, cut off my shoe, and extract the nail, or just pull it out. "Yank it out," I said. At least I didn't need a tetanus shot, having ...