h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Sorry, that should have been statin drug, not blood pressure.

A little of what you fancy does you good.
Mix it, gin and tonic, whisky and soda, red wine,white wine, orange juice grapefruit juice, apple juice, rum and orange, bitter ale, stout, cocoa, ovaltine, sweet tea, black coffee, anything in small doses as and when you fancy it.
The advice of a friend who's a pharmacist. Treat all medicines with care, his cure all is soda water with or without a dram mine is a brandy and hot water shandy with a spoon full of sugar.
Ancient Brit just passed 87, diabetes type 2, angina, two stents and prostate cancer in remission. Happy new year.

Ooh. I'm glad you reminded me of this thread.

A few days ago I came across an interesting article.

Everyone "knows" that you can never drink alcohol while on antibiotics. I've heard that doing so either cancels the antibiotic effect, or makes one quite ill in its own right. Or maybe there was some other reason.


Well, no one should be surprised to learn that things are not that simple. With most antibiotics, you CAN drink alcohol. Sure, you're probably not doing your recovery any good, but there isn't any specific contraindication. There are a few specific antibiotics with which the rule does stand. If you're suffering from giardia or intestinal worms, yeah, stay sober. A few others can cause liver damage with alcohol (or increase it).

The prohibition of alcohol with antibiotics may have arisen back in the early days of penicillin from the (well founded) belief that sufferers of VD/STD/STIs taking early antibiotics might be more likely to be sexually active while drinking and further spread the disease.

http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/monday-s-medical-myth-you-can-t-mix-antibiotics-alcohol

Thanks for that, AB and BG
My youngest sister told me the other day that she has become crazy with pomegranates and pomegranate juice. I told her how as little as one deciliter of grapefruit juice could interact with assorted drugs for more than 24 hours and told her to check if there might be similar problems with pomegranate. Turns out there is. But she doesn't take any of the drugs mentioned so we agreed that a pomegranate per day probably is harmless

Ah... pomegranates. One of those fruits that lends itself to myriad instructional videos and guides.

http://youtu.be/oyTRkUTtgic

http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/how_to_cut_and_de_seed_a_pomegranate/

I'll send them to my sister

I never take pomes for granite.

Everything in moderation. But sometimes even moderate doses are too much if you have certain conditions, take certain medications or are in certain cirsumstances.

I'm not saying this goes for green tea as such, but I believe many will be surprised by the following:

In the link below it says: "Green tea ... contain ... substances that can trigger side effects and interact with other herbs, supplements, or medications..."

"In particular, pregnant or breastfeeding women, those with heart problems or high blood pressure, kidney or liver problems, stomach ulcers, or anxiety disorders should not take green tea supplements or extracts."

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/269538.php

Supplements and extracts are usually far more concentrated than anything you would get in actual foods. Fish oil supplements? Why bother when eating fish is so much more enjoyable? Cherry juice? But I enjoy eating actual cherries. Granted, vanilla extract is more convenient than grinding vanilla beans....

I remember the 1960s, when science fiction books and TV shows showed a world in which you didn't have to eat; just pop some pills. That would not be progress, in my opinion. People still eat food, thank goodness.

Not everyone...

http://www.soylent.me/

Be wary of the green

F S

Soylent is probably a very good idea for people in certain circumstances, but of course I agree with paulh: There is so much more to food than just getting what your body needs. and anyone?

My daughter is leaving for Kenya on Friday. She will be studying the nutritional values of insects such as grasshoppers, crickets, termites and the like. Africans, Southeast Asians and other people have used insects as a valuable protein supply for eons, but we may be able to use a lot more of them and save a lot of people from starvation. I have eaten some of her homemade cricket cookies and they were fine

I think I may have some recipes for tofu and lentils. I grew soybeans one summer. Got a reasonable crop, but the Japanese beetles chewed a lot of holes in the leaves. I might grow lentils some year.

If you can grow your own soy and lentil crops, why wouldn't you be able to make your own soylent? It would be more than just getting nutrition; you'd be able to grow these crops in poor soil, knowing that the nitrogen-fixing bacteria would enrich the soil, so you could grow more demanding crops the next time.

I realize that scientists re not monolithic group, but still I wonder why some of them are trying to protect the environment while others are working for companies that profit from persuading people to stop growing things and buy products instead. You don't appreciate what the soil and sun and rain do for you until you grow things yourself.

I hadn't connected the name "Soylent" to soy and lentils, just people.


Tasty, tasty people.

There was a movie by that title, set in a post-apocalyptic world where the soil was presumably ruined and food was scarce. But, yes, people were disappearing and it was rumored that bits of them were turning up in then food supply .

http://youtu.be/xECUrlnXCqk

Oh and the register had to try it when it came out
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/06/18/soylent_experiment_diary/

Paul
You mean this one...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070723/

In Denmark they gave it the title "Fremtidens Rædsel" which translates back into something like "The Horror of Tomorror"

Yes, that's the one, BB.

In the days when that movie came out, I was a practicing vegetarian. I don't think I ever combined lentils with soybeans, but I loved a stew that contained tofu and peanuts .

Right now I have a big pot of lentil stew with sausages simmering on the stove. I'm no longer a vegetarian, but I get as wide a variety of vegetables as possible.

I gave up vegetarianism mainly because getting enough protein often meant eating more soybeans than my digestive system could stand. Soy is one of the leading allergens. Most other beans are okay for me, though. Split peas are a problem. I don't like lima beans.

I was told to drink cranberry juice for my gout. Of course I googled the words 'cranberry' 'juice' and 'interaction'. This is the first of 271.000 results:

http://www.rxlist.com/cranberry-page3/supplements.htm#Interactions