Have you ever eaten red kidney beans?

Have you ever eaten red kidney beans? - I did once, many years ago. - My goodness, they made me so ill! - Diarrhoea and abdominal pain. I pretty well took up residence in the toilet for about 24 hours! - I had no idea food poisoning from a vegetable could be so bad! I hadn't known that red kidney beans contain the toxic agent Phytohaemagglutinin (PHA) which causes food poisoning when the beans are consumed raw or undercooked.

Too late I learnt that these red beans should be soaked in water for at least 5 hours during which the water should be replaced periodically, then poured away and the beans boiled briskly in fresh water, with occasional stirring, for at least 10 minutes. That seems an awful lot of messing about to ensure that a few beans don't poison you! - My considered advice is that it's better to be safe than sorry, i.e. avoid eating these toxic veg! - I'll certainly never touch them again. I'd rather go hungry...

Function of the Appendix

When I was at school I was taught that the appendix didn't really have a function these days - that it was just a vestigial organ. Maybe you were taught that too. - But there is another theory now: that the appendix provides a 'safe house' where healthy gut flora are stored as a reserve cache to repopulate the gut if it gets infected and diarrhoea empties it. - Isn't the body a marvellous, intricate wonder?

See the diagram and explanation on Wikipedia.

I urge you to safeguard the health of your amazing, complex body by eating good, nutritious, natural food instead of processed, adulterated, over-salted, sub-standard fodder and diet junk.

Second superbug outbreak kills thirteen in another Norfolk hospital

Second superbug outbreak kills thirteen - Telegraph

Extract:

"Thirteen patients suffering from the superbug Clostridium difficile have died at another Norfolk hospital.

It was revealed last week that an outbreak of the bug has killed 17 people at the James Paget Hospital in Gorleston, near Great Yarmouth, since December.

Now the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH) in King’s Lynn, just 65 miles away, has said that 13 of its patients who had C.difficile have died since the start of the year.

The bug, which causes severe diarrhoea, was directly responsible for eight of the deaths and was a contributing factor for the other five.

But the hospital stressed that most of the patients who died, the majority of whom were over 65, already had C.difficile when they were admitted."