Licence to Ill

I haven’t been to Brazilian Jiu-jitsu this week at all, and only managed to drag my ass through two pretty hellish gym workouts. I missed a day of work, but was hardly working during the rest of the week. The reason for my atypical truancy, you might ask? Food poisoning I would reply, if you asked. Alternatively; it could have been irritable bowel syndrome on an epic scale, or stomach flu maybe? Who the hell knows? Doctors certainly don’t.

I have always had what people describe as a "weak stomach". Triggered by spicy food, oily food, fatty food, not-fatty food, high-carb or low-carb, dairy, but not all dairy; sometimes, or not. Basically any food outside of whatever has become my standard diet at the time transforms my intestines into an acidic washing machine, turning countless dinners out with friends into an embarrassingly hurried drive home. I explain politely that I’m just not feeling well, or tired, and make a mad dash to my toilet, where I will be spending the next several hours, or days, depending on the intensity of the coming storm.

Since committing to eating paleo about 6 months ago, I have felt a genuine reduction in the number of ‘episodes’ I’ve experienced, which is saying a lot for an ang moh in Singapore. I try to eat like the locals as much as one can while standing Gandalf-like against the Balrog of rice, beans, dairy and sugar infesting so much of the regional cuisine, and with Mrs. Paleoporean as my guide and food guru, happily dig into sting ray and pig’s liver, but drawing the line at shark’s fin since I’m not an evil bastard that hates the earth and all its creatures.

Besides cutting too many nights short, the ball and chain of my digestive tract has made me terrified to travel. Who doesn’t love to jet off to some exotic locale, full of sand, surf and a lax attitude towards public health? Well, call me Mr. Spontaneous, as long as I can spend countless hours of research time ensuring there are western style restaurants, with western standards of cleanliness, toilet facilities that aren’t based around a fly infested hole in the ground, and well stocked pharmacies. I can pack my own food, right?

I’d like to end this post with some tips to help prevent food poisoning, but I think it’s all pretty obvious, and most would be related to buying fresh and cooking your own food, which wouldn’t have helped me in this case anyway.

Clearly the specter of my weak stomach is alive and kicking, and this week, that motherfucker kicked me right in the gut.