What's in Your Parent's Fridge?

Pandora's box is actually a fridge.

This weekend was spent at my mom’s. My curious toddling daughter got to spend time with her grandmother and pulled down several of her bags of vitamins. I mean, massive brown sealed bags of powdered magnesium, vitamin B12, vitamin C, vitamin D, calcium, ginger, and plenty of others that I have no idea what they are. There’s a big one my mom swears by, Celtic fleur de sel. I guess it's salt, but Celtic, which makes it magically more healthy. Then there’s the green splotchy powder of spirulina and a small militia of all sorts of nuts in quantities ranging from 500 grams to 2 kilograms. I haven’t even gotten to her kitchen yet and I feel there are enough powders for the whole apartment complex for years to come.

In her kitchen, I can’t help to snoop around all the drawers and cabinets. Don’t judge me. I found 500 grams of powdered cayenne pepper, I don’t think Beyoncé with her diet would even know what to do with that much cayenne pepper. Listen, I’m proud of my mom. She is making an effort to become healthier, it’s not easy and it sucks, let’s be honest. Maybe some people enjoy going out of their way to eat healthy, I’m not there yet, but I’m working on it?

If I feel the need to eat healthy I scrounge up some vegetables to cook them up in fresh spices and call it a day, simple and easy. The extraneous idea of a cabinet full of powders and healthy pills and vials makes me feel like an amateur apothecarist. That’s not me, I like to cook. My mother isn’t the only one in the family with bags and vials of random stuff. My dad also has his hand in this evolving trade.

First, I have a fishy memory of my dad spiking my morning cereal with fish oil, or omega-3. I went to school that day burping constantly with the nasty gaseous taste of fish oil. It still haunts me whenever I see the stuff on supermarket shelves. He is handy with the pipette.

In December 2021, I had COVID and he almost killed me with oregano oil. I remember receiving a text message from someone who knew someone who had COVID, and it was a list of vitamins and oils they took to get better. It seemed like a logical healthy list until I showed it to my dad. He took it upon himself to get all the ingredients and made a COVID cocktail for me. It sucked but it helped, I suppose. Then came the oregano oil. Have you tried oregano oil before? Do you know how spicy it is? I was his guinea pig because I didn’t know that either.

His diagnosis was to give me oregano oil straight from the bottle. Even though you’re supposed to dilute just a few drops in a lot of tea, for example. I trusted his judgement and that was my mistake. I took a few drops of his oregano oil and started to heave right away, my stomach scrunched and I bent over to spit out as much as I could. The overwhelming strength of that oil made it difficult for me to breathe. My eyes were tearing and it felt like the natural equivalent of mustard gas. I leaned over the window to gasp for some fresh air but my throat was burning. I guess he kept the oregano oil for another occasion, next to his collection of healthy things in his fridge.

After having that flashback, I opened my mom’s fridge. It was full of avocados and grapefruits. That was it, on two of the three shelves. Not what I expected and I’ve never seen whole grapefruits or avocados in a fridge before. Instead of condiments on the side door, there were more vials and small brown bottles of who knows what. Some things I recognized like ginger shots, red beet juice, and oat milk but the rest, I have no idea.

Why do I feel like I’m old-school? I believe fermented foods (which are incredible for gut health) and maybe the select few vitamins and oils are sufficient. Well, I guess that’s how it all starts before going a bit deeper into research about what is healthy, like a parent. First, the choice of honey becomes the elite of honey, and the same with oils and vitamins. Next thing you know, your fridge, pantry, and cabinets are decorated with some things people have never heard of before, and with your expertise, you can cure any ailment your guests have. Diarrhea? Take some coal carbon thingy! You look bloated, pale, and exhausted? Take some magnesium and ginger! No thanks Mom, I’ll pass on that. I’m a new parent that’s why I look bloated, pale, and exhausted.

Maybe the elder generation is more susceptible to crackpot snake-oil vendors. Maybe my generation will become semi-pro apothecarists, too. Where we have a good, solid, and well-explained purpose for each vial, bottle, and bag of healthy goodies. These things don’t look cheap either! Have you heard of Manuka honey? I’ve only heard of it last year, maybe, but the price tag on that makes normal honey look like it’s for peasants. Who knows how much money the food supplement market makes with their unregulated concoctions for the healthy-minded individual?

As long as you feel good and healthy right?

Spirulina-ly yours,

The Greasy Pen.

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I wrote this post, and all previous ones on my 11-year-old laptop, that sounds like it took some oregano oil because it is overheating and heaving. Every sentence takes 15 seconds to load. If you would be inclined to consider becoming a subscriber so I can treat myself to a 5-year-old computer and become a less irritated writer it would be greatly appreciated!