Toxins

Wine I bought for Shanna and me to share (and Daniel got a little second hand) when I was in Boston last month

The word toxin is so loaded. My least favorite commercial is the one for a facial cleanser that rids ones face of 'hidden toxins'. What toxins do we have hidden in our pores? Oil, decomposed sweat? Nothing very appetizing but nothing that will kill you. Second least favorite commercial has two women at a laundrymat with one asking the other to borrow a quarter so she can shrink her jeans down another size to fit her newly slimmed body from snarfing down Cheerios. Instead of telling her what a waste of resources this is and go get your own damn quarter, the friend ponders this imagining herself now slim once she eats some Cheerios herself. Then there is a voice over with the non sequitur people who consume whole grains weigh less than people who don't.

But the current toxin scare is the treatment of soy beans with hexanes. Apparently manufacturers defat soy beans by soaking them in hexanes. They obtain the soybean oil this way. The resulting meal is then used to make soy products such as soy burgers. Now it is true that hexanes (I use the word as a plural as the many isomers of hexane are rarely separated for industrial use) by themselves are extremely flammable and to breathe in concentrated amounts could cause neurological damage (as in teenage huffers) but I find it hard to believe that any residue would remain on your cooked soy burger. Hexanes are much more volatile than alcohol. At any rate, you don't risk your burgers bursting into flames as some articles suggest.Less clear is how much hexanes remain on uncooked items such as infant soy milk. I agree that should be looked into.

Yesterday afternoon was all Hurry up and Wait. Naomi's blood is taken and the lab uses it to concoct an anti-antibody preparation that took 3 hours. Then as Labor and Delivery was busy, we waited for them to have time to inject this Rhogam preparation. Apparently she needs to do this with every pregnancy as long as she persists in hooking up with Rh positive men. In the meantime, she did the glucose tolerance test which she did not enjoy either.

It is cold and windy out. I tried to minimize head winds as much as possible while running. The wind is stripping all the pretty blossoms off the trees.