Wishing well with the antibiotic, Suz. My doctor told me I would start feeling better about a week after the antibiotics were begun. My father said it took more like two weeks and then, he began to feel stronger.
I am glad I posted about it. Who knows, maybe, like me, you would have thought it could never happen to you, and would have waited until you felt really sick to see the doctor.
So, here are some other interesting factoids from the book I am reading this morning, guys. (It's a cookbook. The Latin American Kitchen, by elisabeth luard.)
The burn from chilies and hot peppers trigger the body's production of endorphins ~ the same things responsible for the high runner's experience, and the same substances that are triggered when we are in pain. Fresh chilies contain six times the vitamin C oranges do.
Chilies are antiscorbutic (prevent scurvy), disinfectant, insect-repelling, and fever-reducing.
It is capsaicin, most concentrated in the white, pulpy material holding the pepper seeds, that is responsible for the chili's heat. Capsaicin, like oil, does not dissolve in water. That is why yogurt or milk are the best remedies for "too hot".
And finally, bees will incorporate the colors, fragrances ~ and the antibiotics, toxins and insecticides ~ of the flowers they make their honey from into the honey.
Well, just one more thing.
Dried chilis are anti-malarial, as the paprika-loving Hungarians discovered when they were employed to work on the Suez canal. Capsaicin, it turns out, actually functions as a defense mechanism against insect predators (WOODTICKS, I WONDER?)and is not destroyed by cooking, freezing, drying, or any other attentions, including (and here is another interesting thing some of us may have been wondering about) passing through the human digestive tract.
Well, now we know. :smile:
:reading:
Barbara
:bath:
