Before You Buy That Blender...

You can all probably relate to buying items at garage sales, thrift stores, classified ads or online. Either something will "jump out at you", or you're specifically looking for that piece of furniture, kitchen appliance or workshop tool. Used is fine if it looks as though it has more usefulness and life left in it. Why not?

I've found some terrific things in those places mentioned above. For example, when I was browsing through the clothing section of a local thrift store, I found a man's full-length leather coat in good, though not perfect,condition A friend and I were trying online sales of various articles of used clothing. It turns out that this coat was marked $17.99. Then my friend listed it on an online auction and it fetched a tidy little sum of around $72.00. Not bad! It's fun to try that type of thing, but it was about all I sold. However, I still went to thrift stores from time to time to be rewarded with personal "finds".

I happened to find my own blender quite by accident. I was living in an apartment complex and one day when I went to the laundry room I found a perfectly good blender in the utility sink where people discarded their unwanted items. I decided to take it. I don't have much use for a blender except for one main purpose: I grind up raw sunflower seeds (without the hulls) and when it is a fairly fine powder I put it into a container and into the fridge. I use the sunflower powder on top of my salad or a baked potato etc.

If I knew then what I know now, I perhaps wouldn't have been so hasty. Let me explain. I recently read an article by Dr. David Williams who explained restoring and balancing gut bacteria as a starting point for preserving/restoring one's health. He explains:

"Your physical and mental health are directly influenced by, and dependent on, the bacteria and other microbes that live in and on your body."

In order to achieve that, he provides various methods such as purchasing and using probiotic supplements, gut health and benefits from using traditional ferment foods and how to make them, as well as the role of prebiotics in maintaining healthy gut flora. His list is far more comprehensive regarding the subject.

It was one of his last points that caught my eye: How to Perform a Fecal Transplant. Whaaat? Really? Out of curiosity I skimmed through what he'd written since I'd never heard of such a thing done in the name of health. Known as fecal bacteriotherapy or stool transplantation it is used in severe cases of digestive distress. Performing the procedure involves the use of several things, but at the bottom of the list of bulleted items was:a kitchen blender. It's what goes into the blender that is most troubling: about 1 3/4 ounces of solid stool from a qualified donor along with 200 mL saline solution. This gets mixed into the blender until liquified; then poured into an enema bag.

The purpose of describing the preparation is not to gross you out or to tell you how this transplantation is accomplished but to simply make the point- although I'm being somewhat facetious - about the good buy you got on that second-hand blender. Should fecal transplantation become a popular procedure, you really might want to think twice about how that blender was used before you discovered it. As they say, one man's trash is another man's treasure. My take on it?I think I'll just buy new, thank you.

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