They say that about a third of people have some sort of digestive upset when visiting Mexico — it's not so much Mexico that is problematic, but that it has a slightly different microbial ecosystem and the borders of different microbial species and territories are delineated differently (in part due to the way their food is prepared, but that's an entire entry in and of itself). Anyway, when your own microbial ecosystem (which as I've mentioned before constitutes 91% of your biomass) merges with that ecosystem, there is a period of adjustment.
Anyway, I'm sick pre-Mexico.
On July 12, 1996 I had a beef burrito from New York Subs in Toronto. Not long afterwards I was feeling sick, really sick. I didn't live far away so I decided I should just walk home and lie down. When I was about five minutes away I started to feel delirious and everything started to spin — pardon the scatology, but suddenly that burrito was erupting from every hole. It was probably the grossest thing that's happened to me (after I grew out of being an infant anyway).
Since then I've had an upset stomach regularly. I never did before that.
On January 1, 1998 they gave me a mixed bean and potato burrito which contained a piece of glass. I don't know if I should be happy or upset that it was a fairly large piece of glass, but it got me a free burrito. Probably not an offer I should have accepted.
A few days ago I had another, and they made it way too spict-hot. I've been feeling a little off since then, a sort of deep pain in my stomach that feels half way between hunger cramps and a deep nausea. I had a slice of pie last night, and woke up this morning feeling even sicker… I hate waking up sick, but from a scientific curiosity point of view was quite surprised to find that the pie had barely been digested and didn't taste any less sweet than the night before as it reversed its traverse into my guts and came shooting out of my throat.
The moral of the story is that it's extremely important to nurture that 91% of you that's non-human and your interface to the rest of the world. I'm healing, and I'm healthier now than I was in 1996, but I haven't been quite the same yet and it's still going to be quite a while before I'm where I want to be. Once your microbial makeup gets whacked far enough off, you can't always get it back, especially not in this modern world of antibiotic-everything.
(Or you could point out that the real moral of the story is don't eat at places that aren't approved by the health board.)
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