Because You Can Never Know

Norovirus or something I ate?

Personally, I think it is a touch of a virus that I found myself with yesterday, and still today, I think. As a result, I experimented with a food I had not yet intended to bring back. Basmati rice.

Do you remember the BRAT diet? The one that young parents get to know when their kids have a tummy upset? Yep. That one. Bananas. Rice. Applesauce. Toast. The only thing I have at home is rice. It's in a bin at the bottom of my pantry, out of sight, while I've refined what I've been eating the last three months. And, boy, am I glad I have some. 

I made it with homemade chicken broth instead of water. Diced a tip of leftover sweet potato and a little bit of Vidalia onion, which I combined with a little olive oil and cooked on the cast iron. About a quarter cup of veg, altogether, once cooked. That was lunch. Dinner was the rest of the rice and a little bit of chicken thigh meat. In between, I kept hydrated with sipping water and a spearmint infusion. The mint infusion helps with the stomach discomfort. Most would use peppermint, but I prefer spearmint. It, and chicken broth, are all-around good medicine.

I'd started my morning as I have been the last few days - with a peach and a green smoothie. Just after the green smoothie, I began to feel ill, and it came on fast. By evening, my skin had become clammy. That had me thinking virus. This morning I'm feeling better than yesterday, but still off. 

We had a big celebration at church on Sunday, and whenever people get together things can pass between them. I talked to a couple of people on the phone who told me that "it's" been going around where they are, and here. I sometimes forget about this kind of thing in the summer, especially with our recent focus on respiratory viruses. I know a few people who've come down with Covid this summer, so that's still around. 

So the rice experiment? Wonderful. Basmati rice is a whole grain, low-glycemic food. As far as grains go, it's a good thing. Of the food I've tried over the last few days, this has been the one that has "sat well" the best. I had a lot more than a few bites, unlike what I did with the other foods I've tried, so it feels like a solid experiment. I have not felt any uncomfortable side effects. I'm trying to decide if feeling unwell is a good landscape for experimentation, but it's part of the landscape I'm encountering in the Green Wilderness so it will have to do. 

I'd been planning on trying dark chocolate yesterday, but that one will have to wait.  

The Green Wilderness is a daily writing practice that opens a landscape of discovery into my own human experience.

Katherine Cartwright has been blogging since 2012, and each year brings new wonders. She asks big questions of the small things in life.