science you can do at home

if you've known me for more than ten minutes, you know that i am a big fan of citizen science projects.

home science is awesome.

so here's a little thing you can do: you can measure your intestinal transit time.

why would you want to do such a thing?

because how your body works is cool. plus it can be handy medically to know what your baseline is for intestinal transit time so that if you get an illness where they need to measure that time, you already know what yours is likely to be when you're healthy.

plus did i mention science?

and medical sources will tell you that it's an inexpensive test and can be done with dye capsules or charcoal capsules or even radio-opaque markers, but really and truly, you can simply eat some corn.

how's that for cheap?

note what time you ate the corn, and note what time it comes out the other end.

voilà! you have a measurement of your intestinal transit time!

if you want to be really science-y about it, you should repeat the test a number of times and maybe even graph your results because graphs are cool.


maybe you're not the sort of person that looks at your shit when you're done with it, but ever since my gallbladder and i parted ways some years ago, i always have a little look because the color and shape of it gives me useful information about how i'm doing in terms of diet and overall digestive health.

i don't have to poke at it or anything; just look.

so, yea.

*goes off to buy some corn*