Lessons of the week! I discovered how to get bloated on the paleo diet.

Well, heck. While we're at it, I might as well do the lessons of the week.

There is only one lesson this week. That is...I'm not really feeling Jerusalem Artichokes. They're a tuber that I got in my CSA box. And I figured that they'd be paleo because most tubers are except for white potatoes. Of course looking these guys up, I read that they were high in inulin, so I knew something was up.

Let me explain what inulin is first. It's a type of fiber. But not all fiber is the same. Fiber is made up of multiple sugars arranged in a way that you can't digest. However, each type of fiber has it's own arrangement and overall size. From what I understand the really big fibers promote stool bulking. The little fibers are bacteria food. Or you could see it as big fibers are insoluble, and little fibers are soluble. Inulin is whee in the fiber worst. Probably the wheeist of whee. It is the ultimate bacteria food.

Which hooray! Giving food to your gut bacteria is good! Go pre-biotics!

But anyone who's torn into too many fiber one bars at once well knows that bacteria make gas. And the more you feed them, the more they fart.* Too much inulin at once and you're a certifiable methane chimney.

So I had to get rid of the tubers and I cut them all up for soup. THEM ALL. And now I've got way too much soup going on, filled with way too much inulin stuffed Jerusalem artichokes, and it must be eaten. And I have supped greatly upon it. I'm not going to be able to enter a group study for the next week.

And to top if off I put okra in there too. Why was I tempted by a 79 cent per package sale on okra? What southern roots was I trying to return to? Turned the soup into mucous the first day, thank goodness it's thinned out.

Since when have I gotten so bad at cooking? I feel like I used to be very skilled at this. Something took a turn for the worse when I got into medical school.

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*Which the blame of course will get passed onto you. Though I'd like to see someone explain away their gas that way. No I didn't fart. That's my microflora.