Ruminations of a Beanish Kind

About a little problem many have described after eating beans, there are alternatives to get around that little problem. There is Beano, an over the counter substance said to be effective at reducing gas after eating beans, cabbage or other gas-producing food. Many swear that soaking, draining and washing the soaked beans will wash the farts away. Oops, pardon, outgassing. There are also alternative methods to use if your body is suffering an unfortunate problem with .....er....outgassing while at work, home, or otherwise around others.

After a SBD (silent but deadly) episode of outgassing on your part, immediately scrunch up your nose, look as indignant as you possibly can and glare at a fellow co-worker, family member or the family pet. If in an elevator or other enclosed area filled with strangers, a quiet, "Dear God in heaven, who just died?" can help put the blame on someone else. While driving to Atlanta with my husband, I successfully blamed a little problem of mine on a supposedly faulty catalytic converter on a car in front of us. Unfortunately, these methods do not work if you are enclosed in a toxic green cloud of effluvia or have managed to mess your pants. Should you have been fortunate enough to remove yourself to the rest room before your intestine explodes, and someone else enters the rest room before you can exit after washing your hands, look around and say "Someone's stomach must really be upset."

I have gotten very good at quickly leaving the aisle of the store I am on in the event that I just could not hold it in. My husband, on the other hand, cares less if his toxic emissions have caused the nose hairs of others to fall out or curl up inside their collective noses.

Once upon a time we had our computers in a very small room here. Since he's a diabetic and I'm admittedly beyond fluffy to frankly fat and we both love chocolate, I had the great idea to try some of the sugar free chocolates. "Whooo hooooo", thought I, "Legal chocolate! We can eat the whole blanking bag without having to count calories or grams of sugar!" The husband person chose the sugar free peanut butter cups. I chose something else - cannot recall exactly what, but whatever it was, it was a huge mistake.

It began with our stomachs rumbling like thunder. For a moment there I had the passing thought that I had been impregnated with some alien creature, as in the movie Aliens, and at any moment it would burst forth from my gut and run across the desk. I looked at the husband person and he looked at me. Our pit bull mix, Gunny, looked at us, cocking his head back and forth, wondering what was going on. Ursula and Sophy were already out of the door, down the hall and hiding under their pillows in the living room, having become accustomed to Gunny's occasional atmospheric contributions and being wise in the knowledge of gut rumblings as precursor to SBD's. Rather than describing the situation, suffice it to say that our dogs left the room, the drapery turned a sickly yellow-green and the EPA came to investigate reports of us making poison gas in our home. OK, that last part wasn't true but it took a long time for the dogs to trust either of us again and both of us slept with our pillows over our heads.

Thankfully, it seems that the more we depend on vegetables and legumes as the major part of our diet, the less we have those little problems of the gaseous kind. Hopefully this won't scare you out of trying Feijoada and other yummy bean recipes. It's worth the effort. (And any danger of combustible gases, ruined underwear, lost friendships, family members, jobs or visits from the Environmental Protection Agency.)