Does Ginger Make You Feel Good?
I ask this question, as yesterday, I ran out of the Marks & Spencer’s gluten-free stem ginger snap biscuits.
So after buying some this morning, I have just had three biscuits dunked in tea for my lunch.
I sometimes eat as many as four packets a week, so out of curiosity I asked Google AI, the question in the title of this post and received this reply.
Yes, ginger can make you feel good due to its many benefits, including easing nausea and indigestion, reducing inflammation, and improving circulation. It may also help relieve pain, boost energy levels, and promote relaxation, although it’s always best to consult a healthcare professional before taking supplements.
Google seems to be using this web page from Johns Hopkins Medicine, which is entitled Ginger Benefits, as a source.
I have a few extra thoughts about ginger.
Several Of The Posts On This Blog Have Mentioned Ginger
This link displays them all.
Where Have All The M & S Gluten Free Ginger Snaps Gone?
I eat a lot of Marks & Spencer’s gluten-free ginger snap biscuits.
Note.
- Three make a good snack.
- I find ginger is good for me.
- They are the best biscuits for dunking I’ve ever found.
But I’ve only found one lonely packet in the last two weeks.
And that was in Marks & Spencer’s Islington store, hidden away on the wrong shelf, all by itself.
Relief At Last
I was able to buy three packets in the Marks and Spencer Food Hall today, which is the 21st of May.
An Orange Pig
I found this on the Internet.
The Tamworth pig breed is known for its distinctive ginger or red-gold coat, making it a pig breed that can indeed be orange.
Where are the Tamworth Two these days?
A Tale Of Two Cataract Operations
I have now had two cataract operations.
There was a few weeks between the operations and in the interval they changed the machines.
- The first was a Leica and the second was a Zeiss.
There were no problems with either operation, but there were differences, particular in how I felt afterwards.
- With the first, I was slightly more uncomfortable and had a slight amount of pain in my left eye. But the pain was nothing that a few ginger biscuits couldn’t cure.
- With the second, I’ve had no pain at all and the eye looks less red. I was able to take the dressing off in the evening and go out the next day, which I couldn’t do after the first.
Now fifty-four hours after the operation, my eyes are back to normal. I can even type this without putting on my glasses.
Conclusion
I would suggest that before you have a cataract operation, you make sure the surgeon will be using the latest machines.
I Don’t Generally Take Pain Killers
I have taken pain killers rarely in my life, but only when I get serious pain.
But since the cataract operation, I have felt a bit of light pain in my left eye.
So I’ve resorted to taking three of these large pain-killers.
Usually, I dunk them in a cup of tea.
I’ve always liked ginger and they have been my favourite biscuits since I was about six.
I also used to see a Jamaican nurse in a former GP practice for my B12 injections and she was fulsome in her praise for the spice and what it can do.
Dr. Google also finds evidence that they help.
However, who cares, so long as I think they work.
Back Home After The Operation
I’m back home and now wearing a fetching eye-shield.
But why are both eyes and my nose running so much?
I’m not in any pain, but the right eye seems to be the most uncomfortable and that wasn’t touched.
But then my left eye was always the most sensitive and every time, I get a fly in it, it is always a visit to A & E.
I seem to have calmed things down a bit, by drinking lots of tea and eating M & S gluten-free ginger biscuits dunked in the tea.
But then as a child, I was always dunking ginger biscuits in tea.
Whilst I was married I didn’t, as C thought it was a bad habit.
Who Stole All The M & S Gluten-Free Food?
Over the last few weeks, certain gluten-free lines in Marks and Spencer have started getting difficult to find.
Some of the things, I like that have been difficult have included.
- Ginger snap biscuits.
- Gluten-free pies
- Scones
- Bloomer slices
- Gluten-free muesli
Note that my supper is usually something I cook myself from scratch or one of the many M & S ready meals, that contain no gluten. It is usually washed down by a bottle of Adnams low-alcohol beer and followed by some fruit. Tonight, the fruit will be one of my favourites, which are strawberries and bananas.
I did think that the shortage of the lines I mentioned was due to a supply problem.
But then, there have not been shortages of other lines, that I buy, that are not specifically gluten-free.
So is it some gluten-free suppliers are having problems? Possibly.
But!
Regular readers of this blog will know that I believe that those coeliacs on a long-term gluten free diet seem to be unlikely to suffer a severe dose of the dreaded covids. There was no battle with the second dose!
I know for a start that my immune system gives short shift to any viral invaders, as it did with the AstraZeneca vaccine before they came to a truce.
So have others, including some with more medical knowledge than myself, come to the same conclusion about coeliac disease, the immune system, gluten and the covids and have gone gluten-free for safety?
For example, I’ve heard that those suffering from long covid have been tested for coeliac disease.
I’d love to be able to analyse the sales of gluten-free food.
Second Time Around For A Lockdown
What is different this time around, is that I’ve had three months practice and I believed it would come, so I stocked up with essentials.
My Dalstonista grandmother regretted in the Great War, she didn’t stock up, so wasn’t caught out in the Second, with a hundredweight of both jam and sugar in the cellar.
My essentials are a bit different.
- Adnams Beer – 0.5 % alcohol.
- Tins of sardines in tomato.
- Gluten-free pasta
- Muesli
- Pots of porridge.
- Pots of M & S luxury honey & ginger yoghurt. For adding to fruit, muesli and as a pasta sauce.
- Ready meals in the freezer.
I would assume, I can get gluten-free bread, bananas, milk and eggs, when I need them.
Gloria Gaynor’s song is in my brain.
My Essential Foods
These are my essential foods on which I base a lot of my diet.
Note.
- I find most flavours acceptable.
- I prefer honeydew melon, mango, pineapple and strawberry, but hate watermelon.
- The honey and ginger flavour yoghurt is best and makes good pasta sauce.
- Blueberry muffin and cocoa orange are my two favourite flavours.
- Most Marks and Spencer bread is good, but this is my staple.
- I add to the granola – C would be surprised that apricots are on the list.
- With two eggs, a tin makes a good quick meal.
Most of these foods seem to have come from Marks and Spencer
Could I Survive Four Months Self-Isolation?
As I am over seventy, it is quite likely that if newspaper reports like this one in The Times, which is entitled Coronavirus: Millions Of Over-70s Will Be Told To Stay At Home For Four Months, prove to be true, I shall be spending at least four months, alone with my television, my books and the Internet.
These are a few thoughts.
How Does My House Get Cleaned?
When I moved into this house, I decided that I didn’t want to have anything to do with cleaning the house, so I hired a contract cleaning company, who come every Monday.
I also reduced my cleaning utensils to those that I would to clean up a spill.
- A dustpan and brush
- Kitchen roll
- Washing-up liquid.
- A portable Dyson vacuum cleaner.
- A few sponges.
At least I don’t spill much.
How Do I Get My Clothes Washed?
My clothes washing arrangements may seem strange to some.
- The cleaning company also looks after my bed-linen and changes it on Mondays.
- Most of my clothes like underwear, shirts and jumpers are washed by a lady, who collects them from my door and brings them back a few days later.
- I take trousers, jackets and suits to the dry cleaners.
Since my washing machine packed up about three months ago, I haven’t replaced it and I use a pair of new socks every three or four days. It’s cheaper than buying a new machine.
I can see problems arising, as my lady, who does the washing, is not in the first flush of youth or good health and may be told to self-isolate.
But I can afford to get more clothes delivered.
How Am I Placed For Home Deliveries?
Despite my front door virtually opening onto the street, I have problems with home deliveries.
- Inevitably, they come when I’m out! But that won’t happen, if I’m confined to barracks!
- But the major problem is that I share a post-code with the mews that runs down the back of my house and drivers relying on sat-navs inevitably end up in the mews. It happened last week and only because I’d given the company my home phone number, which the driver rang, did I get the parcel.
I should say, that most things that I need I collect from shops, because of the delivery problem, which inevitably means I have to collect it from a Post Office or depot a short or sometimes long distance away.
I Like A Daily Paper
I buy The Times most days and I also have an on-line subscription.
Being brought up in a print works, I like the feel of papers and as I do most of the puzzles in The Times every day, I don’t have to print them out. Not that I can print them out at the moment, as no-one can work out how to drive my printer from this terrible Microsoft Surface Pro Studio computer.
If anybody knows how to drive a HP LaserJet P1102w from one of these awful computers please get in touch. And if you are anywhere near London N1, there will be a beer waiting if the fridge or a boiling kettle, if you turn up.
I buy the paper from the shop round the corner, but I can’t find anybody to deliver one!
It sounds like there’s a business there to deliver papers to those, who the government insist are isolated in their own homes.
What About My Food?
At the present time, I shop most days and generally keep the following in the fridge.
- Two bottles of milk; one in use and one full.
- Some fish pate or M & S salmon parcels.
- Several small pots of M & S Luxury Honey & Ginger yoghurt.
- Three pots of cut fruit from M & S, which I usually eat at a rate of one a day. Sometimes with the yoghurt.
- Benecol spread instead of butter.
- Two or three ready meals.
- Two packs of M & S gluten-free pasta, which has a two months life. I cook it with peas in a yoghurt sauce, with each pack giving two meals.
- Three bottles of Adnams 0.5% beer from M & S. I’ve also got plenty of this in store.
- Some eggs and cheese.
In various store cupboards, storage jars and bowls I also have the following.
- Several bananas.
- Lots of dried apricots
- M & S gluten-free bread.
- M & S gluten-free ginger snaps.
- Plenty of tea bags.
- Tins of sardines
- Tins of baked beans,
- M & S gluten-free granola, which I eat with yoghurt and apricots
- M & S gluten-free porridge pots, which I eat with honey or strawberry jam.
I should say, that most days, I eat breakfast out either in Carluccio’s or Leon.
You will notice that I shop extensively in Marks and Spencer. But I have one only about five hundred metres away in Dalston and in Central London, you pass one of their food stores very regularly.
I can also go to their two larger stores at Finsbury Pavement or The Angel, if I am able to risk the bus.
- It should be noted that I have strong connections to M & S at The Angel.
- My paternal grandmother used to shop there before the First World War.
- C and myself used to shop there in the early 1970s, when we lived in the Barbican.
There is also a Boots next door, where I get my prescription drugs, which was also used by my grandmother over a hundred years ago.
How Will I Get To The Doctors?
It’s walkable!
Conclusion
I think, that I’ll survive.
The Anonymous Widower 