congratulations, you have been forcibly introduced to the African Bullfrog, also
known in pet-owner circles as the Pixie Frog.
look at his little hands!
while they are indeed adorable, the nickname actually derives from the scientific name of the species (pyxicephalus adspersus), and not any positive qualities they possess.
hoo boy they don’t have many of those, lemme tell you
found throughout much of sub-Saharan Africa, the Pixie Frog lives in wet areas where they eat pretty much anything they can fit into those ginormous mouths. (this includes fish, other frogs, bugs, snakes, lizards, other frogs, rodents, unattentive birds, other frogs, and probably you too if you hold still long enough)
this is a creature born with neither fear nor conscience
and it’s no idle threat either, because Pixie Frogs can grow to 10 inches long, which is well within ‘unreasonably huge’ for an amphibian. also, unlike most frogs, Pixie Frogs have fucking teeth
ALL THE BETTER TO EAT YOU WITH, MY DEARRRRR
in spite of all of this, Pixie Frogs remain popular pet animals, possibly because they will allow you to pick them up and carry them around like a newborn.
and we can respect that.
she has four of them and they’re named after her grandchildren
just, you know, make sure you count your fingers after you hold one.
Y’all really gonna make me bring back the essential oil discourse over whether or not you can ingest essential oils? Really? Really?
Short answer: no, essential oils are not safe to ingest in any way shape or form. They are for atmospheric diffusing or for topical application via the correct dilution methods via the use of a carrier oil. Water cannot dilute an essential oil. It’s basic chemistry.
Long answer: food extracts and tinctures are not the same thing as essential oils, and no, it doesn’t matter if they’re organic or not. “Therapeutic grade” and “food grade” are non regulated terms used by essential oil companies to sell more products, and are not recognized by health governing bodies, including reputable aromatherapy and holistic schools.
I say this as both a patient and practitioner of holistic therapies with nothing to gain or lose from telling you this. I have no motive other than your well being and that of the people around you. As I have stated, many, many times I merely wish you to be safe. (warning, link contains mention of child death.)
If you reblog this post with some variation of “okay but some oils are safe to ingest”, I am sorry, but you are misinformed. And I suggest you read Essential Oil Safety: A Guide for Health Care Professionals by Robert Tisserand and Rodney Young, as your education on the subject has been remiss, and I would hate for your to accidentally harm yourself or someone else through good intentions.
A good holistic practitioner does not reject science. Nor do they advocate for the rejection of conventional medicine. It is not your place to replace the doctor. It is your place to support the person through needing care. Remember that.
I always wonder what kind of uninformed nonsense you must be seeing to feel the need to make these PSAs.
It’s usually people seeing my old posts, deciding to come into my inbox and yell at me because they drink essential oils and they’re fine, so I must be a big pharma plant to discredit their lord and master doTerra/young living.
Cause y’know, that seems more plausible than the idea that they might be wrong.
@thebibliosphere do you have any suggestions on credible, science backed resources for those of us who would like to use essential oils safely? I’ve been wanting to work with them but haven’t because I know I’m uninformed and I know how dangerous they can be. Since you clearly know a lot about them is there a book or website you’d trust?
The book I listed up above is pretty much what I consider to be required reading at this point in terms of safety and also the science of essential oils.
It doesn’t give you the “here’s how to make xyz” the same way other books will, and there’s no feel good factors to it, but that’s not what it’s for.
It is there instead to teach you the basic chemistry of essential oils, the safety of using them (including drug interactions, risks to children, toxicology etc) and to give you the means to think critically about whether you should or should not do something.
It’s rather expensive I know (compared to the mass produced feel good aromatherapy guides written by people with as much scientific knowledge and depth as a tea spoon) but it’s a worthwhile investment. I believe you can actually rent it on Amazon, but you can also ask your library to find copies too.
If you’re looking for recipe books, I might be able to rec a few once I get back to my computer and run through my library (same for websites) but it’s worth bearing in mind you will always read something that conflicts with something else because too little research and education has been done on this kind of thing. I have some authors that I really liked, but in recent years they’ve fallen for the big multi-level-marketing lies companies are spewing and are recommending things they’d have never suggested twenty years ago. (And then usually you find out they’re in sponsorship from them and so much begins to make sense.)
The learning and knowledge most of us have is from years of hands on experience, selecting carefully which advice to follow (ie filtering out the bullshit), and learning from others with decades worth of experience.
So really my best advice is to read broadly, (utilize your local libraries!) and learn to differentiate between the snake oil merchants, and those who actually do their research.
A lot of the harmful stuff can be spotted once you know some basic physiology and chemistry.
Things like “water doesn’t dilulte essential oils because while oil is denser than alcohol, it is less dense than water, ergo it floats on top of water* and cannot be diluted by it” should not be news to people in this field, but unfortunately it is.
*which is how people get chemical burns from dropping non diluted essential oils into their bathtub. The essential oils literally create a film on top of the water, which then comes into contact with the skin.
If this does happen to you, flushing with water might reduce the pain but it won’t get the oil off your skin. Grab a carrier oil (jojoba, coconut, vegetable glycerin, heck even plain old olive oil) and gently swipe liberal amounts of it over the affected area to dilute the molecules further. THEN flush with water.
Now imagine how dangerous it is to get a chemical burn in your esophagus that can’t be diluted by drinking more water. And you’ll understand why I flip my lid when people advocate drinking them.
And no that doesn’t mean you should dilute them with olive oil and drink them either. Use a food extract or tincture instead, they’re designed to be absorbed by the body, and have been distilled for their INTERNAL health properties. Essential oils are distilled for EXTERNAL use.
Essential oils are GRAS chemicals and are intact used for ingestion, however in these instances they are (1) heavily diluted and (2) mixed with fats or fat substitutes.
“Generally Recognized As Safe” however also comes with the caveat of “we don’t really know too much about this, so used correctly this is likely safe” which multi-level-marketing companies have taken and twisted into “just drink some oils sweeties, it’s super healthy for you and totally safe!”
Which is NOT the correct use of them.
Heck, some people even get esophagus burns from peppermint oil capsules—widely used and effective in the treatment of IBS—because the capsule casing doesn’t remain intact until it reaches the gut. (And those burns suuuuck. I speak from first hand experience.)
Which is why I absolutely implore people to not drink essential oils in their water or use them to flavor things (extracts are right there in the grocery aisle, and usually about a third the price) because people do not seem to understand the risk they are taking. They’ve seen the GRAS disclaimer and think it’s harmless, and that’s how you end up with things like internal burns, rapid onset renal failure, sick pets and dead children.
GRAS is not a green light, it’s the amber, and you don’t know if it’s about to turn red or green and it’s better to slow down and assess your situation before plowing on into something you’re not fully prepared to deal with.
Which is why I also urge people find a certified herbalist or functional doctor if this is something they want to pursue because my god, do the majority of people not know what they’re getting into. Heck, I’ve been doing this for over 15 years and I don’t proclaim to know everything. If anything the only thing I’m profoundly aware of is just how much I don’t know.
But I know enough not to kill someone, and that’s a good place to start.
but i know enough
not to kill someone and that’s
a good place to start
^Haiku^bot^9. I detect haikus with 5-7-5 format. Sometimes I make mistakes.
On the plus side, I should now have fresh food to last a few days. Plus some ice cream and berries 👍 (Extra little self-bribe to get me out, too.)
Mr. C is gone until next Sunday, and I am much better at making sure other people stay decently fed. Trying to head that off early, at least.
For “berries and ice cream”, read “a bag of frozen mixed berries I’m hoping to cook some dumplings with” plus ice cream to go with that. Worst case, just the berries and ice cream would be good, though.
I haven’t had any blackberry dumplings in years, but got a serious craving. (Back engineered to use celiac-friendly corn dumplings, like used to be standard.) That’s basically like a cobbler that’s not baked, and my mom always particularly liked to use blackberries.
Anyway, the blackberries are starting to ripen early here, with the hot weather. I still haven’t managed to get out and pick any, because trash body. (Plus the upstairs neighbors just had to cut down/try to rip out the bushes we had growing right out back 😈)
But, that basic approach works well with basically any type of fruit, and the frozen mixed berries I can readily get hold of include some blackberries *wry smile* No reason that shouldn’t turn out fine, assuming I can get my act together to make some.
Meant to do that before Mr. C took off, but that’s just a good excuse to make some more if they do turn out OK 😊
On the plus side, I should now have fresh food to last a few days. Plus some ice cream and berries 👍 (Extra little self-bribe to get me out, too.)
Mr. C is gone until next Sunday, and I am much better at making sure other people stay decently fed. Trying to head that off early, at least.
I put off going up the street for some groceries until basically the last minute, hoping it would cool off a little out there.
And it did…pretty much as soon as I got away from our walled patio that’s been baking in the sun all afternoon 🙄
I’m kind of impressed that it’s only taken a few days this time for the inside of the house to get that much hotter than outside, tbh. Noticeable difference getting out onto the patio with the breeze now, at least. Shame we still haven’t gotten a table set up out there.
Emergencies really do crop up more often for poor people. Necessities, like vacuum cleaners or phones or bedding or shoes, need replacement or repair more often when you only buy the cheapest possible option.
Poor people’s health tends to be compromised by cheap, unhealthy food; stress; being around lots of similarly-poor contagious sick people who can’t afford to stay home or get treatment; inadequate healthcare; and often, hazardous and/or demanding work conditions.
So we get sick more. On top of that, many people are poor specifically because of disability. All of that is expensive – even if you just allow your health to deteriorate, eventually you can’t work, which is – say it with me – expensive.
When you’re poor, even the cheapest (most temporary) solution for an emergency often breaks the bank. Unexpected expenses can be devastating. People who aren’t poor don’t realize that an urgent expense of thirty dollars can mean not eating for a week. Poor people who try to save find our savings slipping away as emergency after emergency happens.
I don’t think people who’ve never been poor realise what it’s like. It’s not that we’re terrible at budgeting, it’s that even the most perfect budget breaks under the weight of the basic maths: we do not have enough resources.
Cos we’re fucking poor.
People who aren’t poor also have different ideas of what an emergency constitutes. The AC breaking in the middle of summer isn’t an emergency when it’s in the budget to just go buy a new one the same afternoon without worrying about how it’ll affect your grocery money; having to take two days off from work because you’re running a bad fever isn’t an emergency when you have paid sick leave.
So it’s no wonder the well off people of the world don’t get it when a low income person is stressed over something breaking or a minor illness. I know people for whom a crashed car – as long as no one was hurt – would just be ‘damn it I liked that car and now I gotta borrow my wife’s’ and I know people for whom it would be ‘I can’t afford to have this fixed but I can’t get to work if I don’t get it fixed and I can’t get it fixed if I don’t go to work hahhaha time to indebt myself to family members who I desperately wish I didn’t even have to interact with because they’re the only ones who can give me rides or loan me money.’
Two very different worlds.
This makes abusive situations infinitely more difficult too.
Being poor is isolating as all shit, and you have very little power to choose who you do and don’t interact with. Quite often, in the midst of all these emergencies, the only people who’ll offer a hand up are abusers or toxic friends, and their help will carry invisible conditions, or be contingent on you never speaking up or “acting out” against mistreatment. And where are there any other options, what can you afford to do about it?
Sometimes even good friendships can turn sour and toxic if there’s a major difference in wealth between two or more people. As the poorer friend needs help more and more often and options shrink under the expense of being poor, it becomes scarier and scarier to speak up on the occasions when your better-off friend who helps you out inevitably fucks up and hurts you, like friends do.
It’s a power imbalance that will almost inevitably be abused. Poverty can actively breed toxic situations between friends and partners.
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
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