A while ago I awoke during the night and went to answer a call of nature. I stood, humming to myself, admiring the dazzling whites and chrome of our
newly renovated bathroom. Then, having finished my business, I happened to glance down at the toilet bowl.
My blood ran cold. The contents of the brilliant porcelain were a vivid, shocking, arterial red. It looked like something from a horror movie. My head swam and my heart pounded.
Cancer, kidney failure, the end…
I went back to bed and lay awake, paralysed with dread until the morning. Then I reluctantly went to my computer and typed “Blood in urine” into Google. The results were horrifying. Of the 88 possible causes of hematuria, many of them were very serious indeed. What had happened to me?
The previous weekend I had been to a riotous stag party at
Cloghan Castle in Ireland. I had drunk huge quantities of Guinness. Was this my body’s terrible retribution?
Then, sunk in despair, I noticed at the bottom of the web-page a word with which I was not familiar but which offered a glimmer of hope. Beeturia.
Beeturia. Beetroot? Our fortnightly organic vegetable box from Eden Farms had contained fresh beetroots last week. We had eaten them roasted with our chicken the previous night. I followed the link and read the joyous lines,
“
Some people pass red urine, even after eating a modest amount of beetroot. This occurs because the pigment betanin passes straight through their digestive system and is harmlessly excreted in the urine and stools. This condition is known as beeturia or betacyaninuria.”The Eden Farms vegetable boxes are consistently excellent. Even through the winter months we have been treated to some superb local organic produce. They are still cheaper than Sainsbury’s as well. You can meet them at the fortnightly farmers market in town (currently removed from Market Square due to the renovation works, see their
website for details).
A correspondent has introduced me to
http://www.bigbarn.co.uk/ which seems like an excellent resource for finding local food producers.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali was probably the only European politician with the stature of a Mandela. She was the only Dutch politician and one of only a few on the whole continent that I could readily name. Her treatment at the hands of Rita Verdonk (never heard of her), the hawkish Dutch immigration minister, is incomprehensible and will hopefully prove politically disasterous. If, as has been suggested, Europe were to lose Hirsi Ali to the USA, it would be a tragedy.