Adam Bencard A good friend of mine (thanks Zacha!) alerted me to this wonderful and very metabolically relevant passage from Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol:
“You don’t believe in me,” observed the Ghost.
“I don’t,” said Scrooge.
“What evidence would you have of my reality beyond that of your senses?”
“I don’t know,” said Scrooge.
“Why do you doubt your senses?”
“Because,” said Scrooge, “a little thing affects them. A slight disorder of the stomach makes them cheats. You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. There’s more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!”
Given the recent studies linking the gut microbiome to mood and social behaviour it might really all be about the gravy. And if that’s not in the spirit of the season, I don’t know what is.
Happy holidays everyone!
