Wildilocks Can Has Journal?

So, this morning there came up a most thought-provoking post on MetaEfficient.

The topic? How completely unnatural the modern western toilet is. And while I’ve been well aware of composting toilets for some time [my eco-research of the last few years and even much longer ago being not insignificant] I really hadn’t thought much about the other, more health-relevant subject of the article - the squat toilet.

Did you know that two thirds of the worlds’ population does not use a seated toilet, but rather, squat, as we have been evolutionarily adapted to do? That diseases such as colon cancer, appendicitis and IBS, not to mention Chrohn’s disease, rarely occur in populations who do not use the seated toilet?

Once you actually sit [or perhaps I should say, squat] and think about it, it’s mind-bogglingly simple, and another piece to the puzzle of why Westerners are suffering so many health problems now. I was focused solely on diet for some time - now I must say I think there’s more to it: and this is something we can actually do something about, quite easily. I lived in Thailand for a year, and used squat toilets everywhere: it never really occurred to me to wonder why we didn’t have the same in the western world. I just accepted it was one of many differences: maybe there was a conceit of us being more “civilised” too. Well, I think we got it wrong, as we’ve got, well - quite a lot of things wrong, akshully.

So apparently, in Australia there is available a product called the “IN-LIEU” Toilet Converter [tee hee] which is really quite reasonable in price [under $200] and I’m seriously thinking of getting one. They are available from many different suppliers, but this seems to be the best price. fuxysparkles, was it my crap memory of a conversation, or did you know someone who was recently diagnosed with Chrohn’s? This might be worth a mention, if so.

So yeah, poop. Get it right! *baked beans in face*

Current Mood: thoughtful & thoughtful & thoughtful & thoughtful

This entry was posted on Friday, December 12th, 2008 at 8:38 am and is filed under Health and You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.