Friday, February 2, 2024

My Recent Health Struggles were... Self-Inflicted

It's been a while since I've offered an update, that's because I had been feeling sick for a WHILE, months. 

Without making it too gross, let's just say, I've gotten into a LONG bout of stomach upsets, diarrhea, that lasted months. OTC drugs didn't really help, and even prescription strength stuff barely kept it under control. Let's just say, I had to standby near the toilet quite a bit. 

And I just realized I did this to myself. 

Basically, it's caused by 2 things: my air fryer, and my lousy cleaning habits. 

I have a personal air fryer, and I used to use it a lot. Let's just say, the hot air exhaust is... oily as I tend to cook frozen chicken thigh w/ skin. It's simple, decent protein, and you can do all sorts of sauces to make it edible. 

However, I don't clean it enough. I bought one of those silicone "trays" that goes inside, and promptly forgot about cleaning the inside. And grease started to accumulate inside I didn't rinse out after each use. As I said, I had a lousy cleaning habit. 

I think there was a month or two where I ate something else, so I didn't use the air fryer for a month or two. When I opened it up again, there's a mount of MOLD that grew on the leftover grease in the silicone tray. 

I tossed the whole tray, found a backup silicone tray I had purchased, rinsed the inside of cooking basket with the hottest tap water I can get out of the faucet, and proceeded to cook two more chicken thighs, and ate at least one. 

I suspect there are mold inside the fan assembly, and I basically fed myself mold and mold spores. I don't want to look, now that I think about it. It'd explain the prolonged stomach problems. 

I'm going to toss the air fryer, of course.  Already bought the replacement. 

There is a bit of a benefit... I lost 50 pounds during the ordeal. Now I don't have to diet. 

Not sure all that suffering (even now) is worth it though... 


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