poop deloop

If you're not a nurse, you may not want to read this post. If you should choose to continue reading, please don't say I didn't warn you.

This post is about poo, a topic all nurses are very familiar with. A topic we discuss to death over meal breaks. A topic that has become personally rather dear to my heart in the last two days.

*****WARNING: STOP READING NOW IF YOU*****
***** CAN'T COPE WITH POOP TALK! *****

Yesterday I had green poop. Full on green poop. I thought it rather odd and continued on my merry way.

Today I had green poop again - two occurances more than doubled my concern. Some action seemed required - after all, I haven't eaten that many zucchinis in the last few days. Close, but not enough to green up my output. Surely? (Frank was delighted that I did not serve any zucchini tonight. I made zucchini bread instead) Something is going on!

First stop, the internet, source of all knowledge (apart from God, of course, who is the source of all knowledge without dud pages full of crap). "Green Poo" in Google produced a mere 1,660,000 results - bound to be an answer there!

And bingo! The second page I went to suggested that green poop is the result of imbibing too much blue food dye... the author has gone so far as to conduct an experiment, pouring varying amounts of blue dye down unsuspecting friend's throats before observing the result. (I have included the link, but I do not vouch for the safety of this site. Enter at your own risk!)

Blue dye. Blue dye? Blue dye??? When have I eaten blue dye? I generally eat a pretty healthy diet...

... and then it came back to me...

Last week I broke cardinal rule number one, and went to the supermarket feeling hungry. There I spied 'Happy Feet Cola Penguins' and they looked so cute I bought them, breaking cardinal rule number two. (They were 99% fat free - does that make it a less serious misdemeanour?) On arriving home I remembered Frank would be very late, so tea might not be until 8pm. I opened the 'Happy Feet Cola Penguins'... cardinal rule number three gone by the wayside. Plonking myself in front of the television I munched my way through more than half the packet. Oh dear... that was cardinal rule number four!

The next day I happily consumed the rest of the packet. They really were delicious...

...and you can see how cute they are! How could I resist? (Yes, I took a photo before I ate the last four, so I could share their cuteness with all of you, totally ignorant to the significance of the little critters)

I've just rummaged through the rubbish bin and found the packet. Ingredients include bucket loads of sugar followed by colours 171 (innocent white), 122 (red), 102 (yellow) and you guessed it... 133, brilliant blue FCF!

Case solved. My green poo is the result of a complete lack of self restraint in the consumption of 'Happy Feet Cola Penguins'. I shall rest easy tonight knowing that I have not overdosed on zucchinis and nor do I have a deadly disease. I shall also probably never again purchase Happy Feet lollies... unless I can't resist their cuteness of course.