— “Toto, I’ve a Feeling We’re Not in Kansas Anymore” Alright, we’re closing in on the new year and my publicly-available posting campaign together with end-of-year sale/anti-sale is running out of time with lots still in the outbox. After this, I’m shifting to a couple of Thailand-Life updates and might close it out with a……...

— It's Not Hype To Say Miracle Drug...Miracle Plant

If you're reading this via the Newsletter, note that the post title differs from the email subject line to [hopefully] not get caught up in filters of a certain kind. If you haven't read yesterday's post, I would encourage you to do so. It says what's in store for us this week, like all posts will be public until the new year. I did a short video trailer from the beach after a 1.2km swim, see below. Here's what's planned over the next few days on the heels of this marvelous discovery, below. First, I'm back together with Yui (the girl...and just as importantly, her two girls) and there's a whole history and story and reason behind that and lessons learned and new insights. I've got some cooking posts, including how to make wonderful 30-minute German-style fried potatoes in 6 minutes (video too). I've been swimming and snorkeling a lot and have some pretty cool underwater GoPro footage. There's new research hot off the presses this week that suggests or even confirms that the immune systems of billions worldwide may be compromised or wrecked. Does America stand a chance anymore, politically? And more...

A good place to start this unbelievable and serendipitous story is at the beginning.

Last September I moved into this new place and found myself residing between two young Thai women. Both turned out to be real sweethearts. The one to my left, Thanida, works at a French-style bakery owned by a Vietnamese guy (the one to my right, Khip, works as a secretary at a hotel and is pregnant). Thanida had a British boyfriend but he liked hitting the girl bars too much so she dumped him. They're still friends and I'm acquainted. He's older, in my age range, a bit of an asshole, but smart and competent. Good hearted fundamentally, he set her up with a real computer and still helps her in various ways.

Here's her and I on a morning walk and then breakfast. Yes, the 2.5 min video title is shameless and intentional clickbait.

Enter her new boyfriend since last year, Pico, who recently arrived from Germany for a few months. Near the same age, he and I have hit it off marvelously. Super good guy.

Notice the age difference (she's about 35, he's over 55); and Thanida is neither a gold digger nor has she ever worked in a bar. She works 10 hours per day, six days per week, for incredibly low wages by our standards (less than $500 per month). He helps out, but she insists on working.

So, in reference to the foregoing pike and what's coming down it, I have a post on that general topic as well. Prepare to have assumptions, stereotypes, and projections utterly, iconoclastically dismantled (in a gentle way...especially for the ladies who, in some sense, have a perfectly natural and logical disdain for this sort of thing).

...A few weeks ago I saw Pico munching on something and I asked what it was. He had no idea, but said it's a root, like a potato, but is crunchy and a little bit sweet, like an apple. He gave me one out of the fridge, which he recommended doing.

On the outside, it looks like a typical sweet potato, or what some erroneously call yams. Thanida had acquired them from up in Chiang Mai, 1000 miles away. There's some altitude up there and it's cooler. Apparently, this Andes native—colloquially known as Peruvian apple—grows well up there and a farmer ships them for 160 baht for a 5 kilogram box (11 pounds for $4.65, including shipping).

What are they? I snapped a photo and did an image search and one of the results was a plant called "yacon." Then image searching on that specifically confirmed it because of the melon or apple-like inside. (I always have to be careful typing it, because autocorrect thinks I mean bacon.)

So, nothing much to see yet and your first query would naturally be various cooking alternatives.

But nope, you eat them raw.

I'll get to taste and texture in a bit. They're extra delicious and could easily be my favorite "fruit." I need to buy a blender so I can make smoothies from two of them and fart up a damn storm (1st hint).

I noticed something quite radical after eating a couple of them per day for a few days in a row. My ravenous hunger subsided. Remember what motivated me to try cutting out the booze? Complete loss of appetite. The rest of that story is history.

But when I stopped boozing and in 3 days had my appetite back, it went all Yin to Yang on me and I was hungry all the [damn] time. So, what I'm saying is, that experience was serendipity number one. I was in the ideal time and place to notice a profound change and it was highly correlated with consuming these things. Add to that, I know a thing or two about gut health, and profound flatulence informed me on that score.

So I started looking into it, just idle Google searches, including for those touted to produce weight-loss results with before-after pics like the one to the left. Interestingly, there are few pics and not a lot of information. Contrasted with new and hyper-expensive Wegovy—which you'll learn about below—there's tons of stuff to be "found." Thanks, Google. One hopes there'll be lot more info about cheap yacon syrup soon. I'm sure you're anxious to include it in search results, right along with patented and expensive Wegovy.

I did come up with an interesting read and it contained a study with head-shaking results.