How to Lube Your Tubes With Foods

And why you need to be good friends with goop

Welcome to the Slime Symposium. I’m pretty excited to write this article, not just because I finally had a reason to google ‘synonyms for slime’, but because this is information that can really, really help your digestion and nutrient absorption for a really small amount of money. And that’s what we like, right?

Here are the main points today - what slime is, why it’s good, how to get it, and how to make it tasty. We’ll go over some approachable science behind it all, some red flags for bullshit recipes, and some options depending on your budget and kitchen equipment. I’ll be linking my favorites here as well, and rest assured I’m absolutely nobody so there’s zero kickback for me - they’re just brands and products I’ve used and use that work.

Okay! You ever suffered through a drinkable chia beverage? You ever wondered why those little fuckers get stuck in your cavities beneath an armor of goop and seemingly ungraspable jelly? You ever soaked buckwheat, or made membrilla, and wondered where the gunk is coming from? Welcome to nature’s own lubricant: mucilage.

Mucilage is a substance present in a variety of plants and composed of long chain sugars (polysaccharides; a soluble fiber), proteins, and a variety of tannins, fats, minerals and water. They exist for a variety of purposes: they defend carnivorous plants, they they protect seeds, and they offer perfect doses of germinating cocktails to get seeds from plant to earth and germinated, even when a lack of water and nutrition would be otherwise prohibitive. Think… inside of an okra, or probably the reason your vanilla ass friends won’t eat it - it’s slimy! We’ll go over mucilage sources from seeds and grains, as well as slime of a different nature from marine plants (seaweed! slimy!) and why they’re so incredibly beneficial for our bodies.

The easiest places to find mucilage are grains, and the easiest ways to access that mucilage is by feigning germination - soaking in water. This is essentially why chia pudding chia puddings - we’re soaking dormant chia seeds in water (or milk) and the water soluble gelling agent present in the mucilage is activated. The goopy exterior exists to feed and nourish the seed through its germination - but jokes on them! We’re eating it! Chia, flax and hemp are phenomenal sources of mucilage and generally affordable to purchase. Make sure they’re organic, and avoid Amazon when you can. Old seeds won’t activate just like old seeds won’t grow your garden - germination rates drop as time goes on, so seeds harvested five years ago lose potency compared to seeds harvested recently. I like to do a chia dominant mix - 80 - 20 - of chia and flax. These are available pretty readily - Sprouts, Natural Grocers, Co-Ops, Trader Joe’s, Safeway, Fresh Thyme - you’ll find ‘em.

So why is goop good for us? Quite simply, our gut is lined with sensitive mucous membranes. These protect us from infections, they host beneficial bacteria, and they maintain a slip-n-slide in the belly to make digestion easy, and nutrient absorption optimal. The majority of what we eat, drink, and do in this country destroys these delightful goopy channels, and mucilage can be a fabulous replacement - the gunk coats your tubes and makes everything, well, a little smoother. Considering these gels exist to feed, nourish and protect seeds, they do similar things for us - mucilage contains prebiotics and essential aminos, complicated tannins and antioxidants, and minerals in a very available form. They’re the bullet train from food to gut and you absolutely need them in your life.

You’ve no doubt seen, and probably consumed, a chia pudding type treat at some point. While I find the texture to be absolutely heinous, I also find it to be a colossal waste of time - you see those same chia seeds in your toilet, and that’s because they’re protected by the goop. If you want to make chia, flax, or hemp seeds bioavailable to yourself, you have to crush them before activating their mucilage and consuming, or else you are quite literally shitting out money. Every waspy pinterest recipe for chia pudding shows the same mason jar, the contents studded with little black chia seeds, and that’s a shame. The seed doesn’t spend enough time in your gullet to break down and offer you its nutritional powerhouse - to fix this, dump your chia seeds in a food processor, vitamix, or coffee/spice grinder and beat the shit out of them. Then put them in an airtight container and store in the fridge. They will gel up much faster, you’ll be able to digest them, and you won’t have to pretend that eating mini slime balls is pleasing.

There’s slime in seaweed, too - along with a billion other good things - marine sources of seaweed as medicine date back to 14,000BCE in Chile, based on various types of seaweed being found in domestic compost heaps. There’s a fascinating article, Saved by Seaweed, I really encourage you to read - not all about slime, but some fascinating anthropological finds on intentional seaweed consumption across the world. Seaweed has been used to treat hypothyroid diseases forever, as an extremely bioavailable source of iodine. Fucoidan is a polysaccharide found in many species of seaweeds and algaes, and it’s what makes it slimy - and it’s at the forefront of research for its incredible ability to program the death of cancer cells, halt influenza, counteract melanoma topically and inhibit HIV viral activity. These are just the “big dogs” - the day to day benefits of fucoidan, similar to mucilage, are stunning - the substance aggressively tackles and destroys viruses, acts as a hardcore immunoregulator and anticoagulant. It doesn’t affect platelets, so it’s not risky to over-thinning your blood. It’s magical. Here’s the thing - you can’t get enough of it by eating kombu or wakame without dying. Should you eat seaweed? Yes. Should you rely on it for fucoidan? No. It takes about a kilogram of wakame for one gram of fucoidan - you’ll die - and since we want about 2g of fucoidan for day to day, and up to 6g for active cancer fighting (fucoidan literally arrests the cancer cells and kills them - here’s a fabulous article) - you should take an extracted, singular form. This one really, really hurts the wallet - pure high potency fucoidans range in the $300/bottle range - but if you’re looking at it from supplementation and not present cancer healing, this is one I like.

Just because you can’t afford pure and unadulterated fucoidan doesn’t mean you should ignore the gooey benefits of seaweed. The holy grail of good shit is Maine Coast Sea Vegetables and they’ve got the gooey things you want - shop here.

Some other easy mucilage factories - buckwheat, if soaked, quinoa, if soaked, aloe, okra, and figs. Aloe juice is fucking disgusting but it’s so good for you that it deserves a place in your smoothie. Something to consider is that mucilage is, ultimately, highly potent fiber - it’s going to scrub out your insides a bit, and it’s gotta go somewhere - so expect some trips to the latrine after your first few chia puddins, puddin’. As with any time we create a cleansing sitú, we want a good binder - something for the eradicated toxins and bad goops to cling to on their exit. My absolute favorite source for powders and grains (among other things) is the legendary www.nuts.com - and their chlorella is my go-to. Chlorella, yet another insanely beneficial algae, not only contains more chlorophyll than any other plant, but has the ability to detoxify chemicals and pollutants (these are your plastics, dioxins, etc) which are well known and understood to cause cancer among other things. It also acts as a phenomenal binder - the bad stuff (toxins, heavy metals) sticks to it and goes away.

Okay, so - how do we make really good chia pudding?

Detoxifying & Soothing Chia Pudding (makes two servings)

5 tbsp chia, pulverized

1/2 cup coconut water

1/2 cup oat or almond milk

1tbsp honey

1tsp tahini

1tsp cacao powder

1tsp vanilla paste, extract, or other extract you like

1tbsp chlorella powder

Mix tahini, honey, cacao, vanilla, and chlorella with a fork, making sure everything sticks together. Slowly, add coconut water, mixing continuously. You can do this in a blender, but not before you’ve diluted the tahini or else it will stick. Add in chia and milk, continuing to stir, or shake in mason jar. Set in fridge for a few hours, but ideally overnight. Enjoy. You can add cold brew in place of coconut water if that’s your style, and get real crazy with chai spices, too - I don’t need to hold your hand on the variations, you’ve got it.

I hope the Slime Symposium was everything you wanted it to be and more. I look forward to hearing about your improved poops, your chia concoctions and your kelp catastrophes - as always, I’m here, and recipes will continue to post.

In Health,

Anna