LIFE BY LOUIS: Braving the unpalatable cod liver oil

After the discovery of sliced bread and the small pocket in jeans, the world was getting a bit boring without new discoveries and inventions.

Then someone, fumbling around the laboratory, probably during the Industrial Revolution, accidentally discovered cod liver oil. Despite the fact that the world has never lacked sugar, the manufacturer blatantly refused to add even one small teaspoon of sugar to the cod liver oil to make it more palatable.

What were the results of the award winning discovery? The spurious liquid could deceptively pass for sparkling wine in appearance but it tastes like a heavily spiced engine lubricant.

NOT BABY FRIENDLY

The manufacturer must have kept his hideous discovery from the other more humane scientist who discovered baby friendly jabs and cough syrups. Nowadays the jabs are administered using tiny needles and are pretty painless. The cough syrups taste like a pleasant cold beverage. Cod liver oil was deliberately left out in this baby friendliness affair.

Doctors are conspirators in this hideous scheme to make life difficult for children and make the cod liver oil manufacturer rich.

They will therefore never miss the opportunity to prescribe a big jerrycan of cod liver oil every time you show up at the clinic with your child suffering from a minor common cold, and such other supposedly life threatening diseases that warrant copious amounts of cod liver oil.

This prescription, always administered in large portions, is always the beginning of parents’ biggest nightmares.

The prevailing cold weather has brought its own share of tropical infections. I therefore recently found myself at the clinic dragging behind my brood that was suffering from common cold.

The doctor at the clinic must be the leading cheerleader and local chief agent for cod liver oil. After some in-depth diagnosis and him scribbling the prescription in a handwriting that only he and the pharmacist understand, I walked out of the clinic dragging two jerrycans of cod liver oil.

Despite spending a whole evening preparing Brian and his younger brother psychologically that the medicine I was about to give them was good for their health, medicine time still found us grossly unprepared.

UNPLEASANT

I was torn between starting with the older boy or the younger one. Regardless, the results were the same. The viscous liquid seems to spread evenly in the mouth like a friendly serpent. However, the minute it lands in the throat, it seems to trigger a violent military resistance from the taste buds.

The end result is either a gag, or a heavily contorted face as the child struggles to persuade the unpleasant liquid to flow swiftly down the throat. I have tried all means using the little chemistry I earned in school to make the cod liver oil baby friendly, and I have failed.

I have always wondered why the manufacturer could not come up with roasted or deep fried versions of cod liver that we can all happily eat with ugali and steamed spinach.

In my moments of deep thought, I always wonder what they do with the cod fish once they remove the liver.

I have this personal conviction that they use the remainder of the fish to make capsules, the adult version of cod liver oil.

COLOURFUL CAPSULES

When I was young and tropical diseases ravaged us in Karugo Group of Schools, capsules were the size of a cooked sausage.

And minor illnesses, like a running nose, attracted a sack full of capsules. They came in colourful versions, with half the capsule painted red and the other half yellow. That was their only idea of baby friendliness.

Swallowing a capsule was an art as well as a science. You gingerly put one in the mouth and escorted it with a generous gulp of water as per the poorly handwritten prescription.

Water walked quickly through your throat, totally ignoring the capsule that remained on your throat like a big elephant stuck in a pigeon hole.

In one fateful twist from the original script, you could run into a fright mode, accidentally clenching your teeth together. Inevitably, the capsule would burst inside your mouth, releasing a yellow nuclear cloud that threatened to terminate your life with its intense bitterness.

But experience is the best teacher.

You later learnt to throw your head back, open your mouth like an alligator and throw the capsule to the extreme back of the mouth while chasing it violently with a torrent of water.

Brian and his brother are lucky that no doctor has prescribed a small sack for their consumption.