Road Apples by Tim Sanders
Jan. 21, 2013

Garlic, Vapo Rub and other essential foot oils

Share |

Just last week we received another one of those informative forwarded emails. It was of the “You may not believe this, but ...” variety, and we've learned a lot from those emails over the years.


THE CORK CRISIS: We've learned, for example, that the reason you never see cork anymore is that almost all of the cork harvested in those dense North African Cork Forests has been depleted, so now a pound of cork is now worth more than a pound of pure silver. Nobody else will tell you this, but if you want to make some easy money, go through your house and find all the cork you can locate, whether old fishing bobbers or bottle stoppers or shoe liners, and wrap it tightly in aluminum foil. Cork speculators wouldn't want this to get out, but cork prices have soared over 976% since 2001, and all the smart investors are putting their money in the cork market. A man in Albuquerque found enough cork in old gaskets and bulletin boards in his garage to make a down payment on a yacht.

PLANTAR WARTS: If you want to remove plantar warts, or “planter's warts,” apply a mixture of half mayonnaise and half Dijon mustard, and then sprinkle the infected area lightly with shredded cheese and parsley. Cover the foot with at least four heavy wool socks and keep it elevated. This works 100% of the time, and within three days your plantar wart will be gone and your foot will smell like a tasty ham sandwich.

WASP STINGS: Never swat a wasp while he is stinging you. Many an otherwise healthy individual has killed himself by smashing a wasp mid-sting, which only drives a huge mass of his wasp venom into the victim's system. Just let your wasp finish, and he will leave. If you must swat a wasp, do it while it is on somebody else, and use a sideways motion to sweep him gently from his target.

BEWARE OF LARGE RATTLESNAKES: This one is not as popular as it used to be, but at one time email inboxes were bombarded with photos of men holding sticks with diamondback rattlesnakes draped over them. Draped over the sticks, that is. Many of these photos, whether taken in Louisiana, Alabama, or Georgia, appeared to be of the very same guy holding the very same snake, although estimated lengths varied from 12 to 23 feet, and weights varied from 40 to 250 pounds. Again, we refer to the snake's dimensions, not the man's. We believe he was a midget. The really valuable information was the clear implication that if you were to travel anywhere in the Southeast and find a very decorative cedar log lying across the road, you should not get out of your car and try to move that log, because it would almost certainly not be a log at all, but part of a 400 pound diamondback rattlesnake carrying enough venom to kill a herd of Holsteins.


So we are used to these informative emails, and have benefitted immensely from them. We are saving up our cork for a rainy day, not swatting wasps, and of course keeping a healthy distance away from mega-rattlers. But helpful as these have been, the informative email we got the other day made us stop and think. It starts like this:


“During a lecture on Essential Oils, they told us how the foot soles can absorb oils. Their example: Put garlic on your feet and within 20 minutes you can taste it.”


That introductory part is meant to establish the scientific basis for something called The Vapo Rub Theory. The writer goes on to extoll the virtues of Vicks Vapo Rub, and explain how he has used it over the years and never suffered any permanent damage. But the new Vapo Rub Theory involves taking a child who has a persistent, hacking cough and coating the soles of his feet with Vapo Rub until he stops coughing and starts giggling. This indicates that 1) you need to trim your fingernails, and 2) you should leave him alone because the Vapo Rub is working and soon he will fall into a peaceful sleep. The author also says the Vapo Rub on the Feet system works with adults, and backs this up by the fact that he has an unnamed friend whose unnamed wife tried it and stopped coughing almost immediately. And as if that isn't ample evidence, some guy on the radio said that when it comes to cough medicines, they all contain harmful chemicals which neither children nor adults can tolerate well. No, the trick is to coat your feet in Vapo Rub, cover them with a few pairs of socks, and let that soothing essence work its way up your legs, past your thighs, through your personal regions, past your stomach and intestines, until it hits your lungs and nose and your cough control center, which is that part of your brain that tells your body to cough. At least I think that's how it's supposed to work.

My main problem with the whole Vapo Rub Theory is that the proof lies in the fact that all scientists know that if you coat the soles of your feet in garlic, “within 20 minutes you can taste it.” This brings up the question of just how the garlic factor was discovered. I can only imagine the scene in the laboratory. It's lunchtime, and Bob has removed his shoes.


LESTER: What you doin' there, Bob?

BOB: Coating my feet in garlic.

LESTER: Garlic? WHY?

BOB: We’re out of onions.

LESTER: Whew, it sure stinks. I can almost taste it.

BOB: There's no “almost” about it. Come over here and get a whiff. And jot this down: “Next time, add cloves.”


And so science marches on. We don't know the details; all we know is that somewhere, sometime, some scientists with a lot of spare time on their hands learned that when you put garlic on your feet you can taste it within 20 minutes. It's garlic, for Pete's sake! In Transylvania they use it to repel vampires! Good grief, if your neighbor was to put a thick coat of garlic on his feet and slosh around his own backyard, within 5 minutes the whole neighborhood could taste it.