Ever heard of an Oil-gargle? I hadn’t either, till a co-passenger on a flight with me told me about it. It sounded easy enough. But I didn’t want to try it till I did my share of ‘googling’ on it. And what I found about it was quite incredible.
Apparently it is not a new concoction. It is rooted in the age-old Indian health philosophy of Ayurveda. Ayurveda advises oil gargling – or “oil pull” as it is sometimes referred to – “to purify the taste-buds and detoxify the entire system.” The oil pulls all mucous, bacteria and toxins from the body through the saliva.
Now this was starting to make sense. I’ve always wondered what these doctors conclude about the state of health of a person by looking at his tongue. It turns out that they figure out quite a bit. The tongue apparently is mapped to various organ locations. That is, each section of the tongue is connected to various parts of the body. Which is why the tongue is a pretty good barometer for what is going on in the body. So an oil gargle activates the key meridians where taste meets the organ. Logical so far.
Then I started looking for some empirical proof as to how well this practice works. The name that I hit more often than not was the name of Dr. F Karsch. Dr Karsch is a strong proponent of the oil gargle technique. He declared that he examined the gargled oil that was spat out, under a microscope and found live organisms swimming in it. These live organisms were bacteria-embryos and highly poisonous. In fact my co-passenger, quoting her source of research, told me that when this spat out oil was fed to a young plant sapling for a week, the sapling died. Logical and convincing so far.
According to Dr. Karsch the list of diseases that are cured from Oil Pulling are endless. The Oil-therapy heals totally headaches, bronchitis, tooth pain, thrombosis, eczema, ulcers, intestinal diseases, heart and kidney diseases, encephalitis and woman’s diseases. Preventively the growth of malignant tumors is cut and healed. Chronic blood diseases, paralysis, diseases of nerves, stomach, lungs and liver and sleeplessness are cured.”
So how is this magic cure done? First thing in the morning, before brushing your teeth, eating or drinking, take 1 table spoon of either sesame or sunflower oil (it should be a vegetable oil), put the oil in your mouth, tilt your chin up and slowly swish it back and forth through the teeth. Don’t take it to the throat and gargle. Only swish it about in your mouth. Do this for at least 10 minutes. 15 – 20 minutes is better. The oil will eventually become a watery white foam. That’s when you spit it out. If it is still yellow, that means you haven’t swished enough. Make sure you spit out everything and rinse your mouth well. Remember the live bacterial embryos?
How would you know that it is working? The first sign of improvement is in the teeth-they become noticeably white. Other healing indications: fresh, relaxed feeling on waking up, disappearing dark pouches below the eyes, anew appetite and energy, better memory and deep sleep.
I think it is worth a try. And why not? We are talking about a simple, harmless, easy, inexpensive technique here, which incidentally has a lot of empirical research to back the health benefits it provides. At the very least, it promises to whiten the teeth. And I’ve seen it personally work for a friend of mine who had nicotine stained teeth.
