Fun with Chemistry

I was recently told by my podiatrist that my toes are suffering from "frost nip". It has a more medical-scientific name, but I'm not good at remembering stuff like that. Basically, my toes hurt every winter because the blood vessels freeze and thaw continually, with the result that I get purple spots on my toes. Basically, my toes are cold and I need to warm them up.

My podiatrist gave me a couple of suggestions--get wool socks and take l-arginine. L-arginine is a protein that is supposed to make my circulation better. It's also supposed to give me more energy. My podiatrist recommended this stuff last summer too, because he noticed I had purple toes. It's best to take it as a powder, because it's cheaper and also you don't have to swallow a half dozen pills. Unfortunately, l-arginine powder is notoriously disgusting. I tried it for a couple of weeks and gave up. Since my toes were on the verge of frost bite, I figured I'd better try again. I took it up to Mom and Dad's that weekend. Dad put a tiny bit on his tongue, smacked his lips for about a minute, and declared, "That is shitty stuff."

Too true. We got online and looked up ways to make l-arginine easier to get down. Found all kinds of interesting information--this one guy added it to grape juice, and the grape juice actually turned green! He put in some lemon juice and it went back to normal. L-arginine is a base, so it can be neutralized by an acid. I decided to do some experimenting.

Experiment 1 was to mix l-arginine powder with orange juice--the acid in the OJ was supposed to neutralize the base in the l-arginine and make it taste normal. Didn't work. It was a full minute of agony as I tried chug down a big glass of unbearably sweet OJ. For the rest of my experiments I used a much smaller glass.

Experiment 2 was to mix it with OJ and then add some freshly-squeezed lemon juice. It was really cool--when I mixed the l-arginine powder with the OJ, I noticed it turned slightly green (ew!). When I mixed in half a lemon, the green tint disappeared and it almost tasted normal! Just a little bitter.

In experiment 3, I added citric acid instead of lemon juice. Same result (but I had to add a whole 1/2 teaspoon of citric acid to my 4 oz of juice. I'm not sure that's a very healthy solution).

In experiment 4, I tried adding bottled lemon juice, since it would be cheaper than buying a million lemons. The acid worked its magic, but bottled lemon juice is really gross-tasting. No good.

Regular OJ

1 t. L-Arginine added

Added 1/2 t. citric acid

So, my conclusion: it is possible to make l-arginine palatable. I've been mixing it with Tang and fresh lemon juice this week, and it ALMOST tastes good. The real question is, is it actually working? Or is the acid killing the l-arginine? Maybe it's the power of suggestion, but my toes have been feeling a lot better this week. But I've also been wearing wool socks almost constantly, so that might be why.

In other news, Mom and I made some strawberry-lemonade marshmallows from my candy book. They turned out pretty good, despite a few little problems--like over cooking the lemon layer so it wouldn't fluff up. Still tasted yummy! Especially after all the l-arginine. Yuck.