Every week I wonder what the headline of my article will be. My amazing editor ( ) does a fantastic job.
It’s a skill to grab the reader’s attention. However, this week, I was compelled to ask her if she could please not have the headline: “Bernard O’Shea is taking the piss.”
When I thought about writing an article on this steamy topic (ok, I promise, last lousy joke), the first thing that popped into my head was that no one wants to read about their urine.
Yet, it’s something that (hopefully) comes out of us every day. We have to give samples of it to our GPs, and when we’re raising our kids, we are literally drenched in it and always at the worst possible time. (If this were a movie, it would cut to me trying desperately to stop it going all over a christening gown)
Some sensational columns have recently popped up in print, ranging from people washing their hair to sipping on their personal supplies.
I was not going to do that; however, I was intrigued when I saw the rise over the last few years of “urine monitors”.
You attach these devices to the toilet bowl, and with some magic jiggery-pokery, they can extrapolate some medical information for you.
More often than not, it is an app that, if you’re like me, will be read on a toilet seat.
But why should we be embarrassed to talk about it?
Okay, it’s not the social norm. Just open up to a stranger on a train “Hello, nice weather” “Yes, it is. How’s your urine today?”.
But we have had various uses of it throughout the millennia. In ancient Rome, urine was crucial in the textile industry, particularly for cleaning and whitening woollen togas. The ammonia in urine made it an effective cleaning agent.
Public urinals, called fullonicae, were standard, and urine was collected by soaking and trampling wool to remove oils and dirt (I wouldn’t have fancied that job).
This practice was so widespread that Emperor Vespasian even imposed a tax on urine-collection, known as the vestigial urine.
However, the most explosive and significant use of urine was in producing salt-peter (potassium nitrate), a key component of gunpowder.
Throughout the Renaissance, hundreds of thousands of gallons of urine were collected to make it.
Historical texts are littered with the daily practice of urine collection.
It was a communal activity. Families collected urine in pots and sold it to local artisans and traders in rural areas.
In the 17th century, the term “piss-prophet” was used to describe a medical practitioner who diagnosed illnesses by examining urine, known as uroscopy.
Today’s phrase “taking the piss” might have originally come about as a way to slag off anyone doing something dodgy with no real expertise or knowledge. Queue joke about the author.
Today a urinalysis is a test that can analyse your pee for a myriad of medical issues, ranging from keystone to diabetic issues.
However, my aim over the last six weeks was to look at its colour, so there were no texts or expensive monitors to buy; I just used my eyes.
Why? I’ve been meeting an online fitness and health coach every week for the last year. We record our hour-long weekly meeting, and next year, we will analyse where I went right and wrong on my weight loss and health journey. A podcast with hindsight built into it.
But the one thing I cannot do is drink water. Gulping the h20 has been proven to help weight loss and improve digestion.
Every week, Jill (the coach) asks me, “How are we drinking the water?” and every week, I ask her “, Does coffee count?”. It doesn’t.
The simplest way to know if you need to drink more water is to analyse the colour of your pee.
It is universally accepted that a light yellow colour with a neutral smell (smell is an entirely other tangent) is a good indicator that you are hydrated.
So, for the last six weeks, every time I need to spend a penny, I have to remind myself to take a look. The results?
I can tell you I most certainly do not drink enough water. It takes at least a pint and a half before my urine turns a pale yellow colour.
In fact, to keep my urine an acceptable shade of hydration, I’ve found that I need to drink at least three pints of water a day.
So the next time you need to relive yourself, take a peak. It could be one of the best things you do for your health, and I promise I’m not taking the…
