This article was originally published in the September 1998 Coop Scoop, a time when the Co-op was still debating whether or not to sell sugar and how new computers affected member productivity.

This month’s review is about grapefruit seed extract, its microbial properties and the multitude of nontoxic ways humans can use this bountiful product to heal themselves of nagging little fungoid, viral and parasitic guests. First, let me digress for a moment into a subject we are all familiar with, the science fiction movie.

Have you seen Starship Troopers? This futuristic space movie is about Planet Earth, long after the millennium, when peace rules with an iron thumb, soldiers protect the Fatherland from enemies within and without, and a cast of toned, muscular, 20-somethings proceed to battle thousands of 10-foot-high scorpion bug invaders who threaten the continuing existence of Earth Kind. 

The scorpion things are about to take over Planet Earth.  They bomb Argentina, destroy several continents, and brutally dismember any human who dares to attempt to pierce their bug shellac with useless Earth-created firepower.  Enter the brave 20-somethings who volunteer to risk life and very literally limb to rocket ship over to the bug’s personal home planet and attempt to destroy the brain behind the brawn.  This idea came after a brilliant former chess player was promoted to commander in chief of Earth Kind after a bug ate the other guy.  The new commander figures out that the bugs must not have minds of their own, and therefore can be conquered if their Mother Bug is found.

So, several daring soldiers sneak into a scary bug cave, lose most of their cadre along the way to scorpion stingers and finally locate a pulsating, transgendered blob of smegma that must be the Queen of all gross alien bugs. My husband and I cracked up when we saw it. Twenty feet of blob with a thing hanging out which supposedly stabs and poisons victims. Nasty. Where in the heck did they come up with that, we wondered. The brain gets its thing hacked off, the soldiers save the Earth, and we leave the theatre with a firm impression of the finest bit of Hollywood

weirdness since Alien.

Not long after that, I was leafing through the April/May issue of National Wildlife when I came across an electron microscope photograph of that very same “Brain Bug” from Starship Troopers. An article entitled “Are Our Coastal Waters Turning Deadly?” discussed the findings of a North Carolina biologist who said that this parasite, Pfiesteria, shoots deadly poison from its long, hanging snout, paralyzes its fish victim, then moves in for a feast of blood. What’s really bad is, this parasite is a creation of longterm, large-scale hog farming. It took many years of byproduct dumping to grow Pfiestera, which is now killing whales in the mid-Atlantic region and ruining drinking water for thousands of humans and animals.

What does this have to do with grapefruit seed extract?

According to biologist JoAnn Burkholder, the only known method of killing this Pfiesteria is chlorine bleach. I believe they have not yet tried grapefruit seed extract. [After writing this article, I called JoAnn up to suggest she try it in the lab.]

The Healing Power of Grapefruit Seed Extract ($12.95), by Shalila Sharamon and Bodo J. Baginski, states that grapefruit seed extract is effective against 800 bacteria and viruses, 100 strains of fungus (including Candida Albicans) and a great number of single cell parasites. They say that no known antimicrobial can demonstrate such versatility. And it’s completely non-toxic. They offer a little vignette of a man who got too drunk in Mexico, was tricked by his buddies into drinking several ounces of pure grapefruit seed extract (Wow! Taste it and you’ll agree it’s gnarly…), then lost major worms after he sobered up.

I use it (for over 10 years now) to remove plaque on my teeth, keep the nasties from my gums and to dispose of a fungoid item on my knee, picked up in the warm waters off Oahu, Hawaii. These applications are just a few, which include worming the goats and dogs, ridding a dubious water supply of possible hog farming by-products (in Virginia), and generally sending any fungoid, viral or parasitic critters I encounter to worm heaven. Even those who reside in innocent disguise on the leafy goodness of mizuna leaves.

Maybe I’m twisted from too much science fiction as a child. Perhaps Hulda Clark is really my guru. It could be that the zoology book from my college freshman years in Oklahoma had too many pictures of parasites. Or perhaps watching an army of Oklahoma ticks march across my bedroom floor at midnight fried my brain — whatever, all I know is, my supreme desire in life is to seek out and find all invisible critters that wreck mammalian immune systems. And I think I’ve found my completely nontoxic weapon of choice, chosen by alternative practitioners everywhere to treat Candida — grapefruit seed extract. Available in the Co-op’s HaBA department.

May the force be with you.