ill take some Xhoba with that shake

January 4, 2003 12:10 PM

ill take some Xhoba with that shake "Hunters would cut a slice, munch it, and within minutes hunger and thirst would evaporate, leaving a feeling of strength and alertness. They could travel for days eating nothing else" guardian.co.uk i hope the kalahari do receive some compensation if this is effective as it sounds.
posted by specialk420 (16 comments total)

For the San it could be the second time they have been saved by Xhoba. Their hunter-gatherer culture, stretching back 20,000 years, has been promised a share of the royalties from the drug.

I guess I hope this stuff is the real deal, but I think becoming instantly wealthy will destroy their 20,000-year-old culture as surely as anything.
posted by RylandDotNet at 12:26 PM on January 4, 2003

My to-do list in a year or two when this is available as a product:

1) Add spam filter to all email clients. Any message containing the term "xhoba" will get sent to trash
posted by mathowie at 12:32 PM on January 4, 2003

What's green, prickly, sour, saves lives, and wears a cape?

Superxhoba.

The thought that kept popping into my mind while reading this: instead of spending millions on turning the plant into a pill, why don't we just grow some more of the plants? Here's a pic.
posted by iconomy at 1:05 PM on January 4, 2003

<sarcasm>Wow! This could be the best thing for Africa since the diamond trade!</sarcasm>
posted by pjdoland at 1:16 PM on January 4, 2003

Ryland> To be honest, becoming instantly wealthy won't do any more harm to them than the alternative, which has been a constant reduction in population levels and living space for the past few thousand years to the point of near-extinction.

As Jared Diamond notes in Guns, Germs and Steel, the Khoisian people (the ethno-cultural group the San belong to) originally occupied much of sub-equatorial Africa as hunter-gatherers, and were driven into the Kalahari when Bantu-speakers, who had discovered agriculture and cattle-herding, came down from sub-Sahel Africa. Ever since then, the Khoisians have been in decline, and they're still likely to die off as separate ethnicity by the end of the 21st century. Frankly, if money will buy medicine, food and better living conditions to perpetuate the San, I'm not particularly bothered by the fact that the hunter-gathering portion of the culture would live on only in history books.
posted by Pseudoephedrine at 1:24 PM on January 4, 2003

Here's an interesting thought: use xhoba as a food additive in proportion to the amount of sugar/starches in the food in question. Sugary and starchy foods tend to have a hunger-increasing effect, so this could negate it. Unfortunately, companies have little incentive to do this as it would reduce their sales ... unless people would pay more for a more satiating meal?
posted by theWoodpecker at 1:41 PM on January 4, 2003

Imagine a breakfast bar containing 100% of the nutrients needed by an average adult (plus xhoba extract) that makes you feel satisfied all day. Sure, a good meal is a pleasure, but sometimes it would be convenient not to have to stop what I'm doing and eat every few hours. For most people, this would give them at least a couple hours a day back. What would you do with an extra 700 hours a year?
posted by kindall at 1:55 PM on January 4, 2003

Obviously, I'd spend them slaving away in a subicle for my merciless corporate masters in the coming distopia.
posted by kavasa at 2:15 PM on January 4, 2003

with the objective of turning it into a pill which will zap food cravings.

making it a potential runaway success in a multi-billion pound industry

I guess a quick fix is a western idea.

Self control is an answer too or have we forgot. I say this as I spent my whole childhood, adolescence & mid-twenties trying to get fat. And I don't overeat now unless I want too, 10 years later.

Great bony people not high on X.

It's like this person who I saw who went to fat camp. The person comes back saying my sis chooses to have a slim-fast for a meal now. I too, but with or before meals.

Will the kalahari really get their fair cut? I hope too.

Yes there are chemical imbalances that cause our body to go into disarray. Yet this does not sound like it is being developed as cure for them. But to make money off of all those who choose to diet.

For me a diet is what you eat, not, not eating. Unless you're using it as an adjective.

Hmm...Sceletium is a creeping, daisy-like plant that grows in arid conditions which has been taken by African bushmen for thousands of years. Doctors in South Africa say they have had remarkable results treating patients for tobacco and alcohol addiction using Sceletium tablets.

Then why??? In some ways today's San resemble certain communities of the aborigines of Australia and north America: depressed, unemployed, poor, prone to alcoholism.

Confused... The hunters who snacked on hoodia to ward off starvation would be amazed to know it might end up in a capsule for Americans and Europeans wanting to trim waistlines, he said.
posted by thomcatspike at 2:16 PM on January 4, 2003

unless people would pay more for a more satiating meal?

Ever eaten out in France?
posted by thomcatspike at 2:27 PM on January 4, 2003

I wish I had something clever to say besides, "I'd like some of this, but in the natural form" but I don't. Somebody smuggle this plant into the country before it is patented.
posted by mecran01 at 2:29 PM on January 4, 2003

"I'd like some of this, but in the natural form" but I don't.

Try a RedBull, I can't eat for several hours after having one.

Or even a cup of java...
posted by thomcatspike at 2:55 PM on January 4, 2003

Lets hope hunter-gatherer culture dies and is replaced by more human living conditions, but I doubt that people will move past the myth of the bushmen or that "millions" in cash will ever reach the bushmen who are seriously in need of money. A Kalahari Family, a documentary series recently premiered in New York City, outlines the horrific conditions and how supposed aide has failed them perfectly.
posted by ericrolph at 5:25 PM on January 4, 2003

Lets hope hunter-gatherer culture dies and is replaced by more human living conditions

Seems to me that a lifestyle which humans have followed for 99% of their time as a species should meet anyone's definition of "human living condition."
posted by rushmc at 6:22 PM on January 4, 2003

Ah, but you see for 99% of humanity there have been no governments with armies and police who force you to live in increasingly smaller and smaller tracts of land. Having to live on meager land, introducing wild game into that land which destroys water sources is not humane (heh, not human).
posted by ericrolph at 5:00 PM on January 5, 2003

The Guardian is so weird. Did anyone else notice that the guy who has the drug licensed is described as a "British Buddhist entrepreneur." For such a PC newspaper including the religion of the licensee is bit odd. Also I had thoughts of some guy who makes buddha figures wearing derbies with a bulldog.
posted by monkeyman at 8:17 AM on January 6, 2003