Nutritional Supplement Geek Ji-eun Oh Explains What Supplements Do

The 61st in the Anyway series is 『Anyway, Nutritional Supplements』 by musician and writer Oh Ji-eun.
Author Oh Ji-eun laughed a little when she read an article a few years ago about Google's Ray Kurzweil taking 50 nutritional supplements a day, thinking it was a genius's eccentricity.
I didn't know it then.
Who would have thought that (even though he wasn't a genius) he would become a nutritional supplement geek in Hongdae?
Then one day, looking at the 28 pills he received before his colonoscopy, he was depressed about how he would ever eat them all, and then he realized that he had been swallowing 10 of the supplements with a sip of water every night before going to bed.
At such an unexpected moment, I realized I was a 'nutritional supplement freak'.

Of course the author knows.
If you exercise appropriately, live a regular life, eat a balanced diet made with fresh ingredients, live in an environment that avoids stress, get enough rest, and get at least 15 minutes of sunlight every day, you don't need to take nutritional supplements.
But he asks again.
Isn't there a wide river between knowing and doing?
And we mostly just sit here on the riverbank and wonder if we can somehow get to the other side.
People who always have something they want to improve, such as fatigue, lethargy, insomnia, indigestion, immunity, antioxidants, etc., so they open a nutritional supplement app every day and type in their symptoms in the search bar.
"Anyway, Nutritional Supplements" is the story of such a 'foolish' person.

I realized I was a nutritional supplement geek at an unexpected moment, and with a little impatience, I counted the number of nutritional supplements I took each day, hoping that it wouldn't be that bad.
4 vitamin C tablets, 3 vitamin B tablets, 2 lactic acid bacteria tablets, 1 propolis tablet, 1 vitamin D tablet, 1 mastic gum tablet, 1 theanine tablet… That’s only 13 tablets.
Phew… .

--- p.10

There is always something you want to improve.
Fatigue, lethargy, insomnia, indigestion, immunity, antioxidant, etc.
If you want a regular routine, a stress-free day, and proper exercise, 50,000 won should be enough. Free shipping is a no-brainer, after all.
This book is the story of such a foolish person.

--- p.11

I personally call the liver the liver manager.
I've never really worked at a company, but I know that the position that does the most practical work is manager.
When I think of the liver, the image that comes to mind is of a manager struggling to get through the onslaught of work and always working overtime.

--- p.19~20

As a Korean, do I really need to drink the sap of Western lacquer trees? There are so many beautiful lacquer trees in our backyard.
But my ears were perked up, and I was already looking for an excuse to buy something.
The ancient Greeks called the sap of the mastic tree “tears of the gods.”
The Ionian people are literary, copy-driven, and witty, and I, having read them, buy them.

--- p.39~40

No, how can they possibly kill so many bacteria that they put 50 billion in one capsule? I gave up after reading something about oligosaccharides, which are prebiotics that serve as food for the probiotics.
I give up trying to figure out this world.
It's so wide and deep.
So for a while I just bought and ate famous products that were often on sale.
I guess you did a good job on your own.
Then one day, I saw a news report that the son of the pharmaceutical company chairman had committed a sexual crime.

--- p.52~53

I was shocked.
Because I saw an article on the internet that said, 'Hey guys, do vaginal probiotics really go from the penis to the vagina?'
What kind of nonsense is that?
Lactic acid bacteria pass through the intestines, enter the outside world, and then, by chance, enter the vagina and do their work? That sounds like some kind of special forces agent mission…

--- p.57

But people's thoughts change.
The concept of compromise is really cool.
It's a long road.
Why do we decide the path in advance?
Setting a direction can also mean setting limits.
And in some ways, it may be arrogance.
What do you know and decide?
It's the same when I look at the world, and it's the same when the world looks at me.
What did I know about jelly vitamins to make that judgment?
There can be sincerity even in a double life, even in a double-double-double life.

--- p.76

There's something I do when I'm extremely bored on an airplane.
It's a job to peruse the thick duty-free catalog in front of the seat.
Now I know the general order.
First comes whiskey, then cosmetics, then a set of two creams that look like they're reasonably priced (you can't tell if they're cheap or expensive since they're up in the sky!), then a set of three lip balms that people would casually give away as gifts, then a necklace, then a scarf, then a fountain pen, then a travel adapter, then Bang & Olufsen earphones, then an airline mascot doll, and of course, that's it at the end.
Green mussels.

--- p.81

When looking back at the public's relationship with estrogen, one cannot leave out the legendary drink "Beauty Loves Pomegranate" that came out in 2006.
Estrogen is abundant in pomegranates, a drink was made from pomegranates, the model is Lee Jun-ki, and the Siem Song starts with “Beauty loves pomegranates~”, and the following phrase even goes as far as “What should I do if you keep getting prettier?”
What should I do? What should I do?
Koreans went wild, and the drink sold 10 billion won within a month of its release.

--- p.109

Of course, my sister, who didn't have much energy, and my friends, who didn't have much energy to begin with, sat down and started talking seriously about hair loss.
It just happened naturally.
My sister spoke clearly in a faint voice.
“You have to take biotin and brewer’s yeast together.” Why, sister…
But on the way home, I ordered some brewer's yeast for my family.
The words that come out of that place are just right.

--- p.129

If I have a firm mind and a straight posture in front of the purified water, my mind when taking the nutritional supplements is very different from the posture of lying down in bed… Isn’t that the biggest appeal of the nutritional supplements?

--- p.137