Despite the praises sung by so many, I can’t bring myself to swish oil around in my mouth. No matter how much I like coconut, the idea of putting solid oil— ugh, eww. I can’t even finish that sentence. So I hunted down a few videos thinking I might get inspired after listening to people gab joyfully about their wonderful adventures in oil pulling. It didn’t. No one looks truly happy in that second or two before they shove a tablespoon of white gunk in their mouth.

On the upside, YouTubing usually leads me to weird and unrelated places that often end in fun discoveries. (I had no idea Shakira spoke so many languages and I’m definitely going to have my hand at making my own paint… at some point. But I digress.)

It occurs to me that tasting a teaspoon of olive oil doesn’t bother me in the slightest, not that I would use olive oil as a mouth rinse. So I think the real problem is that coconut oil looks like Crisco to me and the idea of shoving a table spoon of supposed “vegetable” shortening in my mouth is absolutely revolting.

Maybe I’ll try melting the coconut oil first and then swishing. As soon as I manage to erase from my mind the images of people contorting their faces as they laboriously spread grease on their teeth.

Fantastic. I just grossed myself out. I think I may have a nasty-looking paste phobia.

Photo source: Flickr, labeled for reuse