I am taking Avapro(150mg) one tablet daily for my blood pressure. Grapefruit is one of my favorite fruits. Can I eat it? How many?

Thank you in advance for your response & help.
Parvin Gholizadeh

Parvin,

First and formosterly, be it known that I am not a medical doctorate— my first PhD (received through the diligent completion of a correspondence with the MIT) was in hydro-dynamics and the second in divinity (this awarded upon the completion of a brief form printed within the rearward pages of one of Rob's anatomical magazines.) Nonetheless, as my profession is that of offerant of advisings, I will hence advise in this matter, applying my fine deductive skills and detailed knowledge of human functions, celestial and mundane.

Some research suggests that there may be a general reduction in the bio-availability of the tincture owing to the presence of grapefruit in the imbibers digestive system.

To this, I say washing of hogs!

In past weeks, preparatory for the Holiday Gift Giving Season, I have enjoyed many a long and sinuous conversation with my lab assistants— chiefly Sang and Rob— who have spared no effort in acquainting me, at breadth and depth, with the many religions of the surface, past and present. Noticed I have a disturbing, autocratic and punitive trend towards an obsession with the matters gustatory.

It took but little consideration for me to say to myself that perhaps there is even a God of some sort, up in a Heaven (of some sort), with a wide variety of rules pertaining to the diet, to that which can be eaten and that which cannot, to the manner of the slaughter, of the cooking, of the grasping with the manipulators, of the kosher and the treyf and the halal and the haram and the mashbooh. Oh, we must not eat the pig, nor the cow, nor the body of the Jesus H. Christ (H, being for hypertensive), nor the vegetables, nor the sweets after dental brushing, nor the pudding a-fore the meat. We shall not cook the baby in his mother's milk, nor delight at the tart succulence of carni-various insects, nor know the joy of gnoshing upon the tenderest bits of the land mammal lacking external ears. Eat not with the leftern hunting tentacle, slurp not your soup, use not the short-tined fork upon the meat nor the long-tined fork upon the vegetation, split not the gut sack, drink not the soured milk.

I say this to you: If there is a Heaven, and there is a God within, and that God permits no entry or delayed entry based on gustatory practice, then I tell you I have no interest in entering such a Heaven.

Base my meals upon any factor other than flavors full and free? I wish not to reach Heaven in such a manner!

The playing of the harp, the reclining of the toga-ed body, the cushioned slumber upon the cloud... these are nothing without the fear-ripened blood of many a fell hound, roasted and broasted and braised and brushed with spirits and with tears.

Sigh...

I have recently been informed that I am not kosher— a disturbing turn indeed— and, at best, I am mashbooh among The Other Semites. This world is indeed mad.

So, in closing, provided you are unimpressed with respiratory infection and explosive diarrhea lasting no more than 10 weeks, I say altogether ignore the matter of commingling Avapro and grapefruit: sup deep upon the fruited-grapes, grow fat on their blood, and show nought but contempt for finicky, pusillanimous Gods over-concerned with the manners of the table.

Kindest Regards,

Dr. Giant Squid, PhD, D.D.