Mmmm! Nothing can quench a powerful thirst like a tall, frosty mug of urine!

Okay, I admit that’s a sentence I never expected to write but the times, they are a-changing. Though it’s unlikely we’ll see Michael Jordan or Deon Sanders pitching "Urine-ade" any day soon, it seems drinking one’s own urine is becoming popular among many practitioners of holistic healing in the United States and Great Britain.

The Colony Reporter, a Mexican newspaper, recently reported that "some 10,000 [Mexicans] everyday ingest their own urine." Devotees of this home-brewed elixir are claiming health benefits ranging from a cure for tuberculosis, to defeating jet lag--which I know will be welcome news to weary business traveller's. According to a recent article in Newsweek, this ancient practice—known as amaroli in tantric yoga—is credited by it’s followers for boosting the immune system.

One of the most vocal of the pee-peddlers is Martin Lara, who lectures on the life-altering benefits of "uropathy" to New York City AIDS patients.

Though Mr. Lara holds no medical degree, he is a certified plumber, which, I suppose, makes him eminently more qualified to discuss urine than a layperson such as myself. Though I claim no plumbing expertise of either the internal or external variety, I find any assertion that I might benefit from re-ingesting substances my body worked furiously to rid itself of, as hard to swallow as the acclaimed tinkle-tonic.

Like George Bush and "broccoli-gate," there are certain bridges I won’t cross in order to attain better health. I don’t care if science proves wee will vastly improve our health; I swear I’ll never be seen rating the

color, body and bouquet of a 1996 Cabernet Glenn.

Having yet to imbibe a recycled refresher, and with no chance of indulging in this lifetime, my one experience with Miller High Life will have to serve as my lone venture in urine tasting.

Perhaps that will make me an outcast someday, but when it comes to urinary-tract-garbage guzzling, it seems my views are still mainstream. As yoga teacher Vedanta Saraswati told Newsweek, "Westerners in general are awfully funny about things that come out of orifices." The Westerners who have recently begun this practice can’t be accused of jumping on the latest fad.

Disciples of the practice claim it’s been providing health benefits without side effects for centuries. Mahatma Gandhi drank his own waste for years, yet there isn’t a single reference in any history book of his breath having anything to do with the British abandoning India. There may not be any side effects, but it’s disturbing to visualize one of my heroes refilling his drinking glass.

If Gandhi could do such a thing, is it possible my childhood heroes might have done likewise? What was Charlie Brown really serving at his lemonade stand?.

Could it be that Dorothy’s odyssey to Oz was actually a health-seeking expedition tantamount to a pilgrimage to Lourdes? Were they seeking medicinal help from a tantric yogi, so knowledgeable in the powers of urine-quaffing that he was known as "The Wiz?"

Maybe urine holds the secret to eternal youth. It does come from the fountain-of-youth—the mother of any bed-wetter will attest to that—but, I’m sure that drinking it will cure me of only one thing; a social life. As long as tipplers of pee-pee-potion do their salubrious sipping behind locked doors, I’ll never complain.

Still, I fear that determined devotees might attempt to force-feed the unsuspecting public through subterfuge.

Because of this I will never again enjoy one of my favourite foods; a bowl of leek soup.

The thought of that happening really makes me pissed!