Channel: Good Mythical More
YouTube Video ID: 8f18IGWBfy0
Episode Post Date: May 1, 2026
Episode Number: 3035
Transcript
Can an onion tell you if you're pregnant or not? Welcome to Good Mythical More. Throughout existence, humans have been interested if, uh, they were with child, yes. But humans have not always had the wherewithal, technologically, medically, uh, you know, emotionally, you know, whatever it is to be able to tell the resources. To be able to tell at an early phase if person is pregnant. Uh, and Nicole is with us today. She's our resident, I was pregnant and now I'm an expert at it person. That's right. I am an expert. Now, did you use the traditional way of finding out if you're pregnant, like you went to, uh, the CVS and got a pregnancy test? Yeah, I peed on a stick, not like a branch. But like a pregnancy professional stick, protest stick, I guess. Yeah. But maybe you can pee on a regular stick. Maybe that's what they used to do. That's, that's where we got it from. Well, I'll tell you guys about the first way I have here, it's known as the wheat and barley test. 3,500 years ago in ancient Egypt, if someone thought they were pregnant, they were told to wrap wheat and barley in cloth and pee on it for several days. Several days. If barley seed sprouted, it meant she was pregnant with a boy. If the wheat sprouted, then it meant it was a girl. If neither sprouted, then she was not pregnant. So this is probably not gonna work very well. I mean, what makes you say that is, I mean, is this, uh, are these going to, is, are any of these going to be as reliable as modern methods? Sure. Right. All of them. I the thing I wonder where you keep that thing. I mean, once you start peeing on something Yeah. You gotta find a place to put it. I know you don't put it under your bed. Oh, here's your, oh, I see you got a new pillow. Oh no. Oh yeah. Oh, that's my pregnancy. Uh, what would you call a stash of barley and wheat? Bushel A bushel. That's my pregnancy bushel. Don't touch it. I saw this done on the great. Have you guys ever seen the show The Great with Al Fanning? I am familiar with it. I have not watched it. Oh, great show. Mm-hmm. Is that, that's why they call it that. And did they sprout on that one? I think there was sprouting. Yeah. Was it right, because that's based on an idea that the thing that makes the boy have the ability to make the pregnancy happen. Can also make plants grow. Oh no, the boy, the, the father's peeing on it. Did I? No, no, no, no, no, no. So the mother is peeing on it. Yeah. But if it sprouts stuff, then it's, then it's a boy. No, no, because they're seeds, right? It's what's, weren't you listening the whole point of what she said? Oh, one is barley, one is wheat. Yeah. And whichever one is the gender and the barley is her boy. B for barley. B for boy, yes. I But it was, it was hieroglyphic. Yeah. Yeah. And wheat for woman. Wheat for women. Yeah. That's it. The marvel of this is that they were onto something with the PEA test. They knew it was in the pee. It had to be, yeah. It had to be because of how babies are made, so you gotta do that for thousands of years into the woman. I used to think that's how it worked. I was like, why would I wanna do that? I always knew. You, you, you had an Egyptian mindset. Yes. Okay, so we don't think this one works. Is that what we're going to say? I'm gonna say, I'm gonna pass. We're just chatting. I'm passing on that one. Okay. Let's hear another one. This is known as the onion test. Hippocrates claimed a person could test for pregnancy by leaving an onion in their vagina overnight. If their breath smelled of onion the next day, it meant that they weren't pregnant. Their breath. But if their breath did smell of onion the next day, it meant she was pregnant because an embryo had blocked the onion scent from reaching her mouth. What if her husband's breath smelled like onion? The next day? This practice was also widespread in France up until the 17 hundreds using garlic instead of onions. Oh God. Oh, here's a baby. Yep. It's, uh, it's, it's the right shape. So if your can fit into this, into that. No, it go, that goes in. I'm talking about yours. Has nothing to do with it. Nothing to do with it. Oh, I understand. Um, this is also probably doesn't work. The onion test, I think it might create other problems. You typically, you just don't wanna start putting food up there, especially if it's fried first. Right. Nicole? As a medical doctor. Yes, I agree. I don't picture these as being fried though. I'm just saying, I'm picturing it though. I, it was probably a sliver of onion. I'm guessing it was a sliver. Oh, is this a sliver? I'm guessing it's a sliver, not like an onion cup. You know, it might've been an like a bulb. I was thinking it was kind of a whole onion bulb, I think. Not a little onion, like a pearl onion. The little onion that could go inside a vagina to see if a woman is pregnant. My favorite sugar piece book, Papini, if you will. Oh, well, you ever heard of a Pearl necklace? I'm not gonna participate in this conversation. Is it? Isn't that a ZZ Top song? Uh, well, just because ZZ think about it doesn't mean it's, it's okay for our audience. Okay. I think they're all okay with it. Um, okay. So what are we gonna do with this information? I don't know how I feel about onions. Now don't, don't put food in your orifices. But what about, but there are exceptions, and Ru's gonna talk about 'em right now. I mean, a cucumber, right? Well, is it fried? No, it's not fried. It'll break off in there. Not a good sturdy one. That's not too ripe. The latch test is a pregnancy testing method held by women in the 14 hundreds. A woman would pee in a basin and then put a latch in it and leave it in the urine for three or four hours. What is a latch? I have no idea. Like a brass latch you'd put on a wooden door. Oh, thank you. And if it opened up, something happened. Well, keep reading Nicole. Then they throw the urine away and remove the latch. If you see the impression of the latch on the basin bottom, the woman was declared pregnant. If not, she was not declared pregnant. Okay. It's like metallurgy. Now, we might be onto something here because at least this is, there's something. In the chemistry of the P that is maybe causing an oxidative response. Okay. Which, I mean, how does that thing turn blue at CVS? I don't know. Maybe the same thing. How does spit, I believe it's an, uh, hormone called the HCG hormone, but I'm not a hundred percent sure. I'm just spit. You do know a lot about this spitballing. You, you do know a lot. Well, she's spit balling, but I'm gonna believe it's true. Did you do a second one when the first one came back? Pause. I did like six. Just to be sure it you have that much pee. No, I did like, I did like six in a day. You just like lined about me. You're like Exactly. Good for you. So this is the first one we think might work for all the people, the doctor's watching a latch, like a hinge. 'cause this one makes sense to us. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. We understand this one. Do you remember how you found out Christie was pregnant? I was just thinking that, I'm pretty sure that she came out of the bathroom holding the thing and, but I knew she was going in there to pee on it. Baby know the onion. The onion. Yeah. Yeah. We definitely used the onion at my house. Uh, she, she peed and she came out and she showed it to me and I was out there waiting. I don't think she wanted me to watch her, be honest. 'cause she thought that she was pregnant. Yeah. And so then she tested, we were trying. So were we, do you remember? No, but I'm sure it was beautiful. It was a beautiful moment that you shared and Well, you know, we probably should have videoed. It didn't video a lot back then. Video. We didn't have cameras that could make video except ones that you put on your shoulder essentially. So we missed a lot. We missed a lot. I'm trying to think. I missed the whole first two or three years of my child's life trying to figure out a way to just put 'em on video. I mean, I started buying all those little video cameras that were smaller. We had a, we had a video camera, this Sony something that was a point and click, but it could do video, but it did it in some proprietary video format that every video of Locke when he was first born. Has been completely lost because to technology, because it was obsolescence. 'cause it was, I could never convert the file and then it just went away and I. And it, and also it happened where it was like backing up an iCloud. Yeah, it is gone in the photo library and then it just has JPEGs. So I have like the first frame of a bunch of videos of lock when he was like a baby. We are the, I was like, well, I can imagine what that was like if it was in full frame. Our ki, our Children 24 frame were born in the lost digital generation. They were, they were, our kids were born in that time when everything was shifting and. Now if you're born, like you probably have too much footage of yourself. Yeah. Nicole. Are, are you doing anything to put like an upper limit on the number of pictures that you're taking of this baby, of yours or video because you need to, there's data management. Yeah. There's no limit on photo and video, but one thing I am doing to preserve like the memory of her is, um, a baby book. Yeah. So I bought a baby, like when her first tooth sprouted. The first time she sat up. Yeah. I haven't like filled it out or anything. But you, it, you got it. You actually have to fill it out. Yeah. I, you know the best way to curtail the amount of photos and videos you take of your child. Hmm. Have another one. Oh, I was, oh, I don't know. Have another one. I have no idea. I'm just taking them every single day. You just keep popping 'em out. You'll take less of the second one. They just keep having more children and then if you have a third one, there's, they'll get less special. There's no evidence of a third child. Yes. They, they don't even know they exist. Right. And if you have 'em too close together, there's no evidence of the middle child, right? Which is more of how it should be. Mm. That's how it for shout out. Tell the middle children the drink test. You guys ready for this one? Yes. This method was found in a me in a medical recipes manuscript from the 16 hundreds, and claimed to diagnose a pregnancy only three weeks after conception. The method consisted of observing a person as they went to sleep after drinking a mix of honey water and red wine. If they laid their hand over their belly button immediately upon falling asleep, then it meant that they were pregnant. Yeah. Um, don't drink wine if you think you're pregnant in large quantities. They didn't know that. Um, seems like this is, this is squirrely because subconsciously. You, you, if you know you're being watched when you go to sleep, then you, that's gonna have to make you uncomfortable and put your hand on your belly. I don't know, but maybe I don't like this. There's a chance that it could work. Doesn't involve pee. I don't want. 'cause if you drank this mixture and then you felt a little unwell because of being pregnant and you like put your hand on your belly, it's like, oh yes, we gave them this thing to see if they would have an unsettled stomach. So maybe it had like a one in 10 chance of working. They just didn't know anything. The thing that, you know, C Thank you. CVS. When, when, when my kids were coming out, the thing that the conversation was around, there was a lot of wives tales around, is it gonna be a boy or a girl? And I remember fielding all types of techniques like. Just like hold this thing and if it, if it waggles left and right, it's the boy and if it waggles up and down, it's a girl. I did. I remember this was a topic of conversation. What was you, what were you holding? I don't remember the details 'cause I didn't believe in any of that crap. But does that still happen? Yeah. Like this, you put a ring on a string and you see if it moves a certain way. Yeah, that's not real. Probably cravings is another one. Mm-hmm. It's like if you're craving salty foods, it's boy, but there are people Yeah. Who are intu very intuitive, who have like a higher than, you know, just like 50%, 50% success rate, success rate at guessing whether or not somebody has a boy or a girl. Odds are someone's gonna have a higher No, but they're do, they're, they're, but what are they relying on? They're relying on some sort of intuition. That there's proba, it probably maps to something that's real, that, that is like observable. They may not even be able to articulate it. Like, like body scent, like something hor is coming up. Yeah. It could be voicemail versus girl smell. It could be, they say that the way that the baby sits in the womb mm-hmm. Can have some, you know, 'cause a boy baby can't cross its legs. Right. So, uh. Yeah, I don't know. There's some people have some ability. I wouldn't be surprised that there's something going on there, but I don't think it's psychic. I think it's intuitive. I, I would be surprised. Next, the ribbon test. Another test from the 16 hundreds consisted of a physician saturating a ribbon in a person's urine, letting it dry, and then setting it on fire in front of the person. If the smell of the burning fabric made them nauseous, it meant that they were pregnant. What And if they loved it, what? They were a freak. Twins. I love the smell of my own burning urine. Woo. Yeah. You ever peed on a fire? Uh, yeah. Yeah, me too. I peed on a fire to put it out one time. Well, that's why you're peeing on it. Why? Why do you think I was peeing on it? Why? I was, I don't know. To put it out. Were you in imminent danger when you peed on it? Like, was the fire getting too cray Cray? Uh, no. Were you going to bed? Were you going to bed? I was going, I, it was a fire. I was gonna bed and I was drunk. I was leaving, leaving camp. And you've got your fire and you're like, you've, you don't wanna use all your water, but you got some water in you. Mm-hmm. Until you pee on it a little bit. You know, I to pee on fire, smokey the bear situation. I was in the backyard at the creative house. You peed on that fire pit thing. No. You pee everywhere, man. Uh, I didn't, I didn't. I was, uh, it's not as bad as you think it is. The smell of burning pee, it really isn't burning flesh. However, burning hair is also bad. That's bad. Yeah, that's bad. You got another last one, the rabbit test in the 19. This one's real. 1920s German scientists determined that there was a specific hormone present in the urine of pregnant people. Human. I don't know how to say this word, Sian. That sounds right. I don't know. HCG, I think that's what I said before. Due to this hormone, a pregnancy test was developed in which a person's urine would be injected into a sexually immature rabbit over the course of a few days. If the injection excited the animal's ovaries and made them ovulate, then it meant the person was pregnant. So they used to sell rabbits at CVS. Well, that was a whole deal. You would've used six of 'em, Nicole, so you would've, oh, poor buns. You'd pee in a rabbit for multiple days. Well, you don't pee in it, you pee and then you inject it into the rabbit. You inject pee into a rabbit for multiple days. And if it gets frisky, yeah, if it ovulates. Okay. How do you know if a rabbit's ovulating? Well, I don't know if you've gotten that far. You'll probably figure it out, you know. Well, I gotta say this probably works, but I don't recommend it. You know, if it's a sexually immature rabbit. It seems like if you weren't pregnant, it would make it ovulate. No, it would. It doesn't matter. You don't know the science. Yeah, because the ho. Why? Why would the hormone that of that when you are pregnant. Make someone who isn't pregnant. Ugh, that's a rabbit. What We don't really understand, Nicole, you shouldn't have told me this. You ever seen a rabbit? I like when you furrow your brow in confusion. You ever seen a rabbit pee on a fire? Uh, no. No, but I did see a rabbit this morning. It was just there. Oh, just on the roadside? Uh, it was in the meadow. Oh, during your walk? Yeah. Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. Did he scam her away? Yep. Saw a couple of deer as well. He had quite a wild morning. Oh yeah. Check out throwback episodes of Good Mythical Morning every Thursday on Mythical 24/7. Now streaming on Roku, Amazon Prime, Vizio, and more. 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