For five nights, I shared my bed with a cotton bag stuffed with 18,000 buckwheat hulls. No, I wasn't on vacation at the Upper Canada Village, though I did feel like a pioneer bedding down with a sack of crunchy shells.
My "Buckwheat Challenge" all started two weeks ago when I interviewed Irene Foley, co-owner of Buckwheat Pillow Canada (buckwheatpillowcanada.com), in Kanata, a suburb of Ottawa.
For the past 14 years, Foley and her daughter, Judy, have made all-natural pillows filled with empty buckwheat hulls on the family farm on March Road. Billed as the "perfect pillow," Foley insisted if I snoozed with her Sleeping Pillow for five nights, I would never go back to my soft, fluffy feather pillow.
A girl can dream.
Priced at $49.99, the somewhat flat and beanbag-esque standard-size pillow has about as much sex appeal as Snooki from the reality show Jersey Shore.
Lumpy, noisy and cool to the touch, the hefty bag -- it weighs 2.3 kilograms lacks the luxuriousness and plush comfort of almost every other pillow on the market. And it smells a bit funky, too.
But Foley, backed by a stack of fan mail from satisfied customers, including chiropractors, physiotherapists and pain-management doctors, insists "fluffy" buckwheat makes the perfect sleep aid.
As anyone who has gone shopping for pillows knows, choosing the "right" one is not easy.
"It's a sore point with everybody," says Foley, who lists neck pain, stiff shoulders and headaches among the common problems resulting from a bad sleep.
So what makes buckwheat the ideal bed fellow?
"Very simply, it's natural," says Foley, a former restless sleeper who was introduced to the wonders of buckwheat pillows by a friend who brought one back from Japan and gave it to Foley to help remedy her sore neck.
Unlike conventional pillows that prop the head up, putting pressure on the neck and shoulders and pushing the spine out of alignment, the loose buckwheat shells conform to the contours of your head, neck and shoulders to provide "passive" support. "There's nothing pushing back at you," says Foley.
The results? With the spine aligned and head and neck properly supported, muscles relax, alleviating tension and strain, she says, adding buckwheat is also a great alternative for people with allergies since it's chemical-free and contains no bacteria or dust mites.
As a stomach sleeper, I often wake up with a kink in my neck and sore shoulders. Besides having to adjust to resting my head on a bag of shells for five nights, sleeping on my back and side was a challenge in itself.
But I have to admit, after only two sleeps, my usual morning aches and pains were gone. As for the noise, crunchy texture and weird smell, I was too busy sawing logs to notice.
Foley can add another buckwheat believer to her fan club. Ah, to sleep, perchance to dream...
-- Postmedia News
