always bothers me when "improvements" to unhealthy diets are all about taking tasty things away rather than ADDING new things. like. add new tastes and new flavours and MORE NUTRIENTS and vitamins

there was some awful show on for encouraging middle class mothers to take their eating disorders out on their children and it was like "oh well, this snack doesn't taste as good as my usual one, but it's healthier"

so get one that??? actually tastes as good?

like this thing of. you know this food that you like and enjoy eating? why don't you toss all that out and eat stuff you don't enjoy as much or want to eat?

that's unhinged to me.

like i just think the process of discovering newer, healthier foods should be ADDITIVE, where you're exploring new tastes alongside your usual ones, slowly broadening your palate and your preferences, rather than punishing yourself for "unhealthy" food

(CW eating disorders)

god i feel so strongly about this bc i could not figure out how to strike a balance between “eating foods that make me feel good” and “not relapsing back into disordered eating habits” until i switched my mindset from “i need to remove unhealthy foods from my diet” to “i need to figure out which foods makes me feel good and add them to my diet”

examples:

moving from “i want a snack. chips sound really good, but i can’t eat chips because they’re unhealthy, so i guess i just won’t eat anything” to “i want a snack. chips sound really good, so i’m gonna eat some, but because i haven’t had any fruits or veggies today, i’m gonna eat some grapes with them”

moving from “i’m craving a burger and fries from mcdonald’s, but that’s unhealthy, so i’m just gonna eat some plain brown rice and grilled chicken even though those don’t sound good” to “im craving mcdonald’s, but last time i ate that it upset my stomach, so i don’t think eating it would make me feel good. but i think what my craving is telling me is that i need carbs and protein, so how about i make some steak and mashed potatoes for dinner?”

moving from “i’m in too much pain to cook tonight, but frozen food is unhealthy, so i just won’t eat anything” to “im in too much pain to cook tonight, so im gonna eat a frozen meal, but im gonna add some pre-cooked chicken and frozen spinach to it because i think the protein and veggies will make my body feel good”

and honestly this has been so much better for me and i feel so much better both physically and mentally than when i was just focused on “i can’t eat anything that’s Unhealthy”

A lot of the meals I grew up with don't have a lot of veggies, so I've been experimenting with adding different veggies to see what works well and what is just too bizarre. Like, aji de gallina has blended hot peppers, so if I add some roasted red peppers as well, it's got a lot more vitamins and barely even changes the flavor.

THIS!! also, I've been doing "this healthy food doesn't taste good; what can I do to make it taste good?" like adding cheese or spices, cause adding stuff doesn't subtract the nutrition!

the secret to life is to always use more spinach and less rice than you think you’ll need

the second secret to life is that fresh air warm sun and a cup of tea will make your problems small enough to start handling

the third secret to life is that violence sometimes really is the answer

WE SEE UR CRIME

HIS GUILTY LITTLE FACE OMG

youtube.com/watch?v=tc-jMrxgPsw&t=47s

this is cool but why is it shot like the intro credits of a crime drama

@nekobakaz an hour or so before the blood draw I’d had a protein drink that was basically milk with added whey & soy protein (I’m going to guess that it amounted to ~10 ounces of milk). earlier, I’d had some drinkable yogurt.

ooooooh, nice!!! I don’t think I can have the soy protein, but that’s a good idea!!!

That fact that anyone working with food in America doesn’t have guaranteed paid sick days is a health hazard to the public.

no but for real, the CDC has said the leading cause of foodborne illness is the lack of sick days for people who work in the food industry and that it costs billions a year to the economy.

Capitalism, you’re doing great, sweetie!

DO NOT DO THIS.

This makes me so angry.

If you work in a movie theater and you do this I have no respect for you.

My younger brother is Type 1 Diabetic.

When we go to a movie theater, we always get him diet soda. If he were to get regular when we asked for diet, we would not give him the insulin he would need for it. If that happens, his blood sugar level could go so high he could go into a coma, go blind, or even die.

If somebody gave him regular soda instead of diet without telling us, that person could be responsible for a nine-year-old being killed or blinded.

Just thinking about that makes me so angry. I get scared every time we take him to a movie in case the people working there saw this picture and decide to do the same thing.

Please signal boost this so people know.

This also applies to baristas

Fun story about the baristas doing this kind of shit. 

I am very sensitive to lactose, not Lactose intolerant but because of stomach ulcers that are still healing. A couple years ago I went to Starbucks right after my classes with some friends and asked for a green tea latte with soy milk. The barista, for some reason out of malice and/or hate for her life so she took it out on me, gave me whole milk in my latte.

5 minutes after my first sip of latte, my stomach cramped BAD. Not the “Oh! time to poop!” kind of cramp but it felt like someone had stabbed me with a knife and twisted it. Now I’ve had this happen before so I knew the cause of it. I went up to the barista clutching my gut screaming at her that she put dairy in my latte rather than soy LIKE I REQUESTED. She denied it and called me a “pretentious white girl for wanting soy”and so my friends got the manager. I had to explain that I had stomach ulcers that were still healing and if I were to go to the hospital for this incident, they would be responsible for it.

Manager flipped his shit and the barista was terrified out of her mind. Pretty sure both thought i was gonna sue. Manager actually fired her on the spot because of the negligence. My friends managed to get me home in one piece while I stayed home for 3 days in absolute agony and missed my midterm.

So remember kiddies, if someone is asking for Diet or “Skinny” or “soy” or anything that is not regular, give them what they requested because it may not be them being healthy, but a dietary need that can possibly be life or death

also if they ARE trying to be healthy you should give it to them to!! Its not your decision to police or question others food choices!!! 

also im lactose intolerant AND ive had stomach infections/ulcers so i feel this. 

I have Celiac Disease, so I’m very gluten intolerant. When I go out to eat at restaurants a lot of people just assume that I asked for my food gluten free because of the gluten free diet fad (which is usually a bullshit diet btw). 

Last month I went out to dinner with a friend at an italian restaurant that had a small gluten free menu. I had been there once before and had their gluten free pasta and it was great! I think one of the managers had been there and was super helpful when taking my order to make sure that everything was gluten free for me. When I ordered the gluten free pasta again this time though, the waitress who took my order all but rolled her eyes at me. I didn’t think much of it at the time, because the restaurant was so accommodating before, I just assumed it would be the same this time.

But sure enough, they brought out my pasta, I ate it, and about an hour later I had extreme stomach pains and was throwing up (in a movie theater no less).

Barfing and agonizing pain aside, eating gluten when you have celiac causes a lot of internal damage that’s hard to notice. The biggest thing is that it damages your intestines, preventing your body from absorbing nutrients properly, which can take months to heal.

So PLEASE, if you work at a restaurant or anything with food and someone asks for something a certain way, please listen to them and don’t just disregard someone’s order. It’s not funny and it can have serious consequences.

I will reblog this with every single story about someone getting sick because of an asshole giving them the opposite of what they ordered until it sinks in for everyone.

Recently on the news a 16 year old boy with a dairy allergy had gone to eat at IHOP with his family. The specifically asked if they could make dairy free pancakes and they said yes. Not too long after he had a reaction and was rushed to the hospital. This kid died because the was dairy in his pancakes that they asked for no dairy. His epi pen that his mother had wasn’t enough to help him. I know working in fast food or any job that’s serves food and beverage sucks but not as much as causing someone to get sick over negligence.

My youngest cousin – who is now five, he just started kindergarten – has Celiac’s disease. You would not BELEIVE the amount of times I’ve heard my aunt say she’s ordered something gluten free, only to watch the waiter or waitress’s eyes go huge when she gives it to my cousin – my cousin with the medical id band on his tiny five year old wrist proclaiming I HAVE CELIACS and have to take it back. Shit like this could kill my cousin. Knock it the fuck off.

I cannot tolerate caffeine–it makes me have chest pain and a racing pulse, and also gives me horrible body pain, so I always ask for decaf if I order coffee when I’m out, and doublecheck with the waiter/ress when they bring it. but instead of saying “is this decaf like I asked for?” I always say “oh, did I remember to order decaf?” I shouldn’t have to act like I’m the forgetful one (because I know damn well I asked for decaf) but it seems to work better than implying that they screwed up when I take the blame on myself like that. and if there’s any hesitation when they answer, I tell them, “if there’s any doubt, please get another one, or just give me water–if this is regular, it’ll mess up my heart” and lots of times when I say that, they look alarmed and go change it or get another one. 

but I shouldn’t HAVE to share my personal medical history with strangers just to get my order right! no one should! how is it their business? it makes me really uncomfortable to have to do that. JUST GIVE PEOPLE WHAT THEY ORDER!

I’ve reblogged this maaaany times before but there’s a few new stories on here so i’m doing it again.

cut this shit out

don’t be that kind of asshole.

As a diabetic, this would make me so beyond angry. Skinny doesn’t mean they don’t have a life threatening illness. Skinny doesn’t mean they can process sugar the way you do. People that do this are the worst kinds of people. DO NOT DO THIS!

Me and my family went to a restaurant a few years back and one of the dishes we ordered was made with wine vinegar, which I am allergic to, so we asked the waiter to skip it, and he said sure, no problem, that’s fine. So my food gets to the table, and I start eating and then my throat closes and I can’t breathe and then I start coughing and throwing up right there in the middle of the restaurant and it was very fortunate that I was with my family and they knew what was happening to me. I had to be rushed to the hospital, and admitted, and I came damn near close to having my throat cut open so I could breathe through a whole on my neck. Because they put wine vinegar in my food when I explicitly told them not to, because they were assholes, and I could have died. They probably didn’t mean to hurt me but they did. I missed class, and work, and, again, I COULD HAVE DIED.

i have cyclic vomiting syndrome and can’t tolerate dairy or red meat. violating my dietary restrictions triggers an acute episode, and i have to be hospitalized and given iv saline, ativan, and anti-emetics to stop the (extremely painful and incapacitating) vomiting. if somebody put regular milk instead of soy milk in my latte and i didn’t notice the taste immediately, i could wind up in the er and then spend several days in bed recovering, eating nothing but saltines and dry toast and clear liquids until my body was able to tolerate food again, unable to work or go out or do anything besides rest. whenever i go to starbucks, i WATCH them make my drink. cvs episodes are horrible and i hate them, and i can prevent them if i do everything right, but that means my damn barista has to cooperate. if somebody decided i was a stuck up white girl and gave me whole milk instead of soy they could put me in the hospital and cost me days of income. give ppl the food they fuckin order. it’s not that hard.

Reblogging because it’s so important. I’m “lucky” I don’t have any food allergies or intolerence, but it makes me mad when people take them not seriously, think you are picky or just following a “white girl diet fad”.

90% of people don’t take my cats and dog allergies seriously when I tell them I’m allergic and wondering if a cat or a dog is present at X place. They think it’s just watery eyes. Nope. Well yeah, watery and itchy eyes, but I start wo wheeze and have trouble breathing. They don’t give epi-pen for those (anyway you have to go to the hospital after) just inhaler. It’s no miracle, specially if I didn’t take other meds before.

When people tell you about their allergies or restriction, trust them!

Reblogging for all the stories here because this is sooo important! 

I have a severe allergy to gluten and relate to MANY of the stories above. My daughter has a severe allergy to milk fat, and I have had to hold her hair many times while she vomits on the side of the road because we couldn’t even make it home from the “accidental” whole milk instead of skim. 

I’m super lactose intolerant so accidental milk is always fun. Severe diarrhea, stomach cramps, bloating, and gas like you wouldn’t believe. Better than death you might say but, I have other medical conditions, so that diarrhea could lead to vomiting(it’s so bad the vomit comes out my mouth AND nose) and dehydration that in turn becomes low cortisol and adrenal crisis. A bitchy barista can land me in the hospital with an intramuscular shot and saline iv. Hun, it takes no time to listen and follow my order. It takes me at least 24 hours to get out of the hospital. Be nice.

I’m allergic to pork. Legit allergic. I can’t count how many times I’ve had to ask it off my food only to receive it with bacon or ham or something on it.

Please respect peoples food requests. It costs 0.00$ to not be a dick.

I actually have customers who say they’ll only eat at my restaurant when I’m there, because they know I require all policy to be followed, as in “I will kick you the fuck off your shift if you skimp,” if someone says the words “I have an allergy.” I developed our allergy policies, for that matter, because what we had in place before was “I guess you shouldn’t change your gloves … . ?” On my shifts your gloves get changed, that line gets wiped down with a new cloth, paper under EVERY ITEM for the person with the allergy, bag their food separately to prevent contact. If there’s a risk of cross-contamination with an allergen, like tomatoes in the guac because stuff spills when you’re moving as fast as we do, I’ll open a new bag of food. I learned the ingredients in every item we serve so I could advise people on hidden allergens (e.g., there’s a small amount of wheat in our beef as a thickener; we fry with safflower oil). We have a grease pencil to mark special builds and I use it liberally on allergy orders. If all of this sounds like overkill, you’ve never watched a child suffer from anaphylaxis. I don’t play around.

Like, I bitch about my job a lot, but food allergies and special needs are not something I will ever bitch about. Even if you’re a complete asshole I won’t risk contaminating your food. (Although people with allergies seem to be way nicer than the general population, I gotta say.) Don’t do it. If someone’s a petty asshole to you, give them too much ice in their drink. Don’t play with their health.

DO NOT FUCKING SCROLL PAST THIS P L E A S E

Reblogging this again because it is important. Doing the right thing has no cost but doing the wrong thing can cost a person’s life. Don’t be a dick, give the person what they ordered

One of my best friends - who passed away a few years ago - had severe health issues like diabetes, high blood pressure, hypertension, heart problems, and exceedingly fragile bones from being on steroids for her asthma since birth, as well as mildly allergic to dairy and deathly allergic to fish.  She never looked as ill as she actually was, but was actually quite fragile.  She got a lot of glares in parking lots due to her handicapped card allowing her to park in the special slots - she’s not a little old lady and she doesn’t LOOK sick, why should SHE get to park there? (another rant, sorry)

Pertinent to this thread, we would go to restaurants and she’d ask for no cheese or inquire if something had fish in it and generally people were helpful, but on a few occasions we ended up rushing to the ER because someone didn’t really check if there was fish in something (or if they used the same utensil to ladle up her food as they’d just used on fish, it was that severe an allergy).  She always hated being a bother and didn’t like to be pushy. 

I, on the other hand, had zero issues with taking on the brunt of interacting with the waitstaff/barista/drive-through worker.  Usually I was driving anyway.  Thing is, I would always be exceedingly polite and plain - because some folks just get too busy trying to hustle those orders to really listen.  I would lead with “I’m sorry, this order’s a little picky, but my friend has severe allergies and we don’t want to end up having dessert in the ER, y’know?”  Most folks would give a sympathetic chuckle or ‘oh, that’s not fun, you’re right!’ or something, but they would then LISTEN when I asked about dairy, about fish - some were astonished when I asked if the same utensil was used to serve the other items that was used to serve fish, because apparently some people and places don’t get cross-contamination.  You have to sometimes be so very, very specific, it’s almost painful.  BUT, when the alternative can literally be DEATH, well… it’s all relative, right?  Conversely, we met SO many kind, compassionate, thoughtful servers over the years, and let me tell you, those people got the biggest tips we could afford! 

TL;DR: Ditto to the previous accounts and reminder that you can’t make any assumptions, the perfectly healthy-looking person asking for all sorts of picky-seeming things in their order maybe just wants to enjoy ‘regular food’ without dying.

i just fucking hate this culture we’ve created where its a bad thing to help people

like why stress “a hand-up not a hand-out!” whats wrong with a hand-out? whats wrong with sharing and giving and loving? 

we are a social species, we thrive when we work together and help each other, this fucking capitalist hellscape we live in is not natural or good or the only way

Too often, some people become reliant on hand-outs. Helping others is fine and nice, just beware of enabling moochers.

shut the everliving fuck up

Also, turns out “just give people cash” is pretty damn effective. Google “unconditional cash transfers” or GiveDirectly yourself because my internet is apparently based on a network of carrier pigeons and donkey carts.

I think the reason some people are opposed to it is that they’re worried about being emotionally pressured to support others more than they want to or can afford to.

like, fearing “you helped X, why not help Y” until you have nothing left. kind of financial slut shaming, I guess.

Conditional charity is also a powerful form of social control. When you give someone money, they can choose to do what they want with it; when you use that money instead to buy something for them you’ve decided they need, or to pay for someone to teach them a thing you think they have to learn, you’re using your financial means to exert power over their life. It’s a way of feeling morally superior and also of trying to enforce the values and beliefs and culture of the giver. This is obvious in religious charities that force people to accept sermons in exchange for help, but it’s also there in US food stamp rules that try to enforce spending on “healthy” food, or voluntourism where non-expert white people pay a ton of money to go build houses or “teach” children somewhere poor when that money could’ve paid for much more local skilled labor.

a lot of this becomes more comprehensible if you frame it as spending money on charity = purchasing a service for yourself

Components of this service: - paying for social capital (other people thinking you’re a good person who does good things; putting your Habitat trip on your college applications) - emotional services (feeling like a good person to yourself, having other people enact gratefulness towards you) - a sense of control (it feels bad to live in a world with malaria, therefore you want to give money to feel like you’re decreasing the amount of malaria)

People want to feel like they have purchased a meaningful nice emotion with their money. People want to have invested in a sense of control over their world. People don’t like the feeling of incurring ongoing obligations. People certainly don’t want to feel like their own world is being destabilized, which is what meaningful change to the conditions of poverty can feel like. Once you start thinking about charity as presently practiced as a sort of ethical massage you purchase for yourself, not as a gift you give someone else, it becomes a lot easier to think about the bounds people put around what they’re willing to do.

Summer means poor children are not getting 2 free meals a day at school so if you’re able, please consider donating to your local food bank.

Until September 2nd, if you’re under 18, you can receive free lunch at public library branches in NYC (proof of age shouldn’t be required), and from trucks at certain locations around the city. Some schools should be open and providing them, too!!

This is so helpful for anyone that needs it!

here is a website where you can find similar programs based on your location.

These links are so helpful and I’m glad to spread them!

But for those of you in a position I still urge you to donate to your local food bank. Their supplies run low in summer as not everyone has access to or knows about programs like these.

Summer means poor children are not getting 2 free meals a day at school so if you’re able, please consider donating to your local food bank.

Until September 2nd, if you’re under 18, you can receive free lunch at public library branches in NYC (proof of age shouldn’t be required), and from trucks at certain locations around the city. Some schools should be open and providing them, too!!

This is so helpful for anyone that needs it!

here is a website where you can find similar programs based on your location.

These links are so helpful and I’m glad to spread them!

But for those of you in a position I still urge you to donate to your local food bank. Their supplies run low in summer as not everyone has access to or knows about programs like these.

DIY (do it yourself) and disability

i think that people - and non-disabled people specifically - need to be more careful about how dismissive or judgemental they are about things people might do that seem “wasteful” or “buying into consumer culture” because there are lots of things that people do because they cannot “just make their own [whatever thing]” or do it a DIY way or even the cheapest way because doing so requires too much energy, too many kinds of skills (motor skills, planning skills, executive functioning in general, etc.) that someone might not have or might not have to spare on non-essential activities, etc. 

it especially sucks if the person wants to be able to do the thing in a cheaper/less consumer-based/more DIY way but actually just cannot. 

i think about this stuff a lot in trying to figure out some of the tensions between anti-capitalism and disability stuff. i’m against capitalism, i try to be really aware of (corporate) consumer culture, etc etc. but, i also am frequently really low on spoons, i struggle with certain kinds of “activities of daily living,” and i also have a really hard time planning and following through on most kinds of projects (which makes a lot of DIY stuff really difficult to do). 

example: i am bad at flossing my teeth. part of this is because i am bad at remembering to do it - though, i am also really sensitive to the feeling of food stuck in my teeth so that is usually how i get reminded. but, even when i really want to use floss to help with the bad sensory mouth feeling, i often cannot make myself do it because - wait for it - i don’t really know how. i’ve been “taught” many times, i’ve read about it on the internet, i mostly understand how one flosses…in theory. however, in practice, i struggle to figure out how to position the floss on my fingers, i can never figure out how to floss my back teeth, sometimes i get confused about how mirrors work and struggle to get the floss between my teeth because i’m going in the wrong direction. i’ve also injured myself flossing by doing it incorrectly and cutting my gums. also, i often cannot handle the sensory aspects of sticking my fingers in my mouth and dealing with slimy-feeling floss. 

but, i know that flossing is generally considered good for one’s oral hygiene.  i know that flossing can help prevent future tooth problems, making it cheaper and less of a complicated thing to deal with in the long term (i say *can* versus *does* because for some people tooth problems are genetic or due to certain health conditions, etc. so stuff like flossing will not automatically mean you have no dental issues…).  and, as mentioned above, i often *want* to floss as a way to help manage sensory stuff.

so, after debating about whether it was “too wasteful” as a thing, i finally just decided to buy those pre-threaded plastic floss pick things. and…i have actually been able to floss my teeth somewhat consistently since i got them. i have been rinsing them off when using them so that i can use them for more than just one or two teeth (apparently you are theoretically only supposed to use it once but that seems incredibly wasteful and also really expensive because you would go through a pack of 90 floss picks in like 3 days). 

another example: i keep wanting to make popsicles, but keep failing at doing so because for some reason it’s become some kind of executive dysfunction block and even though i know the steps go something like: 

1. wash popsicle tray thing

 2. buy juice

3. pour juice into popsicle tray thing

4. put tray thing in freezer

i am having a hard time making that happen. i even have juice! and the popsicle tray thing (actually i have several because i really really like popsicles and i like popsicle trays because they are fun shapes and pretty colours)!

but, for some reason this summer it has so far been too hard for me to figure out how to make my own popsicles. also there’s the part where i am literally not capable of pouring juice into the popsicle tray thing or transporting the popsicle tray thing without spilling juice all over the kitchen, so “making popsicles” for me also inevitably includes cleaning several parts of my kitchen (which involves a whole other set of motor, planning, and general executive functioning skills). 

so, recently when juice boxes were on sale at one of the grocery stores near my house, i bought some juice boxes and put them in the freezer. instant popsicles! cutting the top off the juice box is a little bit difficult for me and i do still make a bit of a mess, but if i can remember to do the thing over the sink, it’s a relatively mess-free endeavour. 

i don’t buy juice boxes very frequently at all. i know they are “wasteful” and have lots of packaging and ultimately are almost always more expensive than buying a big thing of juice. but, they are also convenient and don’t involve pouring juice out of a container and have meant that i can make popsicles without making a giant mess, giving up on doing so because i don’t have the energy, or having to ask for help from someone (yes, i know there’s nothing wrong with asking for help and yes i want to promote ways of normalizing asking for and providing help - but also ableism exists as does internalized ableism and sometimes i feel like a fucking helpless child for needing to ask a date or a friend to help me make some goddam popsicles). 

tl;dr: there are lots of reasons why disabled folks might not be able to do stuff the more “Do It Yourself” (DIY) or homemade ways, and lots of reasons why people might choose (or not even really have a choice) to buy something instead of making it (even if the thing is more expensive than making it oneself). making things and DIY things often involve a lot of time, energy, and functioning skills that disabled people may not have or may need to save to use on other things. this is important to take into consideration - especially by non-disabled people.