I am certainly not a fan of turtle dude, but that isn’t a nice thing to say and isn’t in line with the Beehaw philosophy. He doesn’t have the same values as a lot of us, but everyone has friends and family that would miss them and be sad if they died. Instead of wishing bad on people, let’s try to focus on positive change. He should retire…a lot of them should retire. What incentives do they have for NOT retiring? Money? What else? What incentives do they have TO retire? How do we make retiring look more inviting to them?

I hate that this is a valid question…

I wish this was limited to just people on the internet…The one I always have trouble with is when I go to a restaurant and the server asks if my dietary restrictions are for an allergy or preference. My brain always ends up freezing because neither answer is really true. It’s not an allergy, I’m not going to die if I eat the foods (just feel really awful for multiple days), and it is certainly not a preference (food is awesome!). I feel like no matter which way I respond I’d be lying to the person, and my brain struggles with that and I just end up staring up at the person in confusion.

From discussing it with other people, I think a lot of the fad diets over the years have made it harder for people to realize that there are non-allergy reasons for your doctor to tell you you can’t eat things. People just assume that you are doing it on purpose, to lose weight, to fit in, etc. Because the default is Insert Fad Diet Here, people think we are stubborn and feel it is ok to make us feel bad about it. It’s not right either way, more power to someone who can willing give up all the foods I gave up kicking and screaming but still.

From an external perspective, I think it is about explaining the WHY to people. That way it expands their internal list of reasons, and they might go into their next encounter with more thoughtfulness. With that said, some people are who they are. You can ignore them or you can avoid them, but definitely don’t let them get you down. As you said, you tried that in this case and the person didn’t listen.

Which brings me to the internal perspective, you CAN eat chicken, green beans, and potatoes. Instead of focusing on all the things you can’t eat, celebrate the things you can eat. There are a million and a half ways you can cook a potato. Chicken? Just about every cuisine has a solid chicken recipe, and its good any way you cook it (grilled, baked, poached, slow cooker).

It is like playing a video game on a different difficulty setting, the rules don’t end up being quite the same. What is fine for someone on Easy, doesn’t work for you on Hard mode. Your body tells you to eat chicken? Eat chicken. Feel the desire to give back to the planet? There are lots of options, you don’t have to pick the same one as others. What can you do instead? Can you volunteer at an animal shelter, can you compost?

I think you may in fact have more spices than I do, which I never thought I’d get to say! That is quite the impressive collection. What made you start collecting spices? Are they all individual spices or do you have blends in there as well? How do you handle one-off spices that you got that you just wanted to try out or that you needed for a particular recipe? Do you separate out any of your other spices (grill seasonings, baking spices, etc)? I have so many questions. :)

For me, I feel like when I am meal prepping on the weekends I always have the best of intentions. In my head I’m thinking these meals all sound healthy and great. Then it gets into the middle of the week and stress happens and you don’t care what you made, you want carbs. When you are meal planning it really helps to think about what you’ve got going on that week and what you like to eat in different moods. I will try to explain what I mean by that.

Consider what types of cuisine you like (italian, indian, chinese, mexican, etc) and when you typically want that cuisine (could eat it every day, only when I’m having a bad day, once a week, as a celebration, etc). Write that down on a piece of paper.

Next, what does your week ahead look like? Is it just an average week? Do you have exams and are going to be stressed? Once you know that you can add up the number of meals you will need based on the categories you wrote down for “when you typically want that cuisine.” To give yourself some grace, always try to plan for at least 1 “had a bad day” meal.

That will in turn give you an idea of what types of things to cook, and you can google recipes based on that. It helps if you pick recipes that use similar ingredients, as you only have to prep that thing once.

From a prep perspective, look at the recipes that you selected and see what commonalities they have. You can prepare those common ingredients ahead of time. For example, lots of recipes I make use rice so I can make a bunch of rice at the beginning of the week and then have it for multiple meals. I’ve also found it helps to prepare sauces for recipes and put them in mason jars in the fridge. Trying to follow a list of ingredients for a sauce when you only have 5 minutes always just leaves me frustrated.

The end result is that you won’t have a full meal prepared ahead of time but you’ll have as much done as possible beforehand. Definitely saves time if you can start on say step 5 of a recipe instead of step 1.

For chinese, thai, or stirfry recipes, I would agree. Cornstarch and chinese 5 spice makes an awesome combination. For indian recipes though, I like to use equal parts cornstarch, nutritional yeast, and lemon juice to get more of the cheesy taste that paneer would have.

Demons of Good and Evil by Kim Harrison. I’ve been reading the series since 2004, and I do a little happy dance every time a new book comes out.

Brussels sprout hash. Slice 1/2 pounds brussels sprouts into ribbons. Heat 2 tbsp oil in a non stick pan. Add the brussels sprouts and half a bag of frozen hash brown potatoes. Stir everything together. Then I usually add some thyme, paprika, salt and pepper. Cook for about 20 minutes stirring every few minutes until you get nice golden brown bits on the sprouts and potatoes. Divide it on plates and then top with either a fried or poached egg.