Posts made by Kestrel

@Grayson said in Depression Meals:

Boil kettle. Open pack of fresh pasta tortellini from fridge (the stuff often keeps for a month or more, and it's not hugely expensive). Add stock cube/pot/whatever to bowl. Add boiling water. Stir until stock. Add pasta. Ignore for a bit. Eat.

It ends up like an Italian sort of won ton soup, you can pick the type of stock and what stuffing you want in the tortellini, and it's filling. I've got a plastic container with sealing lid and steam hole that'll fit a whole pack of pasta, so I just have to add boiling water, stir, add pasta, and wander off with it.

I’ve never tried keeping the water I’ve cooked tortellini in before.

That actually sounds good. Gonna try it.

Friendly reminder:

Nobody ever deserves food restriction. No matter what your dumb brain tells you.

@Auspice said in Depression Meals:

I'll sit down and share a couple of slices with my cats and oh my god that's my depression meal right there

a couple slices of cheese shared with the cats

I have no qualifications and that's probably a good thing because if I had power over mental health patients I would literally just prescribe them all cats to solve life's problems.

(Provided they seem nice and not abusive.)

If this thread has taught me anything, it’s that British people know their toast.

@Rinel said in What do you eat?:

It's very important to distinguish between veganism and vegetarianism. Vegetarianism has an ancient history. Veganism, in contrast, has only been possible since the 20th century (when it was invented), because a vegan diet will cause fatal B12 deficiency without supplementation that was impossible to provide through vegan means until then.

But B12 doesn't come from animal products; it comes from bacteria, and with livestock being fed antibiotics, B12 has to be supplemented in their diets.

In the wild and throughout most of human history, B12 would've just as easily been gotten by drinking unpurified water. Our hygienic lives today mean it has to be supplemented artificially, either via the animals we eat, or in tablet form directly.

It's the only vitamin which can't be obtained from a plant-based diet in adequate quantities and which vegans can be found measurably deficient in, but that's actually true for omnivores, too. (Source) Like Vitamin D, it's one of those things we should probably all be taking in supplement form, regardless of what you eat.

@Ominous said in Depression Meals:

I enjoy cooking, so it actually helps brighten my day a bit.

I enjoy cooking too, but when I'm depressed, I don't want to do things I enjoy. I want to lie in a congealing pool of self-loathing and misery and stare at the wall until an hour has passed.

@Wizz said in Depression Meals:

Chicken-flavor ramen, big ol' squirts of sriracha, squeeze half a lime in the bowl. I can and have eaten it literally every single meal.

The best thing about chicken-flavour ramen is it's usually vegetarian.

This is good shit. It burns your gut so instead of worrying about emotional pain, you're more focused on the imminent diarrhea.

Relevant:

@Ganymede said in What do you eat?:

@Kestrel

What about allergies? I am allergic to nuts and legumes. This precludes a vegetarian or vegan lifestyle, as far as I can tell.

If you’ve research to prove otherwise, I’d like to make a change. Also, I live non-carb.

I concede it'd be pretty difficult to make balanced vegan meals with a nut + legume allergy because that's my main protein source, personally.

Can I ask why you live non-carb? If it's for health reasons, I know the keto movement is based on some really bad science. People who eat three or more servings of wholegrains a day live longer, have slimmer waistlines, lower blood pressure, and lower incidences of heart disease and type 2 diabetes. (Source 1, Source 2) The effect of adding whole grains to a heart patient's diet has been found to be even more effective than statins and other commonly prescribed drugs.

Carbs are good for you. Though it's worth making the distinction between highly processed simple starches vs. complex carbs, fruits and vegetables, which are full of beneficial phytonutrients.

I recommend the Netflix documentaries What the Health and Forks Over Knives for a basic primer. Also the books The China Study and How Not to Die. Both are authored by medical doctors and nutrition experts who have conducted extensive research on the topic; and both include an extensive bibliography section for the sources.

In terms of why animal products are bad for you, the most comprehensive study on the topic (that I know about) is the aptly named EPIC study. (European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition.) It followed more than half a million participants from 10 European countries over 15 years and crunched the numbers on a fairly wide variety of topics. It would be quite exhaustive to link them all but here are a few choice selections:

• Meat, poultry and fish and risk of bowel cancer
• Meat consumption and mortality
• Meat and fish consumption and risk of pancreatic cancer

One thing I found interesting about the EPIC study is that it proved that all animal protein, and not just processed red meat as is often the fixation, raises the risk of chronic diseases and shortens life expectancy across the board. This includes poultry, fish and dairy.

The China Study did something similar focusing on Eastern populations. It was funded in joint by Oxford University, Cornell University and the Government of China in the 1980s. Because the EPIC study is more recent, I generally prefer to cite that, but the China Study really paved the way and remains one of the most important nutritional studies of its time, or IMO, any time.

Research in the Blue Zones, such as the Okinawa Centenarian Study, has also provided groundbreaking results worth looking into. (Comprehensive study on the topic.) "Blue Zones" is a term for various regions across the globe where humans live longer than anywhere else, specifically to over 100 years old. These include Okinawa, Japan; Sardinia, Italy; Nicoya, Costa Rica; Icaria, Greece; and the Seventh Day Adventists of Loma Linda, California. These areas are not necessarily wealthier than other parts of the world, or even local counterparts. In some cases, it's in fact their isolation from the rest of the world that has in a sense "protected" them from assimilating unhealthier global trends and helped preserve their healthier cultural habits. Some common factors were found across these populations, and not all of them are dietary: a strong emphasis on local community, approximately 30 minutes of light exercise a day (such as communal dancing and brisk walking); and of the dietary factors, not all are related to vegetarianism. Across the board they all place emphasis on the importance of eating fermented food, have a relatively low caloric intake, and so for example Okinawan gut microbiomes are significantly more diverse than those of Western populations. (See also: more general source on probiotics and longevity.) But the fact that all Blue Zones also happen to be largely vegan, vegetarian, or pescetarian (with typically less than 2% of calories coming from meat/fish) can't be playing a small part.

In recent years as Okinawan diets have become more Westernised and meat/fish intake has increased, the life expectancy of younger generations has shortened. (Source.)

So that's the science. There is a lot more. It would take more than just one essay to point by point extol the benefits of eating antioxidant-rich foods (which meat/dairy are not), obtaining a diverse array of phytonutrients from a rainbow of fruits and vegetables, and fostering a healthy gut biome through high intake of fibre-rich and fermented foods. (Note also that intake of meat/dairy is detrimental to the health & diversity of the gut biome.) There are therefore many books and publications on the subject, the best two of which I've linked above.

In your case maybe instead of considering a shift towards veganism/vegetarianism, it would be better to focus on reducing meat/dairy intake where viable. Oat, rice, coconut, hemp and flax milks are allergen-free alternatives to dairy. Oat milk is also super easy to make at home (literally just blitz up water and oats). Flax milk is probably the healthiest option because it's very rich in brain-boosting omega-3 fatty acids (specifically it helps to preserve grey matter in ageing adults) and has anti-inflammatory properties. It also contains lignan which has been shown to fight/prevent breast cancer. Lignan is just one of many poorly understood phytonutrients that are more essential for human health than previously realised; micro, not macronutrients, are really the cornerstone of modern nutrition. The very basic gist of that is that it's important to make sure you're getting nutritional bang for your buck out of every calorie, and not just counting them and calling it a day. (Brief primer on the topic.)

The main source of protein I can think of that would theoretically not trigger an allergic reaction for you would be various seeds. You could sprinkle them on a salad, in soups, etc. They'll be more affordable if you buy them in bulk packages from Amazon, which is what I do. You can also make/buy seed butters, tahini, etc., but I can empathise that this would on the whole be difficult to subsist on. Apart from that, seitan and quorn I think are allergen-free, and can be used as meat substitutes — but tend to be more expensive.

@Ganymede said in Depression Meals:

When I get depressed, I drown myself in work. Including cooking.

You have the kind of depression I wish I had.

EDIT: ditto @Testament below
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@GreenFlashlight said in Depression Meals:

@Kestrel said in Depression Meals:

What do you guys eat when you literally can't be fucked to make anything difficult?

Realistically? A bag of potato chips, or drive-thru.

A super easy comfort food recipe is pasta aglio e olio, though. While you boil a box of pasta al dente, heat half a cup of olive oil in a frying pan over medium heat, crush a head of garlic into the oil and brown it (most recipes tell you to slice it, but that's a suboptimal way to get the garlic evenly spread, I say), and toss the pasta into the garlic-infused oil. Juice a large lemon into it. Most recipes tell you to add a ton of parsley, and you can do that if you want, but it's not crazy necessary. You have a meal full of carbs and heart-helpful garlic that takes maybe twelve minutes to wake.

This changed my whole entire life, enjoy.

I almost forgot my own personal genius invention: "toast sticks"

Take toast

slice lengthwise to create multiple strips

open hummus tub

pour some kind of chilli/hotsauce into hummus tub

dip toast sticks into tub for a filling albeit sad, protein-rich depression meal.

If you don't finish the entire hummus tub in a single sitting you're not doing it right.

Carrot/cucumber sticks are for suckers.

Weekend routine:

Wake up. Cold coffee from the fridge. This brand.

Head to my local Waterstones (book shop), which has a cafe upstairs. Curl up in my favourite sofa-seat in the corner with a vegan cake + flat white. Read 100 pages of my current book, then write 1-3 A4 pages in my paper notebook, with my fountain pen in black ink. I make it a point to write with pen & paper every day — the topic doesn't matter — because I find it very beneficial to my mental health. This writing is generally just for my personal benefit, not to be viewed/consumed by anyone else.

Leave the cafe and stop for lunch somewhere. By the time I arrive home I ensure I've walked at least 10,000 steps.

Hop online, do some work with regular leisure breaks on YouTube/Netflix/socials as needed.

Evening is when my brain operates at maximum capacity, so once this morning/afternoon routine is done I have the time/energy for anything else that needs taking care of.

My weekdays are irregular but generally speaking my writing/reading/walking time just gets pushed to further in the day and my evening activities are instead in the morning. As a night owl I operate much less efficiently this way, but c'est la vie, capitalism.

@Kanye-Qwest said in Depression Meals:

I mean if I'm being honest, when I'm VERY low I will stand by the fridge and eat a tortilla and a handful of grapes, or go to a drive through and get french fries.

Back when I was on a mexican kick, I would pull a corn tortilla out the fridge, open up a can of refried beans, spread that all over with a knife, pour on some salsa from a jar and then roll it up into a cigar like a sad yet spicy crepe.

As a spin-off to the What do you eat? thread, I'm starting this new topic on depression meals.

What do you guys eat when you literally can't be fucked to make anything difficult? No fancy instagram nonsense please. Just the sad basics.

I like wholegrain seeded toast with either natural peanut butter or baked beans, because it's nutritious, filling, and takes no effort.

Also miso soup in a thermos flask with generous squirts of sriracha, because the spice gives me endorphins.

@Kanye-Qwest said in What do you eat?:

@Sunny peanuts and canola oil are both high in vitamin e, and George Washington Carver specifically worked with peanuts because he thought they were a good staple food for people needing affordable nutrition.

Seeded wholegrain toast + peanut butter is my go-to depression meal.

@Sunny said in What do you eat?:

@Kanye-Qwest

Yes, but it is easier to do the fewer limits you put on it, and getting some nutrients is better than less than some. Vitamin E is heavily supplemented into most of our milk supply, for example. Because it is hard, otherwise, to get it. Cutting milk out means a need to get E another way, which for inner city living can be nearly impossible. Not as big a problem down south maybe, but up here where people are chronically deficient because we can't make our own (no sun!), it's a big deal. And there are a million other examples like this one.

Non-dairy milk is generally fortified to have exactly the same nutritional value as dairy milk, and in fact superior, both as a selling point and because it doesn't contain the known carcinogens found in dairy milk, or drugs and antibioitcs fed to cattle, not to mention the naturally occurring casomorphins which make dairy literally addictive.

The only commercial non-dairy milks that aren't fortified are those specifically marketed as organic. You can also make your own non-dairy milk at home if you have a blender, literally just mixing water with nuts/oats. I don't, because I prefer the fortified stuff from the supermarket.

If your supermarket doesn't stock non-dairy milk I totally get it and have sympathy. But if it does, the nutritional argument isn't true.

There are many studies proving the health benefits of a plant-based diet; lower risks of chronic diseases, longer life expectancy (see research on the Blue Zones) etc.

If anyone wants me to link sources I can do so, otherwise you can google and verify everything I'm saying.

@Sunny I just don't think it's hard. I think it's a misconception that it's hard because people don't know just how easy and available the required nutrients in vegan food are.

But that's why I like informing people. Because if it wasn't obvious by now, I'm very passionate about it, and helping people — who are interested — is something I love to do.

@Sunny said in What do you eat?:

@Kestrel

'Misconception that it's privledged' is why I got upset, because it isn't a misconception.

ETA: the misconception is that it is solely food cost alone that makes it a privilege

OK, let me amend.

Choice, of all and any kind, in any context, is and always will be a privilege.

For those who have geographical access, physical ability and the mental capacity (vs. depression meals, eating disorder recovery, work/life schedules) to make choices regarding what they eat, and can rely on more than simply what's available, I make the case that choosing veganism is no more tied to privilege than any other conscious dietary choice.

Some people are unable to make conscious choices about what they eat or feed their families. Any post I make advocating to choose veganism does not apply to these people. (Though I do, incidentally, make the case that limits on these people's choices is frequently the consequence of systemic issues in our global food distribution and resource management, with animal agriculture one of the biggest culprits. The other is capitalism and food waste.)

@mietze said in What do you eat?:

Also, the idea that people will choose to live on subsistence/most inexpensive staples if they don't have to is not really a correct one. That has been proven time and again. While I appreciate veganism, lean towards plant based diets myself quite happily, I really wish that line of preaching would go away because jfc that edges really close to a "noble savage" type of thing that is just gross. And unnecessary.

I'm not sure I understand this?

If you want to live on cheap vegan food, that's easily accomplished. If you want to live on cheap meaty/dairy food, that's also easily accomplished. Buy bulk TVP (textured vegetable protein), rice & beans, frozen produce, or bulk mince meat from the frozen aisle.

If you prefer to live on extravagant, luxury vegan food, that's also an option — shop at Whole Foods and order gourmet swiss vegan cheeses, I guess. If you prefer to live on extravagant, luxury meat/dairy food, that's also an option — eat steak, prosciutto and lobster.

@mietze said in What do you eat?:

With respect, food is going to be an "emotive" topic almost always, for a wide variety of reasons.

100% accurate.

But not always relevant to external factors.