Food-themed post! And some other stuff.

[spritechan]

That's turkey (with cheese because we had an odd number of slices so I used 1/4 to 1/3 of a slice), hardboiled egg (with the yolks, though not for long!),  grape tomatoes, peppers and onion, sushi rice, and OH MY GOD SALMON (asian sesame salmon, to be precise).

Ignore the chunk taken out of the salmon, I was picking at it when I finished cooking it to see if I'd combust when I consumed it. I miraculously did not.

I don't know why I'm so terrified of fish. Maybe because of the smell, and maybe because I had a horrible-tasting piece of swordfish once, and mostly because I psych myself out. I've eaten several kinds of fish, most of which I can't name because I was in another country (Spain or Mexico) and there were varieties of fish before me. I eat tuna almost regularly (not albacore). I got it into my head one time I might be allergic to fish because I have such a strong reaction to the smell, but I know that's not true. Steve LOVES salmon and I want to start getting into sushi and trying/liking more fish.

My verdict on the salmon: ...I don't know. I don't hate it. I don't think I even don't like it. It's just... weird. That's really all I can say to describe it. It tastes kinda... smoky, and... ugh! No words! I am so unfamiliar with seafood and my mind is screaming that I shouldn't like it with every bite. I gotta get over this! But as far as I'm concerned, it was made perfectly. Flaky, not too stinky. The part that actually caught me off-guard when cooking it was the fact that it was still attached to scales! O_O It was like a DRAGON!


In other, sane news, Joe Waid's birthday is tomorrow so we're throwing him his birthday fun at midnight. Because Pat works days now, Steve and I work nights, Nick works evenings, Nikki has a life at his college, and Faith goes to school a couple hours away, and Joe Waid works weekends, it's been hard trying to plan it! I think Steve and Pat have most of the kinks worked out for what we're going to have him do (in my friends group it's usually a "work for your presents through challenges or scavenger hunts" type deal), and I came up with the cake idea (and Pat said he's on board as long as he gets to get all cranky and bossy and likely take the whole thing over in order to make it perfect). I finished his yesterday, though I have one major mistake I need to fix. It's an easy fix; I was just being careless in the duplicate stitching. The symbol especially looks good in person and I'm proud of that chart ^_^ Joe Waid's a really hard person to shop for, and Pat's already said how jealous he is that Joe Waid gets a scarf and that it's obviously going to be the best gift :P What I felt like was a near cop-out is apparently quite popular.

I got to chat with my sister for awhile yesterday, and that was fun. It served to remind me I need to find weekend time to visit her. Whenever I bring it up, she always tells me when the next time she's bringing Cayden over to our parents' house, which I find odd. I don't need to go home to see my nephew, and I almost prefer our quiet time to big family hullabaloo. Anyway, she just wanted to vent while she smoked (she's like me and gets bored when doing menial things and likes to make phone calls) about how she feels like she's not getting any support for getting an apartment and applying to school and getting her GED and working full-time, and in fact said that our parents discouraged her from going to school right now. Bethany says it's the perfect time to go to school because Tony can afford to not work (vs paying more for a daycare that money Tony made from a job wouldn't be worth), and she can support the three of them on her job at Mystic Lake Casino. She obviously doesn't want to be a server forever, so she wants to at least get an Associate's. It's always so hilarious to me when she talks about Paul's "mental issues", or as I call them, "a failure to realize that the parent-child roles change when the kids are adults, living on their own, and having children."

We also talked a bit about death and I gave her the rundown on Pam's dad's funeral. She brought up Paul's dad again, because she recently found out he'd been given 6 months to live - 6 months ago. And he quit chemo (I don't blame him). He has lung cancer; I'm pretty sure he knows what that means for him no matter what he does. So now Bethany is kinda expecting to hear every day that he's died, because of the length of time he was given (the same sentence was given to Bre's grandma, who lived like 4 more years, but she had liver cancer and therefore could do surgeries and she smoked weed ["just a couple puffs"] to keep her appetite up and her pain down). When Bethany and I were listing in what order we thought we'd lose our like 50 grandparents (okay, like 8), Ron hadn't been high on the list. It's just weird. He's only 65.

This THEN led to her talking about her opinions on food consumption after re-watching "Food Matters" (it's instant on Netflix, btw) and how she really believes food does affect your body and cause cancer and that you SHOULD eat healthy and mostly raw, etc.  She commented on her recent gallbladder issues - they offered to take her gallbladder out because it's coated in sludge right now, assumed to be from energy drinks. She said no, and told me that, "It's my fault it is this way. Removing it would be the easy way out so I should try to fix it on my own first!" And then she said, "And of course after I watch it then I go through BK drive-thru but whatever!" XD I actually think half of it is her fear of pain and doctors and needles.

But anyway, she said she can't talk to anyone about her food opinions because they don't agree with her. What she means to say is they're ignorant, or don't care. Our parents tout healthiness, but I'm not sure how much they follow these days. They're incredibly elitist about food that anyone else consumes, though. Steve made fun of me hardcore the other day for throwing a miniature fit when the store didn't have the yogurt I wanted. All the brands that were there had sugar added or were made from just milk (no live cultures)! No! But he's so right, I DID sound like my parents. It was really funny. And I don't even care!

It's interesting this comes up for her right when I'm about to start seriously trying to lead a good healthy life, without being limiting or dieting. I'm already about halfway there, with the high fruit and veggie consumption, low meat intake, attempts to balance protein and fat, but I need more.

Comments

[silver-tiamat.livejournal.com]

Oh bentos! =D (And you should keep the yoke with the egg--it has the things that your really should be eating with the egg. Like with nuts, you can't get scared away by the fat content. And cholesterol is overrated as a factor in many things--there are other less explored pathways that are much better links to issues often said to be the result of "high cholesterol.")

I think the scarf is groovy! =D Handmade things are fun. But, I know how you feel about a "cop out" kind of gift. I feel that way every time I give away something that I've made. Like....man. This is so not that exciting. Sigh.

I saw Food Matters, and Food, Inc. But, more importantly, my more recent attempt to convert to an increasingly Raw Food diet comes from an ever stronger realization that so much of what we're told about good food, healthy food, etc is primarily manipulated data for the purpose of selling a product. Even something like yogurt, which really is one of those things that you shouldn't be eating, mostly because it's not something your body needs, is misunderstood (98% of all the yogurt found in the grocery store isn't the yogurt they talk about when they show those studies about how yogurt helps all sorts of things). I think it's very important to learn more about how and why we need to eat certain foods, and to examine more closely where many of our beliefs about food come from. Even our understand of health, and what we need for our body to function is often very skewed information--such as all the "fats" and "carbohydrates" and "sugar" and "fiber" and so on. Some of it is labeling, but much of it is a failure to educate people properly in school about actual nutrition, so that most of our sources are from advertisments.

Don't forget, there are differences in "protein" that are significant as well. Nut protein, plant protein, and animal proteins are all different. Vegetable proteins are by far the best type of proteins for your body. This really is something to look into, and understand, especially when weighing the cost/benefit of something like eating a "bread" made out of blended and dehydrated nuts and seeds, with a burger made of uncooked vegetables (no legumes though), in terms not only of calories and protein, but of "fat." There's a reason why people who eat a raw food diet have much healthier body fat ratios than anyone who follows standard American "healthy" eating practices (like eating "whole grains" and yogurt, and "lean meats" with lots of cooked vegetables).

But, I wish you luck on getting closer to a healthy lifestyle, and a healthy relationship to food. =D I think that more important than just realizing that certain foods are not really healthy for your body, is being able to say something like, "Afterwards, I went and ate a Burger King, because I felt like eating a hamburger and french fries," without guilt.

[chochajin.livejournal.com]

Looks really yummie! ^-^
And the scarf is so cute :)