Posts tagged with ‘when food is too hard’

whentheaugureycried asked: Do you have any tips for finding easy recipes? Like a blog, website, book, whatever really.

autisticdrift:

There’s lowspoonsfood and no-more-ramen on Tumblr. 

There is also a big masterpost that someone (maybe realsocialskills) made about cooking when you are low on spoons. Does anyone have it saved/bookmarked?

Beginner recipes at Food.com (some are easier than others)

Blog post on How to Get Started Cooking for Yourself. Also lots of cooking tips and recipes on that blog.

An interactive recipe thing that promises you can make Dinner in 15 minutes based on ingredients you have on hand (has 5 ingredients or less and kid friendly, which might mean sensory friendly, options)

Soup can be pretty easy to make: quick soup recipes

Ten minute meals (these look easy and also fast while making a filling meal)

Hopefully this will help you get started. To find them I searched things like: quick easy recipes, recipes for beginners, recipes for kids (not saying you’re a kid, these just tend to be easy/healthy/fast), 5 ingredient recipes, low spoons recipes. So if nothing here works for you, try plugging some of those or similar phrases into Google. 

Do you mean this post? 

When Food Is Too Hard 

And here’s the version in which I respond to a troll.

Generally speaking, I tag stuff like that “when food is too hard”; I got a *lot* of potentially helpful replies to that post.

dysfunctionalqueer:

realsocialskills:

slepaulica:

realsocialskills:

wikdsushi:

[GJ] Great Post About ASD Diagnostic Process!

girljanitor:

realsocialskills:

Anonymous asked realsocialskills:

I don’t really know how to say this the best way, but apparently I “might” have Aspergers. I had been having some trouble at college, and the woman we spoke to at disabilities services said that…

wikdsushi said:

Hang on, forgetting to eat is an Aspie trait?

realsocialskills said:

It can be, yes.

For a couple of reasons:

• Autistic people have trouble with sensory processing, and noticing hunger relies on accurately interpreting certain sensations
• For some autistic people, this means that it’s actually hard to consistently notice hunger
• Autistic people often have trouble with executive functioning that can make the process of getting food confusing enough that you end up not bothering often enough
• Autistic people also often have trouble identifying things as edible and realizing that it’s possible to eat them and not be hungry anymore

I wrote a post a while back on how to cope when food is too hard.

slepaulica said:

I have a lot of trouble with the last one.  I will go into a store that only sells food and look at all the things and none of it will look like food for reasons I don’t fully understand and I will walk out of the store having only bought a chocolate milk.

it can help to have a plan for what i’m trying to make out of the food, sometimes. but not always.

it’s like:

me: are you food?

carrot: no, i’m not food. i’m an ingredient.

me: oh, oh well.

(completely forgetting that i like carrots and that they go well in many of the things i like to cook)

if I can hold it in memory that I’m looking for ingredients, and even better, that i’m looking for certain ingredients, my success rate improves.

realsocialskills said:

This. Or I’ll buy a random assortment of things, none of which seem edible when I get home.

dysfunctionalqueer said:

I tend to have really specific sensory desires for food, and if they can’t be met i’ll just not end up eating. Like if I’m hungry for salty chicken soup, and we don’t have chicken soup, i’ll just not eat, because even if we have something close it wont be the same. Plus terrible exec functioning skills means that even if we do have that food, i might not be able to make it. this is why i live almost entirely off of popcorn and diet coke, because those two are always sensory friendly.

realsocialskills said:

I do that too, so I try to always keep around the foods that are reliably edible for me.

slepaulica:

realsocialskills:

wikdsushi:

[GJ] Great Post About ASD Diagnostic Process!

girljanitor:

realsocialskills:

Anonymous asked realsocialskills:

I don’t really know how to say this the best way, but apparently I “might” have Aspergers. I had been having some trouble at college, and the woman we spoke to at disabilities services said that…

wikdsushi said:

Hang on, forgetting to eat is an Aspie trait?

realsocialskills said:

It can be, yes.

For a couple of reasons:

• Autistic people have trouble with sensory processing, and noticing hunger relies on accurately interpreting certain sensations
• For some autistic people, this means that it’s actually hard to consistently notice hunger
• Autistic people often have trouble with executive functioning that can make the process of getting food confusing enough that you end up not bothering often enough
• Autistic people also often have trouble identifying things as edible and realizing that it’s possible to eat them and not be hungry anymore

I wrote a post a while back on how to cope when food is too hard.

slepaulica said:

I have a lot of trouble with the last one.  I will go into a store that only sells food and look at all the things and none of it will look like food for reasons I don’t fully understand and I will walk out of the store having only bought a chocolate milk.

it can help to have a plan for what i’m trying to make out of the food, sometimes. but not always.

it’s like:

me: are you food?

carrot: no, i’m not food. i’m an ingredient.

me: oh, oh well.

(completely forgetting that i like carrots and that they go well in many of the things i like to cook)

if I can hold it in memory that I’m looking for ingredients, and even better, that i’m looking for certain ingredients, my success rate improves.

realsocialskills said:

This. Or I’ll buy a random assortment of things, none of which seem edible when I get home.

more low spoons food suggestions

snowiedear:

For me it’s Clif bars, microwaveable Trader Joe’s bao, Annie Chun’s udon, and scrambled eggs. I agree with all of the above - eating anything is ALWAYS better than eating nothing at all. There’s a difference between eating chips when you’re bored and snacky and then feeling gross, and eating chips because it’s afternoon and you haven’t put any food in your body all day and if you eat you will have a little bit more energy and not feel like gross tired shit. Sometimes it’s that much of a difference. Sometimes I only feel up to eating the chocolate coconut bars because the peanut butter ones don’t feel worth the effort of chewing it.

Eating anything is better for your body and mind and routine and mental state. Full. Stop. You do what you have to do and sometimes that’s just ice cream.

(Source: realsocialskills, via chickiedeare)

When food is too hard

self-assuring-love:

realsocialskills:

lanthir:

realsocialskills:

fedorasandstuff:

 

I so cannot wait for it to be cold enough to run the oven without dying.  I miss being able to throw some chicken nuggets in the oven and then have food 6 minutes later.  The oven makes so much I don’t want to cook food possible.

realsocialskills said:

Could you get a toaster oven? I find toaster ovens really useful for exactly that reason.

lanthir said

Oh my gods yes!  And toaster ovens preheat practically instantly, because they’re so small!
They’re perfect for stuff like, cooking frozen snack things, and making cheese toast or cinnamon toast, and all sorts of really quick, easy foods!

realsocialskills said

The other advantage to toaster ovens is that a lot of them have timers that can make them automatically shut off when the time is up.

That’s a really useful safety feature for people who tend to get distracted and start fires.

self-assuring-love said:

On the other hand, if you’re sensitive to noises or in a small space, try your toaster oven’s “stay on” option (maybe combined with a timer). Some toaster ovens tick incredibly loudly when set to shut off at a time, but will be silent/much quieter when set to “stay on”. 

realsocialskills said:

That’s also a good point.

(via self-assuring-love-deactivated2)

reesa-chan:

Social skills for autonomous people: When food is too hard

realsocialskills:

Anonymous asked realsocialskills:

Related to the remembering food exists thing, do you have any advice for what to do when your depression is making preparing food seem so hard that you’d nearly prefer to just go hungry?

A couple of suggestions:

Order a pizza, or some…

reesa-chan said:

This. So much this. Also, some grocery stores will deliver food if you happen to be lucky enough to live in the right city. I have one on my list of resources for when spoons have been completely exhausted. They also deliver toilet paper, which is the most crazy awesome thing ever. Also other things, but delivery toilet paper! How amazing is it to know that if you run out but can’t face leaving the house, someone will BRING YOU TOILET PAPER!

Depending on how your brain works, it might be worth being careful about the disposable dishes, though. I know that for me it’s even harder to deal with a build up of trash than a build up of dirty dishes (and don’t get me started on how overwhelming those dishes can be!), so if you’re like me it might be easier to either reuse a mildly dirty dish or to figure out a way to go without using dishes for this meal or, if you have the resources, to wash just the one dish you’re going to eat off of.

realsocialskills said:

That’s a good point about trash. Disposable dishes aren’t a good solution for everyone.

(via reesa-chan)

When food is too hard

lanthir:

realsocialskills:

fedorasandstuff:

 

I so cannot wait for it to be cold enough to run the oven without dying.  I miss being able to throw some chicken nuggets in the oven and then have food 6 minutes later.  The oven makes so much I don’t want to cook food possible.

realsocialskills said:

Could you get a toaster oven? I find toaster ovens really useful for exactly that reason.

lanthir said

Oh my gods yes!  And toaster ovens preheat practically instantly, because they’re so small!
They’re perfect for stuff like, cooking frozen snack things, and making cheese toast or cinnamon toast, and all sorts of really quick, easy foods!

realsocialskills said

The other advantage to toaster ovens is that a lot of them have timers that can make them automatically shut off when the time is up.

That’s a really useful safety feature for people who tend to get distracted and start fires.

When food is too hard

dyzzyah:

luxuryofconviction:

bramblepatch:

ktempest:

feministbatwoman:

realsocialskills:

Content warning: This post is my reply to someone who reblogged calling some of my low-spoons food strategies lazy and unhealthy. Some of y’all might be better off skipping this one.

watsonly:

realsocialskills:

Anonymous asked realsocialskills:

Related to the remembering food exists thing, do you have any advice for what to do when your depression is making preparing food seem so hard that you’d nearly prefer to just go hungry?

A couple of suggestions:

Order a pizza, or some other form of food that gets delivered to you

• Hunger feeds on itself and makes everything harder
• If you’re in a state of mind where preparing food seems too difficult to be bearable, ordering food can often break that cycle
• So can getting takeout or going to McDonalds
• This is not a frivolous expense
• And it’s not necessarily more expensive than preparing your own food. McDonalds has a dollar menu.
• When you’re starving from not eating, it is not the time to worry about health food. Making sure that you eat comes first. Eating anything (that you’re not allergic to) is healthier than regularly going hungry because you can’t bring yourself to eat.

Keep stuff around that’s easy to eat and doesn’t require any preparation or only need to be microwaved, for instance:

• A box of cereal
• Chocolate
• Granola bars
• Ice cream
• Popsickles
• Protein shakes
• Rice cakes
• Peanut butter
• TV dinners
• Frozen chicken nuggets
• It can also help to keep around disposable plates and utensils so the thought of having to wash dishes doesn’t deter you from eating

Get someone else to tell you that you need to eat:

• Sometimes it’s easier to remember that eating is important if someone else tells you
• For instance, if you text a friend saying “remind me that I need to eat” and they do, that can sometimes make it more possible

Get someone else to talk you through the steps of making food:

• If there’s someone you can ask how to find/make food, that can be helpful
• Sometimes what’s really exhausting is not so much doing the steps, as it is anticipating them, or figuring out what they are
• If someone can help you through that, it can make it much more possible

watsonly said:

okay, this is a really good post but i do think someone should mention that defaulting to eating chocolate, ice cream, and tv dinners is really unhealthy and will probably only make you feel worse in the long run. i don’t know about you guys but eating a bag of chips feelings great in the moment but then 30 minutes later i just feel worse than before

so i give you a list of super fast and easy snacks that are inexpensive, yummy, and best of all will make you feel great (◕‿◕✿)

• cucumbers. seriously, just cucumbers. maybe some salt on top
• rice crackers oh my god they are so cheap and mmmmmm
• apples, peaches, pears, grapes, any fruit really :)
• plain yogurt with some warm honey drizzled on top
• flavoured yogurt + granola
• SMOOTHIES MAN LIKE RLY JUST BLEND UP SOME BANANA’S, YOGURT, COCOA POWDER AND JUICE AND YOU’VE OPENED A FUCKING BOOSTER JUICE
• toast. everyone likes toast.
• chickpeas! yeah, those weird things you always pass in the supermarket. mix ‘em up with whatever diced veggies you have in the fridge and put a splash of olive oil on top ;)
• NACHOS. IT IS SO DARN EASY TO MAKE NACHOS. SERIOUSLY. DO IT. (tortilla chips + salsa + cheese + oven + 3 minutes)
• some lovely campbells soup with soda crackers ^.^
• eggs! fry ‘em, boil ‘em, mix em with some cheese and omelette them!
• really just eat whatever makes you feel happy and healthy yo <33

oh, also, let’s not engage in any of this paper plate crap - WASH THOSE DISHES! seriously. rinse out your plate/bowl/cutlery when you’re done eating and do it later if you like. bUT DONT MAKE BEING LAZY AND ACCESSIBLE OPTION. PUT ON SOME MUSIC IF YOU LIKE. DANCE AROUND. USE WAY TOO MUCH SOAP SO THE WHOLE KITCHEN SMELLS LIKE SUNLIGHT. PRETEND YOU’RE ON A COOKING SHOW. DO WHATEVER YOU NEED TO DO, JUST HAVE FUN WITH IT!

FOOD IS DELICIOUS AND AMAZING AND SOMEONE EVERYONE SHOULD WANT TO ENJOY, AND SITTING AROUND EATING JUNK FOOD ALL DAY IS NOT THE WAY TO GO ABOUT DOING THAT! 

realsocialskills said:

There are some major problems with your advice. My post was for people who have trouble eating because the food logistics are very difficult for them. The problem here isn’t how to do what’s nutritionally ideal. The problem is how to make sure you eat and don’t starve, even when you’re so low on spoons that the thought of eating makes you want to cry.

Enjoying food is great. But avoiding starvation is more important. So is eating regularly enough to avoid cognitive side effects of hunger.

Most things that you have suggested are not viable for people who are having this degree of trouble eating. Here are some reasons:

Low calorie snacks are not a good solution for people who are having trouble eating enough food:

• Defaulting to low-calorie foods is a great strategy for people who compulsively overeat and consume too many calories
• But people who have trouble eating have the opposite problem.
• What’s a healthy food choice depends on what your needs are
• People who find it so difficult to eat that they’d often rather go hungry need strategies for making sure they get enough calories
• For people who have that problem, defaulting to low calorie foods can actually be dangerous
• Ice cream contains a lot more nutritionally essential things than cucumbers and rice cakes do

In a similar way, many of your suggestions are too difficult/exhausting/complicated for people who have this problem:

• A lot of your suggestions call for fresh perishable ingredients. In order to eat that way, people have to be either capable of keeping ingredients around, or capable of going out and getting the ingredients whenever they need to eat. That’s often not possible.
• Using a blender to blend something takes a lot of steps. And then you have to clean the blender, or it will make your kitchen disgusting. That can be a major deterrent to eating.
• This is also true of making omelets and other things that require cooking. You have to have the energy and executive functioning to cook safely, and then you have to wash the pans.
• Drizzling warm honey on top of yogurt is only viable for people who can heat honey and put it on something without making an exhausting mess.
• Putting something in the oven and keeping track of it for three minutes *and successfully cleaning it up afterwards* isn’t easy or possible for everyone.

Some of your suggestions don’t actually make nutritional sense for anyone:

• TV dinners are expensive, but they’re not necessarily unhealthy.
• A lot of them are way more nutritionally balanced than a plate of nachos
• And just about any TV dinner is better for most people than eating nothing but fruit and cucumbers

Paper plates and other disposables are necessary and important for some people:

• Disability is a real thing
• Not everyone can handle washing dishes
• Trying to wash dishes can seriously damage some people’s health
• Because it can deter them from eating to the point that they become malnourished
• And it can also make it impossible for some people to maintain a sanitary living environment
• Calling people who have this problem lazy doesn’t make the problem go away
• But using disposable dishes does, for some people
• People with disabilities have the right to eat and living in sanitary conditions

Fun and a light hearted positive attitude do not actually generate spoons or solve sensory problems:

• If people are too exhausted to move and can barely handle getting up to make a sandwich, no amount of music is going to make it possible for them to wash dishes or make nachos
• If the texture of water and dish soap makes someone want to scream, no amount of pretending to be on a cooking show is going to stop having to wash dishes from deterring them from eating
• If someone finds almost all food unbearably repulsive, having an attitude that food is meant to be enjoyed is not going give them the ability to eat. Having access to the things they *do* find reliably edible will.
• Sometimes people have good reasons for needing certain things to be really, really easy. That doesn’t mean they’re bad people. It just means they need to find easy ways to do things.

If you don’t have this level of difficulty with food, and you can handle eating more complicated and difficult things regularly, that’s great. But I wrote this post for people who need food to be as easy as possible so that they are actually able to eat it.

*mic drop* 

I’m so happy to see this. That concern trolling person in the middle just DOES NOT GET IT and, honestly, they represent a lot of people who don’t get it.

There was a while last year where literally the only reason I ever had anything besides cold cereal and TV dinners in my apartment was that I kept guinea pigs and while I could survive on cheerios and frozen dinners, they needed fresh fruits and veggies. I could motivate myself to make carrot sticks or apple wedges if I was planning on giving them some, but I couldn’t psych myself up to prepare fruits and vegetables for my own sake.

I wish I’d thought of the disposable dishes thing, though, my kitchen got really unsanitary from all the dishes in the sink and that *really* didn’t help with my willingness to go make food.

luxuryofconviction said:

 This. So much this.

Like, hey, look, okay—I know how to cook. I enjoy cooking, actually—when I’m not depressed. Same thing with cleaning.

When I’m so goddamn depressed that the only thing getting me out of bed is a moral and emotional imperative to feed my cats, turning on music and dancing around is not going to suddenly make me feel better about cooking when the only thing I feel like doing is going back to sleep for another 12 hours.

There are days where I will recognize that I am hungry and haven’t eaten in two days and will go look in my pantry, and will just end up standing there for a few minutes before turning the light back off and going back upstairs because nothing is appealing. The only time I really eat on days like that is if someone else cooks for me, because they went to that effort I feel guilty otherwise—and even then, I don’t enjoy the food; objectively I can register that I’m detecting flavours that I normally find extremely enjoyable, but my brain isn’t picking up on it and I might as well just be eating sand or mud or sticks and bark.

When food itself is absolutely unappealing and you have zero appetite or concern for yourself to actually motivate you to prepare something, it’s hard enough to will yourself to pick up that box of crackers and nibble on a handful, okay. Sometimes the best thing I could do for myself in terms of depression self care was tell myself that I deserved to eat out, even if I technically couldn’t afford it, because sometimes that was the only way I was going to get something substantially nutritious into my system. 

Making people feel shitty about that kind of thing only adds to the problem, so fuck right off with your absolute lack of comprehension and excess of outdated emoticons.

dyzzyah said:

Speaking as a medical professional, I’d rather see my patients eat McDonalds and chips and ice cream sandwiches than not at all. In fact, it has come up in my practice. Someone who suffers depression cannot fight it on an empty stomach, and sometimes a person needs to have something, anything in their belly before they can make any strides towards greater wellness.

Yes, it would be swell if we could all have fresh cucumbers and nourishing meals. It would also be great if we were all well enough to fix our own meals, rich enough to afford fresh produce daily, energetic enough to not need assistance in cooking or cleaning, and happy enough to dance while we do, but that is not the reality that all of us live in.

So while mcnuggets and chips are not the ideal diet, I would still rather any of my patients eat something more substantial than their own misery than go without.

When food is too hard

Content note: These are two personal responses from people who have had severe difficulty eating. They are graphic. Some of y'all might want to skip this one.

sandwichocracy:

erikawithac:

I was so stunted in high school from these exact kinds of food ish — being repulsed by almost all food, being too exhausted to cook (I was so exhausted as a teenager, I spent so much of my time lying on the floor halfway from point A to point B), my first therapist was hired after I had a three-hour breakdown because I had finally decided I was going to have a PB&J for dinner and then there was no thawed bread — my friends’ parents would ask them if I was sick: like, really sick, like, cancer or immune disease sick, after I visited their house for the first time.

and I do mean literally stunted: like, when I went to college and had friends who helped me stay accountable for eating, and easy access to a prepared/microwavable diet in the dorms, I got two inches taller.

this original post is amazing and is a lot like the advice my doctors gave me at the time and have given me since then when I struggle with eating. yeah, now that my OCD food problems are more under control, I’m more likely to focus on advice like that watsonly gave, because that’s what’s important for my healing now. but that doesn’t make the original advice life-saving essentials for people who are still living that life.

ppl don’t realize that we aren’t just confused about what to eat, we’re exhausted and disgusted and overwhelmed to the point of crying because our brains can’t, can NOT sort out the process of pouring a bowl of cereal with milk and washing the bowl and spoon to eat it with. [do you have any idea how many minute steps there are in that process? someone with executive dysfunction can probably tell you: it’s a fucking thousand. a million. infinite steps that all have to be done in just the right order. it’s a miracle that a healthy, typical human brain can sort all that out unconsciously, but sometimes, some people can’t. and sorting it all out consciously is a fucking sisyphian effort.]

it’s a vicious cycle. depression and OCD exhausted me, kept me from sleeping, and made me extremely picky to the point of gagging on food I didn’t want to eat. not eating made me more exhausted, gave me anemia, fucked up my hormones so bad I stopped menstruating after two years of a regular-ish period, and made my depression and OCD worse. and around and around you go. just like in a panic attack, the important thing in the moment is to stop the cycle. then, once the cycle has stopped feeding on itself (pun intended?), then you worry about doing dishes and cooking with vegetables and shit.

anyway, god bless, hang in there, and if anyone ever needs more advice on how to not starve, I have ten million tips and tricks filed away for keeping myself fed reasonably well on a very limited budget when I’m being crazy, so maybe I can help

sandwichocracy said:

This. This so much I can’t even begin to explain. Eating healthy is different depending on your situation and life ok. When all you can do is eat one food item per day-two days YOU WANT something rich in calries and fat so your body takes longer to process it and you have more energy and you can just fucking survive.

I’m going to add my personal experience to help others understand.

TRIGGER WARNING FOR WEIGHT LOSS AND EATING DISORDEREDLY AND BODY FLUIDS:

When I went back to school my sophmore year I lost weight like crazy. I was so depressed that eating food seemed impossible, and most food I managed to eat tasted so horrible to me I could only stomach a little. There were times when I would force myself to eat more but most of it I would then later vomit up. I just couldn’t eat.

You know what I could eat tho? Large flavored lattes (coffe or tea), filled with cream and sugar and an iced pastry with it. Why could I eat that stuff but throw up steamed veggies? I HAVE NO IDEA. When you’re at this kind of level of not being able to eat it’s not about making sense, it’s about what your brain is telling your stomach you like and can eat most of. I ate that combo for a meal basically every day for a quarter and yes, it contains a lot of sugar and some fat and a lot of calories which thank the universe because it helped me survive.

Eating healthy and making regular meals? Out of the question. I WAS LUCKY IF I WENT TO AT LEAST HALF OF MY CLASSES FOR THE WEEK. Also as someone that has studied nutrition due to being an athlete for pretty much my whole life and on various varsity sports working out year-round, let me tell you about those “fast and easy snacks”:

A lot of them lack nutrional value and are only considered “healthy” because they are lower in calories. Which lol no: your body needs calories. You cannot survive off of cucumbers- THEY ARE BASICALLY WATER. All of the foods you listed- ALL OF THEM- need to be eaten with something else in order to be a balanced and nutritionally healthy meal, unless you are aiming for the 7 “little” meals a day eating plan. None of those are good for anyone, much less someone trying to avoid starvation.

At one point I had to go to the hospital because I was vomiting and had diarrhea AT THE SAME TIME FOR A WHOLE DAY. I had to drink Gatorade only for 2 days after just to get enough calories and nutrients into my body to start recovering. After that I ate microwaved food for the next 2 weeks. It was all I could eat. I couldn’t even make the 15 minute walk to get my drink and pastry.

At the end of the quarter I had lost 20+ lbs. Like I have intentionally blocked the number the scale read from my mind because it was so traumatizing. The last time I was around that weight was in 5th-6th grade. And I was all awkward limbs at that age since the rest of my body had not caught up yet. Basically I was skin and bones. 

I started gaining weight again during Winter Break thankfully but it started up again as soon as I went back to school and ater I took a medical withdrawal from school just 3 weeks after the second Quarter began I weighed around 15 lbs less than I do today, 7 months later. And the weight I am at now is perfectly healthy and natural and my preferred weight.

(END OF TRIGGER WARNINGS.)

So yeah, I added my story because I wanted to help illustrate the point that when you are having trouble eating and in danger of starving IT IS OKAY TO EAT PIZZA AND ICE CREAM AND COOKIES AND NUTELLA AND FAST FOOD AND MICROWAVE FOOD AND FUCKING LARGE ASS COFFEE DRINKS AND PASTRIES.

It is alright. It’s good. I don’t care if anyone else tells you differently- I am telling you as a fellow struggler and survivor that it is ok.

Also another good thing to have on hand in this kind of situation: Gatorade! And none of that low calorie stuff get the giant bottles full of sugar and electrolytes and food coloring. Theres a reason athletes are told to drink Gatorade and the like over water during practice or games. It’s because it has more nutritional value and more calories which means more energy, more fuel, and more life.

Staying alive is what matters- you just hang in there. 

realsocialskills said:

Thank you to both of you for sharing your experiences and thoughts on this. I am hoping this helps people to understand what’s at stake.

Everyone has the right to eat and avoid starvation. 

Seriously thank you. With a gesture of sincerity I’m not sure how to adequately convey in text. You’re both awesome.

(Source: realsocialskills)

When food is too hard

thepastryalchemist:

When you can cook, make more than you need and freeze the excess. Make sure its something super nutritious. Then, when you can’t cook, just unfreeze one of your pre-prepared meals. That way, you can get all the nutrition you need at a much lower cost than a take-away.

Realsocialskills said:

That is an effective strategy for some people, some of the time. Especially when you use paper plates to eat the food.

It’s not completely effective for most people who have this problem, but it can be useful.

Some thoughts on how to do this:

• Freeze the food in individual portion sizes, not big tupperware containers
• If you’ve frozen something in a large block, it’s not likely that you’ll be able to eat it when you’re low on spoons
• One way to do this is to use freezer bags to freeze the food. Put a meal-sized amount in each bag. Then press the air out.
• Make sure the bags are freezer bags and not storage bags - freezer bags preserve frozen food better.
• Keep paper plates and plastic silverware on hand

But also keep in mind that this doesn’t work for everyone, and that it’s ok if you need a different strategy, or if you sometimes need a different strategy. Some reasons it might not work:

• It only works if you are often able to cook. Not everyone *has* a time when they are able to cook.
• If you can’t reliably recognize homemade frozen food as edible, freezing food ahead of time won’t be reliably helpful
• Defrosting and heating food might still be too many steps sometimes. 
• It’s not always obvious how long to microwave things for
• And it can be really hard to figure out how to heat things evenly
• Freezing food changes the texture in ways that can be a problem for some people

If freezing food works for you, it’s a good strategy. If it doesn’t work for you, or doesn’t always work for you, that’s ok too. It just means you need other strategies.

(Source: realsocialskills, via thepastryalchemist-deactivated2)