it is weird that celiac stuff has become part of the ‘culture war’. because it’s literally just a medical thing…. I get super anemic unless I cut a certain protein out of my diet, because it bulldozes the villi in my intestines. but if I post about it, right-wingers send me gore images. I guess you can’t expect shitty people to be logical, but I’ve even heard lefty people make fun of gluten stuff, and it’s like why are you mad about this??? why are you pissed off that I’m eating bread that doesn’t taste as good so that I can have blood in my body? it’s so morally neutral.
I’m sorry, I know you weren’t actually looking for an explanation but I always have a rant about this locked and loaded.
As far as I can tell the reasons that this happens are:
The interpretation of disability accommodation as wokeness - a lot of the same people who are shitty about food limitations are also shitty about sign language interpreters and ramp requirements (also building regulations relating to the latter) because they view any accommodation as capitulation to a group they think should “suck it up and deal with it” (quietly exist without named or obvious accommodations). The conversations around peanut-free or milk-free classrooms to accommodate children with allergies are similarly unhinged and possibly more horrifying.
Conflating specialty diets as a result of proximity in the popular consciousness - you’re a lot more likely to see something described as “vegan + gluten free” or to see vegan/vegetarian/g-free options grouped on menus than you are to see keto/vegan/gfree options so the “lefty” animal-free diets get grouped with gluten-free (it’s also interesting that there are right-wing diets, and I wonder how many of these people remember when you used to be able to find “atkins-friendly” symbols on casual dining restaurant menus)
Gluten free diets became a fad fifteen years ago; tons of people read “Wheat Belly” and stopped eating wheat as a weight loss hack and when they went back to eating wheat because it’s actually pretty difficult to get around a major staple grain they didn’t experience any negative consequences; people saw this and basically think that it’s a trend, that people are faking medically necessary diets as part of a fad. When questioned about this they always go “but, I mean, it’s okay if you REALLY need to skip the wheat because you have a condition but most people are doing it because it’s popular” when g-free diets haven’t been a major trend for quite a while now. TO BE QUITE FAIR, I think that things like “Gluten Aware” cookies and beer and such, which contain a little gluten but not NO gluten contribute to this perception (these have annoyed me forever for two reasons: 1. They make people without celiac think that a little gluten is fine for people with celiac, which it is not; 2. fucking commit, companies. *I* want the cookies and beer and it’s deeply annoying that these business will go to the lengths to create products with minimal gluten but won’t actually make g-free foods - this is often because of the risk of cross contamination, they won’t claim to make g-free things because they won’t work with a dedicated g-free facility)
Anyway, in conclusion: it sucks, I’m sorry.
The fun flipside of this is that I’ve seen people who are more right wing become aggressively pro regulation and pro accommodation when they or their family members have to suddenly take on the individual burden of making up for a society that doesn’t include them by default.
US specific:
Is your ham made with vinegar? Does your ham have the generic word “spices” on the ingredient list? Does your ham include “smoke flavoring”? Does your ham include caramel coloring?
Because malt vinegar has gluten in it. “Spices” may include wheat products in a mix. Smoke flavoring may be made with barley flour. Caramel coloring may be made with wheat or barley syrup.
If the label says “gluten free” that means that the “spices,” caramel coloring, vinegar, and smoke flavor are certified to contain 20ppm or less of gluten.
If the ham is cured in any way, it may include gluten. If the ham was marinated, it probably includes gluten. If the ham was prepared in a facility that processes wheat in any way, it might be cross contaminated with gluten.
There’s a company out there called “Gluten Free Water” that makes water in plastic bottles, poking fun at the idea that too many things have a gluten free label. I fucking hate that company. Because that company is functionally saying “lol, people are so sensitive and over the top about this, let’s be a little silly and laugh about how crazy people can be with their 'gluten free’ nonsense.”
Did you know that there are sustainable food containers and straws that contain wheat? And that you don’t have to label them? There are definitely people with celiac who have been sickened by biodegradable plastic straws in their “obviously water is gluten free there’s no risk here” water.
“It’s over-labeled so it looks trendy” just means you don’t know how foods are made or what foods contain gluten. Gluten is ridiculously common in foods in general, and also in packaged meats.
Your ham has to say gluten free because it distinguishes it from the hams that do contain gluten, which is a fucking lot of them. And you’re annoyed that your ham has to say gluten free and I’m annoyed that I’m standing in the grocery store calling a ham company to figure out where they source their caramel coloring so I can figure out if the damned ham is safe to eat.
“lol, oats don’t have wheat in them, are people so stupid that they have to be told what is and isn’t wheat? why does this oatmeal have a gluten free label?” Cross contamination; gluten free oats are not grown near wheat and are not processed in facilities that process wheat.
“lol, rice doesn’t have wheat in it, why is this rice labeled gluten free, all rice is gluten free” Cross contamination; the rice isn’t processed on equipment that processes wheat.
“lol why does this turkey breast say gluten free, it’s just fucking turkey” read the ingredients on your “just” turkey, lots of packaged meat is packed in broth, some of which contains modified food starch, which may contain wheat.
“lol why are these strawberries labeled gluten free? they’re fucking strawberries” WAX, BUDDY. SOME FRUITS ARE COATED IN PRESERVATIVE WAX FILMS BY THE MANUFACTURER AND SOME OF THOSE FUCKING FILMS CONTAIN GLUTEN.
I think that part of the reason that people are so irritated by g-free labels is because it exposes them to just how vast and alienating their food systems are.
“Ham should just be meat from a pig, maybe with sugar and salt; what on earth is happening that there might be wheat in that process? Nothing in that process should involve wheat.” And then you might have to think about it for a second, might have to wonder what “sugar” and “salt” mean when someone is producing a million hams to be delivered thousands of miles away. It’s not just sugar and salt; it’s preservatives and nitrates and batch cooking and getting corn syrup instead of sugar and getting smoke flavoring instead of smoking the ham and turning your “whole food” into all the ingredients that make up the ingredients that make up the ingredients.
A “gluten free” label says “you can eat this” to somebody with celiac disease, who has already pounded their skull against the shittiness of the medical system and the food system.
But to someone who doesn’t have to worry that their food is going to disable them, a “gluten free” sticker on ham takes a known quantity and turns their sandwich into a hyperobject that contains animal agriculture and industrial additive production and shipping pollution and the ongoing assault on regulation.
If it doesn’t have the label, you can just eat your lunch. If it does have the label, you are haunted by the specter of RFK junior imploding the FDA.
Turns out that everyone in the US with celiac is already constantly haunted by the possible implosion of the FDA because food regulation is an up-close and personal part of our daily lives that most people would rather not think about.
people who write fics. how do you feel about comments on super old ones you wrote like 2+ years ago
Bringing this out of the tags:
A fic written 2 years ago is NOT OLD. Two years is nothing. Two years ago was yesterday.
Also I don’t care if a fic is 10 years old. Leave those comments!! Even if you think the author isn’t active, or moved on from the fandom, I promise you it will make them smile.
I commented on a fic that was 11 years old, and there was already a response by the time I got up the next morning. Comment on the fics, please, comment on them, I promise it’ll make the author’s day either way
I got a comment on a fic of mine this week that just read “TWO THOUSAND AND NINE?”
I replied to it within seconds, of course. someone commented on my fic
(transcript: Every time someone comments on my old fic, i feel like I’m an old actor getting paid residuals. Appreciate you, old-fic-commenters. Key source of emotional income, tbh.)
kpop idols in the 60s and 70s (2000s and early 2010s): he was a chimney sweeper and a waiter before becoming a busker to pay for dancing lessons and was discovered by an agent in itaewon where he had a bar fight
kpop idols today: his dad is an investment banker and his mom’s family owns the largest media company in korea. he was discovered on instagram and attended zero singing lessons
Every time I see another ibuprofen post on this site I’m like STOP
STOP
Stop.
Take that after a meal. Take it with a big glass of water. Don’t take it on an empty stomach EVER. Don’t take it with alcohol. You will destroy your stomach. You will end up with an ulcer. You will vomit blood. I’m not exaggerating.
Love, an adult person over 35 who can’t take NSAIDs anymore
That goes for Alleve (Naproxen Sodium) too! Aleve is worse on your stomach than Ibuprofen is.
Acetaminophen, not a NSAID, even more so that NSAIDS, should not be taken when drinking. No seriously, it causes liver and stomach damage (and it’s particularly hard on the liver to start with).
Painkillers are great! But the common ones are still nasty on your stomach and liver and eventually they won’t be an option for you. If you take them with care, you can extend how long you can keep using them.
The sources linked are great but the tone of this post is such that it really only serves to make people anxious rather than to inform. The least you could do is mention what daily dose is safe (1200 milligrams per day for ibuprofen, preferably not for extended periods) and how often you would have to take ibuprofen on an empty stomach for it to make you start vomiting blood (very, very often).
The risk of destroying your stomach with an NSAID if you use it a few days in a month, and no more than the recommended dosage, is low. Usually, well before you would start vomiting blood, you’d get stomach pains and acid reflux. These can be warning signs that your stomach is sensitive to NSAIDs.
Acetaminophen is one of the greatest drugs we have. We have no painkiller with less side effects than acetaminophen has. It’s ridiculously safe compared to other painkillers, even to other drugs. It’s so safe that a lot of the reported side effects and deaths are due to other active ingredients (think children taking acetaminophen syrups that also contain propylene glycol, which is a lot more toxic).
It won’t destroy your stomach or liver if you know how much to take, and is actually the first choice painkiller in many countries. It is way less harsh on your stomach lining than NSAIDs are, and liver damage is rare and usually only occurs at 150mg/kg a day (so, for someone weiging approx. 145 pounds, that would be around 10.5 grams, when the recommended maximum daily intake is 4 grams). Of course if you take your paracetamol with alcohol, you can damage your liver with less, but you shouldn’t (routinely) combine any (pain) medication with alcohol, frankly. Additionally, you should always be cautious if you have had, or are suffering from liver disease.
Recommended maximum dosages are:
Acetaminophen: no more than 3000-4000mg per day
Ibuprofen: no more than 1200-1600mg per day
Naproxen: no more than 500-750mg per day
When taking painkillers, make sure the daily dose is equally spaced over the day. If you get stomach complaints after taking NSAIDs, consider taking them with PPIs to protect your stomach lining (such as omeprazole, esomeprazole, pantoprazole). You can take the listed PPIs once or twice daily, up to 80mg per day. Depending on the country you live in they could be available over the counter or on prescription.
It’s important to realise that if you regularly need painkillers, let’s say for more than 10 days each month, or more than 5 days at a time, that’s worth contacting your doctor about.
If you use acetaminophen and NSAIDs incidentally (with or without PPIs), then they’re absolutely safe (if you didn’t already have a gastric ulcer, liver problems, you don’t take them with (large) amounts of alcohol, or other medication that damages your stomach lining). But if you need them (near) daily, then you should seek medical advice, to make sure you don’t destroy your stomach and liver, definitely, but also to figure out if there’s an underlying cause.
It’s not recommended to use acetaminophen or ibuprofen daily, but I think it’s important to realise that there are many people in the world that are prescribed acetaminophen or NSAIDs for (near) daily use, and that many of these people use them for years on end, and they don’t all succumb to liver failure or vomiting up their own blood.
The most important thing is being informed. Not scared. Informed.
“The Pyramid Guy from the opening credits literally has no significance to the show and never will. He’s just a generic image made to look mythological or spooky like most things in the intro.”
Hey, all! My friend Soumi, an Indian international student in South Korea, recently fell victim to a scam that drained her of 37k USD of life savings. In Soumi’s own words:
“I trusted the wrong person at a time when I was trying to send the money home to my dependent, elderly parents and was trying to move out of my one room apartment, where the ceiling is leaking and affecting my health.
Now I’m trying to survive for the sake of myself and my elderly parents–my father 79, my mother 72, both retired. We don’t have a financial safety net. My mother has severe degenerative joint disease with spinal spondylitis and is preparing for a knee transplant (~6 lakh INR or USD 7,000). If anything were to happen to them—or even to me—I don’t even have money to fly home to look after my parents. I don’t even have enough to afford food, and because I haven’t been able to pay for my medication, I’ve been struggling with insomnia, anxiety, and depression. Without my antidepressants and anti-anxiety meds, I haven’t been able to sleep at all. My health issues including GERD are worsening, but I’ve had to skip treatment.”
If you live in South Korea and are able to help her pursue justice, please reach out to her directly! As a foreigner in SK, she has faced so many barriers, and help from SK citizens would be invaluable.
why are cyberpunk tabletop things so obsessed with decency and personhood being tied to how many surgeries you haven’t had
“if you have a prosthetic it takes out a part of your soul” like thanks shadowrun
in early cyberpunk, the point was more along the lines of “if we integrate technology into our bodies we risk becoming dependent upon the people and institutions who control that technology, who would then use that to enrich themselves at our expense”
unfortunately that was too anti-corporate for American mainstream culture so as cyberpunk moved out of its niche it became “uhhh it eats your soul I guess”
i do think we need to start treating spraying harmless “weeds” in your lawn as utterly absurd princess and the pea level of obsession with needing the world to revolve around your every whim, like.
Okay a flower grew out of the ground outside and you can’t cope with it. Do you need to sleep on thirty feather beds as well
in my meeting with one of the people who is over grounds on my college campus i was told that when the college stopped spraying weeds, they would actually get calls from people. complaining about the dandelions
and I was sitting here like okay this is why I shouldn’t be in a public facing job because i would be the rudest motherfucker imaginable about that.
what, are you some kind of spoiled child monarch who drinks out of a golden sippy cup? Do you have a retinue of servants at home to dispose of anything and everything that you might arbitrarily dislike? have you considered leading a life where you might encounter something that could be described as a real problem? do you call the weatherman to complain when it rains?
I honestly can’t even imagine what must happen inside the kind of person that would do that. “Hello I have an urgent problem, you see, I visited your campus recently and there was a flower.” “yes?” “I didn’t like the flower.” “Uh huh…”
What a sad way to live, honestly, that the sight of a little flower could ruin your day so much you have to call someone to complain.
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