That sounds amazing op! I’ve gone all out doing all the cooking myself in the past including last year and found that sometimes I’m so over tired I’ve lost my appetite and there’s way too much food that it’s overwhelming so this year we decided on a communal bring a dish style meal. I did a rough menu and people chose what course they wanted to do. I’ve made a miso, orange, mustard and honey glazed ham and some cranberry, orange and port sauce. The other half is doing roasties and sprouts with chestnuts we foraged in the autumn. Mum and partner are doing starters and puddings and aunt is bringing a Riverford organic chicken and pigs in blankets.

We’re having our family meal today and then tomorrow is a total chill out with a friend coming round for leftovers, nibbles, boozing with log burner and TV. Should be a good one!

Slower and lower is the key to soft yet lightly caramelised. About 170 for 45 mins to an HR but depends on size and oven. Cut in half lengthways. Liberal amount of rapeseed or olive oil, salt and a teaspoon of fennel seeds really compliments the taste. If you want honey roasted you mix a tablespoon of honey with a tablespoon of cider vinegar and pour that on nearer the end maybe 20 mins and then keep an eye until they have gone sticky and golden. I do a lot of roast carrots as we always get too many in the veg box and it’s a great way to use lot’s. Oh also don’t crowd them in the roasting tray. A single layer or they will sweat.

I read the book while on holiday in the summer in prep for part 2. I watched p1 without having read the book and felt it needed better context

Same although not quite finished reading it. Must get on with it before March 1st!

Cat, yes. Dog? No chance

Depends on dog breed. Lab no worries, Collie…..

@pondo

I don’t think I love any game more than Ghost Of Tsushima.

Oh yeah! That was last winter for me. Another beautifully stunning game and online with friends was the best online gaming experience I’ve had.

Currently playing and addicted to assassin’s creed odyssey. Such a stunning and massive environment to get lost in. Interesting and historical story line, great music. Just epic. Play as Kassandra as she is awesome. 

Ebike? It has certainly got me wanting to ride again. Opens up lot’s of new routes for me which helps as I do struggle with motivation of riding the same few routes. It also helps with the thought of ‘oh can’t be bothered’ because of a certain nasty climb. I am easing myself back into it instead of the nasty shock that comes with getting back out after losing fitness. 

Throwing a yogurt in the bin that is one day out of date is criminal. It literally keeps for weeks longer than the date… but I have to say for the small saving you’re looking at I think storing all that little dogs food in a tub for a whole year isn’t the best idea. It doesn’t matter if it’s air tight because air will get in every time you open it so it will become stale. Not likely to be harmful but inferior and may get rejected thereby costing you more.

Played them from the very start and I liked 5 the most. Loved flying the helicopter. I never got into online with them or Red dead 2 (which I got bored of before finishing) but have since got into gaming with friends online when GOT came out and the gang needs a new game to get us all together online again so this is exciting and will definitely inspire an upgrade to ps5. 

I totally lost my sense of smell and therefore most taste apart from salt, sweet and bitter when I had COVID. It was awful and I realised how much my life revolved around food and smelling things at work. I was really worried as had read about people losing it long term so I did some research and found that smell training was used to help get it back. I started this immediately and after about a week it came back. Get a thing that has a strong smell that is very distinctive that you know the smell of well such as coffee granules or an orange (scratch the skin) then smell deeply and think of the smell as a memory of the smell. Repeat 3 times in a row and repeat daily. 

With Covid the loss of smell was not because of having a blocked nose but the virus actually destroyed the cells in the nose that send the smell signals to the brain and the smell training could help stimulate the cells to regrow. That’s the theory as I remember it. 

Whoever invented table etiquette: “Hey let’s make people use the fork with their weaker uncoordinated hand, it’ll be a laugh!”

This. I’m right handed but have always used fork in right hand as it just makes more sense to me. Particularly these days when a lot of the meals I make are only using a fork such as pasta, curry, stir-fry etc served in a bowl.

We have a small bathroom without opening windows and a blauberg calm 100. Only 2 people having shortish showers though. We squeegee showers area after each shower and leave door closed and fan on for about 10 mins. That clears almost all moisture and then we open the bathroom door and leave it open but we have a piv installed in the house too so that helps push out moist air. 

Good. Maybe Helen can recover properly and perhaps see she was a bit hasty with the lovely Lee? 

That’s a rat. Hamsters don’t have a long tail and it’s the wrong colour.

Could be progesterone sensitivity? I feel pretty awful sometimes during the progesterone phase of hrt. Peri so still have hormones going on in the background too. Just wish they would stop as I’ve always had horrendous periods and then a few years ago the menopause symptoms started. My riding has gone downhill excuse the pun but I’m trying not to beat myself up and am enjoying other interests more now such as foraging and gardening. 

I’ve just got my 1st ebike so I’m hoping that will help me ease back into riding a bit more as most of my bike friends are extremely fit and men so doesn’t help when I’m struggling.

Insects, snails definitely not and not keen on licorice or marzipan but could at a push.

@Blazin-saddles what is the best brand of sealant please. I need to redo a bath/shower. Any tips for removing old sealant? 

Well minimum wage going up to 11.44 and reducing the age of that to 21 so looks like the Tories have decided it’s time to get the young voting 😱

Make a fabada type dish. Spanish slow cooked bean and pork stew. Very simple onion, garlic, smoked paprika beans and pork 😋

Just get a decent squeegee. I bought a metal one with replaceable rubber strip from an online window cleaning supply company and it is great for finishing the windows streak free after cleaning. We also use it daily as a shower scraper as we’re in a hard water area. 

This is sad to read. Probably related in some part to the topic under discussion. 

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-67443189.amp

More illness among young affecting work ability.

“Working young people have experienced a particularly sharp rise – and are now as likely to report ill-health affecting their work as a middle-aged person a decade ago.”

Waitrose English breakfast or Assam though I am partial to twinnings extra strong breakfast teabags first thing in the morning 

Poopscoop respect. You nailed festivaling on your first go and hula hoops is my answer to this question. The edible kind

I buy in bulk online from a local butcher and stock the freezer. All free range pork in a variety of flavours. oh and lamb and apricot are the bomb. Garlic wood butchery. For anyone local to East Sussex.

I do think state intervention is required at this point but I have zero faith in this government to do anything that actually works as intended. The sugar tax seemed like an ok idea but imo has totally failed and actually may be causing equal or more harm than if it never existed, partly because on it’s own a sugary drink tax doesn’t work when it doesn’t apply to junk food at the same time and because the rules have been bypassed by food companies by whacking artificial sweeteners in everything to keep the junk drinks cheap so people buy just as much processed rubbish as before and haven’t had to adjust their palettes to less sweet products. That’s without the potential harm caused by the artificial sweeteners to the bodies blood sugar regulation process, gut microbiome etc.

We need healthy food promotion, ban on junk food advertising, subsidise fresh fruit and vegetables and tax upfs. Won’t happen under a Tory government and not sure about Labour but can only hope.

Crosshair makes a very good point actually. There’s really no “one size” fits all and a person can be really healthy despite being slightly overweight or skinny and unhealthy but we know that and the problem is that most people in the UK aren’t getting enough exercise.

Water biscuits are best because they don’t overpower the cheese but provide a lovely contrast in texture/ a vessel for the cheese and other items such as quince jelly or chutney if the mood takes. Some cheeses are best on their own though.. thinking of compte

2

MSP
Full Member
If you are brought up by busy working parents (as I was with 4 kids and both parents working) then the convenience of ultra processed food is an easy choice and often marketed as healthy. The lifelong impacts that has in hormone levels and brain chemistry is hard to undo, a lot of people are addicted before they even get to make their own decisions.

At a societal level it is very hard to educate and enable people to eat a healthy diet when there are so many obstacles and marketing telling society lies. It really needs to be tackled at a policy level to give people a fighting chance, we have seen in just the past few years the government bottling the food labelling issue, and even those proposals were behind the latest nutritional research findings.

The food manufactures are powerful lobbies, and maybe it is time to start treating them like the tobacco industry in the impact they are having.

This is key imo and yes things are very different for todays families than when TJ was a kid. Advertising and global food companies are so much much bigger these days. The amount of takeaways and aps like just eat etc!. Yes there’s choice but if you grow up knowing no better and are already hooked it’s not going to go well. Our government is strongly resisting making the policy changes that are needed and have ignored the recommendations from the very people they appointed to advise them on this.

convert
Full Member
The obvious issue with diets made of lots of high fat foods is that fatty foods are calorie dense – i.e. 9 calories for every 1 gram of fat consumed instead of the 4 calories for a gram of protein or carbs

This is not a useful way to think and the calorie is really an outdated method of determining how a food is going to effect you. A calorie worth of fat or protein is now believed to effect your hunger level/satiety very differently than a calorie worth of sugar or carbs and the nutrients in the food will effect things too. So a higher fat or protein diet could potentially be a better way for someone to get themselves healthier by losing weight but it is very individual so what works for one might not work for another.

I would really recommend everyone to listen to this recent look at calories because it really could help in understanding how different foods could effect you despite having the same calorie count.

https://zoe.com/learn/podcast-calorie-deception-food-labels

My dad and American step mum spent 3 to 5 months in America every winter for the last 5 years or so. They would take their dog and it was a bit of pain to be honest. Needed to buy a special crate, needed a big car to fit the crate in and it was expensive and he found it stressful. They also got stranded in America during the pandemic as no animals were allowed to be moved at that time. He has passed away now and they have got a new rescue who has separation anxiety and they aren’t going to put him through it. What would you do with the dog if it turned out not to travel well as you wouldn’t know until it was too late?

thisisnotaspoon
Free Member
I’m not sure creating yet another bogeyman like “ultra processes foods” really helps in the long run.

Firstly, no one can actually say what that even means, or if they do it’s nothing to do with processing, usuall it ends up being a mix of salt, sugar and prejudices

What even is “processing”. Quorn (or other meat free mince) is processed from either soybeans or mycelium into something completely unrecognisable. Yet you’d have to really throw the blinkers on to say it’s in any way unhealthy.

Then you get to things like pasta sauce in a jar. Which people will say is full of sugar; because it is. Tomatoes are full of sugar, and then dolmio add a little bit more sugar and a bit of citric acid so that each batch has the same sugar/acidity. It’s pretty much how you’d make it at home only their tomatoes come from anywhere between Teesside and Tunisia so need a bit of balancing through the year.

Saying things like “avoid ultra processed foods” is completely missleading however it’s defined. Because you’re either throwing the baby out with the bathwater on a lot of healthy options, or judging that my homade ice cream is healthier than Walls (and trust me, it really bloody isn’t, but it is delicious).

Actually you can define ultraprocessed foods. The definition was created by scientists in Brasil as there is a big health problem over there surrounding the issue.

https://regulatory.mxns.com/en/ultra-processed-foods-nova-classification#:~:text=Group%204%20%2D%20Ultra%2Dprocessed%20foods,%2C%20modified%20starches%2C%20etc.)

You point about ice-cream shows you’ve missed the point about ultraprocessed foods. You say your homemade ice-cream isn’t ‘healthier’ than walls. I would dispute that because the whole point about upfs is not that they have more calories/fat or sugar than homemade it’s that the extra ingredients like emulsifiers and milk powders etc could be damaging your health such as the gut microbiome (which can effect appetite regulation) and also that they have been manufactured in a very clever way to make you over eat. Personally I think If I made ice-cream at home using organic cream and sugar I’m pretty sure it would be healthier than the supermarkets stuff and I’d probably eat less of it because id seen how much cream and sugar went into it and the effort required to make it would mean I’d want to make it last longer.

I’ve begun to pay attention to what is in my food and reduce ultraprocessed foods and it’s only observational but I am feeling much less hungry. I’m really interested in the gut microbiome so have added more fermented foods and still have some convenience foods but look for things without loads of strange ingredients so things like roasted salted cashews or plain tortilla corn chips. Desserts I stick with fruit and cream or dark chocolate so not exactly denying myself high calorie foods.

This podcast about calories is pretty eye opening and could help to make long lasting tweaks to your eating habits. The whole calorie thing is massively out dated and pretty unhelpful for those struggling with dieting and weight loss.

https://zoe.com/learn/podcast-calorie-deception-food-labels

There are several podcasts about upfs on there too which I would recommend. All science based with studies carried out to back up the claims.

I buy bags of peanuts, sunflower hearts and mealworms and make a mix and also put out some peanuts in a hanging flower pot for the squirrel but he still goes to the bird feeder. Can anyone recommend a decent squirrel/pigeon proof feeder?

https://zoe.com/learn/podcast-fats-and-oils

This Zoe podcast about fats has re educated me on what’s best to use.

Key points for me: As someone said above in the home setting unless you are reusing oil over and over again in a deep fat fryer you don’t have to worry about creating dangerous compounds so can use ev olive for roasting and frying you just lose some of the good stuff by heating.

Besides that I also learned that there’s no point particularly in using standard olive oil, apart from cost, unless it’s ev as it’s been more highly processed and so doesn’t have the good stuff in it anymore. They recommend sunflower oil if you want a flavourless oil. Perhaps I will switch to sunflower from rapeseed if it’s less likely to be sprayed with glyphosate.

OSR is sprayed with glyphosate to make harvesting easier. I have no desire to eat glyphosate because: it damages the gut microbiota; it’s a probable carcinogen; it’s highly likely there’s further undocumented health effects; I don’t support the excessive use of herbicides and the entailing environmental pollution.

I use cold pressed osr for cooking as thought it was better for roasting/frying and ev olive oil for dressing and pasta. I hadn’t realised that glyphosate was used on osr as a desiccant as it can be with wheat. Did a bit of googling after reading that post froms @jamz and it seems it’s used on quite a few grains/seeds in the UK. Farmers weekly came up with articles about using diquat to desicate linseed despite being banned for use in most circumstances.

So go organic with the olive oil and risk the bad fats created by high temps or get a higher smoke point oil but get slowly poisoned by herbicides 🤣 I think unless you’re eating everything organic (fruit, veg, pasta, grains, bread, rice, meat, diary etc) then might as well stick with the non organic osr…

1.5 to 3 hrs in the oven about 180ish depending on size and impatience levels. The longer the better for nice thick crunchy skin. Have tried oiling and salting but I think the end result is more down to the variety and quality (age?) of the potato than fiddling with that. Microwave potatoes can get in the sea.

Whilst on our joint midlife gap year, living in a motorhome during the pandemic, my partner and I met a guy in Southern Spain who proudly proclaimed he was going through a midlife awakening. He’d split from his wife and 2 teenage daughters and moved into a motorhome to go traveling with a new woman (not particularly young though). Seemed very happy and positive really.

Plus one for Foundation. Just finished it and although it’s a little out there in it’s story line it’s the best properly epic sci fi I’ve seen since The expanse.

22 degrees in Brighton yesterday. We had dinner outside though we did light the chimenea after dark for a few hours to keep the dew off.

Well it’s looks like it may be a total disaster. Went out to brush down the wall for painting and it seems really loose. Brushing doesn’t seem to work it just keeps shedding sand. I’m guessing that you shouldn’t be able to rub the surface away with just finger pressure?!

Oh and to top things off I caught him scrubbing the porch door glass with a metal pot scourer when he was cleaning up yesterday! Looks like that was after he’d done the same to my bedroom window as I just gave it a proper wash and there are fine scratches across it.

Ugh that sounds like undoing a lot of what’s been done already. I guess we have made the mistake of going with a sole trader who is a plasterer and not a general builder. I just wish he’d said what he can do rather than hoping for the best. Last time we went with a building company for our bathroom they were terrible at tiling so it put us off paying a premium for a building company. We had a quote for 12k for this render job from a bells and whistles company and this guy was a third the price.