Cooking. Yikes!
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Do you have to do it yourself?
How do you manage?
If someone cooks for you, why not give them a shout out here. We can all cheer them on.
(I've tagged this 'short answer' but go long if you need to!)
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Cooking is hard for more reasons than one.
If I make food when I'm not hungry, it'll go to waste.
If I wait until I feel hungry to make food, by the time I've finished making it I'm so exhausted and weak from low blood sugar that I'm nauseous and again, it'll go to waste.
If I'm lucky enough to not have either of those problems, chances are I'll use up more energy cooking the food than I'll get from eating it, and the whole situation will end in PEM (and gastroparesis, since I can't digest food if I'm too worn out).So I rarely cook. I get meals delivered and freeze them, and sometimes order from ubereats if I need something very specific.
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@river It is so hard. And it isn't just the cooking, it is the shopping, packing things away, preparing and cleaning up after!
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One thing that helped me was that, with ME/CFS, recipe books became my best bedtime reading (less concentration). I was also lucky that I loved cooking before I got sick.
I kept my eye out for one pot meals with easy steps, and especially being able to rest between steps, and that were healthy and good to store portions in the fridge and freezer.
With ME/CFS I really need to have the steps written out carefully and to use timers and really use all my concentration... nothing worse than getting started and then letting things burn, or missing out a vital step. All for nothing and a big mess to clear up!
But doing it successfully enough times means I have my fridge and freezer stocked with good meals.
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@Dot thanks for this topic.
If I try to cook when I am tired I often end up giving myself food poisoning which leads to other problems. Mostly I eat cold meat and veggies, nothing fancy. The meat is cooked at a previous time and kept in the freezer. I do my best.
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I am on both a low FODMAP and low histamine diet.. impossible.
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@iris Oh yes, avoiding food poisoning has to be rule number one. So hard to do when we are exhausted. Safety first.
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@Looch Good grief, that is impossible. Are you working with a dietician through the fodmaps? I know the strict 'no fodmaps' should only last for 6 weeks. If you can work out which of them effect you, hopefully that will make it all easier.
Isn't it hard to be doing this stuff right when you need food and eating to be easy. All power to you.
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@Dot Been low FODMAP for 4 years, last 5 months low histamine as well. Yes, I see a dietician monthly. Cooking and food can be very stressful but the less “load” of any kind the better my IBS. It’s hard work, for my poor husband too
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@Looch Ooh that is so hard. I am glad you have a dietician helping you keep nutrition up when so much is against you. Big cheers to you and your husband managing to feed you in spite of the odds.
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@Looch me association website today has mention of mast cell activation and release of histamine. Treatment is drug therapy and low histamine diet. Maybe this is not new to you, hope it's useful information
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@iris Thank you, will check it out.
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@Dot Yikes alright ... still looking for what to eat, how to eat, and how to get it on the plate. I do have help on hand, but we are all struggling in the kitchen. We haven't yet found the right recipe to make it all work properly. Sometimes we get the weeks meals right but this soon fades leaving us dumbfounded on what to have for dinner. We don't have ubereats or any eats available where we are. The whole process is a cycle of hit and miss, as it is still very much reliant on my input. If I don't have the energy or are in PEM, then what comes out of the kitchen, is a lucky dip. In the meantime, I feel like my body is starving and I'm a floppy piece of broccoli. I'm now working with a dietician to investigate my cellular health, to get my nutrition right and hopefully a better quality of life. I eat because I have to, but I haven't enjoyed food for a long time. I feel like I'm useless in the kitchen and an accident waiting to happen. Cooking Yikes ..... sooooo true Whipping up a storm, takes on a whole new meaning for ME.
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@iris Im having trouble finding the article you referred to, could you post the link?
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@Looch I don't know how to do a link. It wasn't a whole article, it was just a mention within an article on George monbiot. I googled mast cell activation and it said the treatment was mast cell agonist medication and listed examples. Your doctor would know. You could also Google mast cell activation chronic fatigue syndrome
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@Looch @iris was it this? https://meassociation.org.uk/2021/04/george-monbiot-on-long-covid-chronic-fatigue-syndrome-misogyny/
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@Dot thank you for doing that. The reference is towards the very end.
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@crashdummy So much sympathy. Getting good meals (for ourselves and our family) is so important but so hard. How I wish we all had access to delicious, freshly made meals that suited our tastes and our needs.
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@iris Good
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