https://thebibliosphere.tumblr.com/post/800882836382089216

caveate:

thebibliosphere:

I’d been saving up for one of those portable ninja air fryers for a while, thinking it might help me have better access to safe food when we have to travel/spend time with family over the holidays. (The risk of cross contamination when sharing oven spaces/stovetops is just too high when you have an anaphylactic reaction to gluten so I just often… don’t get to eat for several hours.)

The fact that our oven is broken right now is just serendipitous.

Anyway. This might be the best $150 I’ve ever spent. That chicken was done before I had time to finish doing the dishes to eat it off of.

And the faster cook time means it’s lower in histamine and the texture is like, actually good??? Like what???? I can bring fresh food to my MIL’s, keep it separate from everyone else in the kitchen and just commandeer a wall socket for 20 minutes and have a whole ass meal with protein and vegetables???? I can eat safely at other people’s houses again???!?

I am having too many emotions for an air fryer but like… I never get to eat with other people anymore. I honestly might be about to cry.

“faster cook time means it’s lower in histamine”

Wait.

The FUCK?

Wait, is that why slow cooked meats always make me react and burgers or 20 min oven baked chicken breast doesn’t?

Holy fucking shit. This article focuses on South Korean foods, but it shows what happens with some foods.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5705351/
Currently deep in the weeds looking for more science articles about this. This could be a massive diet changer for me, for the better!

Anything that involves slow cooking or fermentation can raise histamine levels enough to be a problem for people with histamine issues. It’s why so many “healthy” foods seem to cause problems for us and why some people need to be a whole lot less shitty about some people saying “fast food” is better for them. (tbh they need to be less shitty about what people choose to put in their bodies full stop.)

Bone broth, for example, makes me extremely ill. As does yoghurt and a bunch of other stuff.

Also, be mindful of leftovers. Freeze any leftovers within 2 hours of cooking to prevent further histamine build-up. The longer cooked foods (especially meat) sit in the refrigerator, the more histamine develops.

Beef is also inherently higher in histamine than other meats, such as lamb or poultry, because it’s aged for a minimum of 2 weeks to develop flavor.

And just to clarify again, before anyone rolls their eyes at any of this: histamine is not bad. It is, in fact, incredibly beneficial and necessary for immune system regulation, wound healing, and, yeah, developing the flavor of many nutritionally dense and flavorful foods.

This is also why MSG affects some people poorly. It’s not unhealthy, it’s just a histamine liberator, and some people can struggle with that–but those same people will also generally struggle with aged cheeses and tomatoes, and other foods where MSG naturally occurs.

It’s just us folks with some form of mast cell dysfunction/histamine processing issues who need to be mindful of it. It’s us. Not the foods.

https://thebibliosphere.tumblr.com/post/800882836382089216

https://thebibliosphere.tumblr.com/post/800874395577008128

rainycat2:

thebibliosphere:

ostensible-adult:

thebibliosphere:

bibs-blocksberg:

thebibliosphere:

It’s way more expensive than a tank (and probably more expensive to run), but we could get a tankless electric water heater that runs on 120 voltage. And right now I’m eyeing it just to reduce the gas use in our house and also reduce the number of things in our basement that have the potential to leak water.

Hm. I need to google some things. (Or if anyone has any input, I’d welcome that too.)

Can you get several small water heaters, to install where needed? At my office we have small ones directly under the sink, like this:

Afaik they plug into a regular socket, might that be easier on your installations?

I’d never seen those before. That’s interesting. I don’t think it would work for our current bathroom (which we just renovated in 2022) but I’m going to keep that in mind for when we are forced to redo the downstairs bathroom.

I’d discourage replacing your gas heater with a 120V tankless electric one. Unless you take cold showers, you’re going to need a bare minimum of 10kW, and even that is only enough for somewhere around 90F showers. This requires new electrical work, and you may as well use a 240V tankless heater at that point.

If you can swing the purchase price, I’d recommend a heat-pump water heater. (Here are some from Home Depot) Some of them can be plugged into an ordinary outlet. They do have the disadvantage of cooling whatever area you place them in, but assuming you’re using gas or a heat pump for heating, you should still be saving energy (and thus money) over a tankless or traditional electric water heater.

The idea of going electric instead of gas is because we keep having multiple gas leaks in this house despite regular maintenance and they’re quoting us 12k to redo all the lines. I’m stuck with the gas furnace, but I’d happily yeet the gas water heater if it would mean having one less gas appliance in a house that keeps trying to combust.

If you end up going electric, are you considering adding solar panels as well? (If it’s an option— they’re rather pricey but my sister had some installed and she said it paid for itself after a year, so…)

We just plain do not have the money for that kind of thing.

Like in an ideal world, sure. But we’re having to take out a massive loan with an atrocious APR to cover this work. Hell, we still haven’t paid off the furnace from this year when that sucker started leaking gas and we had to replace it asap with a new gas one because the electric heat pump one would have required us to take a loan out that was the same length of time as our remaining mortgage.

And while Tumblr very kindly helped me reach the down payment amount to make the loan payments manageable, we have no money for any of this.

It’s all just debt.

https://thebibliosphere.tumblr.com/post/800874395577008128

https://thebibliosphere.tumblr.com/post/800873738572890112

ostensible-adult:

thebibliosphere:

bibs-blocksberg:

thebibliosphere:

It’s way more expensive than a tank (and probably more expensive to run), but we could get a tankless electric water heater that runs on 120 voltage. And right now I’m eyeing it just to reduce the gas use in our house and also reduce the number of things in our basement that have the potential to leak water.

Hm. I need to google some things. (Or if anyone has any input, I’d welcome that too.)

Can you get several small water heaters, to install where needed? At my office we have small ones directly under the sink, like this:

Afaik they plug into a regular socket, might that be easier on your installations?

I’d never seen those before. That’s interesting. I don’t think it would work for our current bathroom (which we just renovated in 2022) but I’m going to keep that in mind for when we are forced to redo the downstairs bathroom.

I’d discourage replacing your gas heater with a 120V tankless electric one. Unless you take cold showers, you’re going to need a bare minimum of 10kW, and even that is only enough for somewhere around 90F showers. This requires new electrical work, and you may as well use a 240V tankless heater at that point.

If you can swing the purchase price, I’d recommend a heat-pump water heater. (Here are some from Home Depot) Some of them can be plugged into an ordinary outlet. They do have the disadvantage of cooling whatever area you place them in, but assuming you’re using gas or a heat pump for heating, you should still be saving energy (and thus money) over a tankless or traditional electric water heater.

The idea of going electric instead of gas is because we keep having multiple gas leaks in this house despite regular maintenance and they’re quoting us 12k to redo all the lines. I’m stuck with the gas furnace, but I’d happily yeet the gas water heater if it would mean having one less gas appliance in a house that keeps trying to combust.

https://thebibliosphere.tumblr.com/post/800873738572890112

https://thebibliosphere.tumblr.com/post/800871335287980032

Holly Mop is genuinely so funny. @mothman-etd will be distracted doing something on the computer, ie not giving her all of his attention, and she’ll really come prancing through to the living room, tossing her head around and chuffing like a grumpy train to bark at me until I go get him for her.

10lb dog really said, “I’m going to tell your manager” lol

https://thebibliosphere.tumblr.com/post/800871335287980032

https://thebibliosphere.tumblr.com/post/800870441004695552

boss-of-armadildos:

thebibliosphere:

thebibliosphere:

So they quoted us another twelve grand to replace the gas lines in the basement, including water heater.

Except most of the line that needs to be replaced is linked to the water heater so I just texted the guy back like, “hey, so… what if we got an electric water heater instead, what would the quote for that be?”

He sent me back a thumbs up emoji lol.

He texted back asking for pictures of my electrical box because I will ‘probably need a whole new box installed.’

Texted him all the brand new work we had done in 2021 including the brand new box that has two things hooked up to it, and he replied that we definitely didn’t have room for another appliance on it.

So. Texting Tony who do all the work in 2021 to see if he can give us a second opinion on that.

Like this is not my first hell house renovation rodeo, sir. I have other people I can call before you start telling me I need to redo all my electric again.

I thought he didn’t return your calls anymore or something to that effect?

That was the electrician before him who just ghosted us. He couldn’t handle the house.

Tony often takes a while to get back to us if it’s not urgent. But that’s because him, his kid and his 80yo dad are constantly booked for work across the entire metro area and his wife jokes she doesn’t remember what any of them looks like anymore.

Them trying to fit us into his schedule by mid December is because we’re the “crazy kids” who bought the hidden secrets nightmare house and they like us, lol.

https://thebibliosphere.tumblr.com/post/800870441004695552

https://thebibliosphere.tumblr.com/post/800857808851615744

It’s way more expensive than a tank (and probably more expensive to run), but we could get a tankless electric water heater that runs on 120 voltage. And right now I’m eyeing it just to reduce the gas use in our house and also reduce the number of things in our basement that have the potential to leak water.

Hm. I need to google some things. (Or if anyone has any input, I’d welcome that too.)

https://thebibliosphere.tumblr.com/post/800857808851615744