Hello and welcome to Jessica rants about things 101.
I’m in pain and feeling lousy so I decided to turn the camera on and yell about things
because that’s how I cope with my feelings.
If you too enjoy getting irrationally irritated by minor things that are actually pretty big
things in the grand scheme of your own personal life then please do hit the subscribe button.
I’d also like to encourage you, even if you’ve been subscribed for a while, to turn
on notifications using the little bell next to the subscribe as apparently that’s the
only way YouTube will now let you know when I have a new video out because it’s a little
bit broken or supposedly this is better or something?
Not all we are ranting about today tho.
But it could be.
I also just managed to fix the merch shelf- I think- so please tell me if you can see
my merch under this video. If you can’t then just click the link in the description.
[Swish sound fx]
Hopefully fixed!
To today’s video!
If you’ve ever watched a food video on my channel before you’ll know that I have a
rather… special diet.
Because I’m special.
Like a princess.
That was just me being kind to myself. According to my local council I’m classified as having
‘special needs’ so… I’m allowed to overly boost my self esteem whenever I feel
like it.
I have a connective tissue disorder called ‘Mixed Connective Tissue Disorder’ because
doctors are imaginative that way. It affects all of my soft tissue, including my stomach
and guts and means I can’t digest a lot of things and that certain things, like sugar,
make me very sick.
- also I bleed internally when I eat wheat. It was very disturbing the first few times
Over the years I have tried a variety of things to control it, a number of very strange medical
diets: remember in the ‘wife saves my life’ video when Claudia mentioned the fact all I ate was
leeks when I first met her? True story.
I also now know that leeks are one of the worst things for me to eat. So that’s…
truly genius, Jessica, well done.
My current diet is Low-FODMAP and it’s really working for me. I’ve been able to expand
the range of things I can eat and be less tense about what I’m putting into my body.
Because I got REALLY tense about that for a while… when you’re not sure which food
is making you sick you tend to get… weird.
So weird.
Now, as long as I don’t eat gluten, grains, sugar, dairy, alcohol, onions, garlic, sweet
fruits, red meat, beans, peas, legumes or sweeteners that end in ‘ol’- I’m fine!
Someone asked the other day “how do you remember all of those?”
To which my response was “if it makes you bleed from where you shouldn’t be bleeding,
you are not gonna forget.”
Still treating myself with onion bajis though… so painful… so delicious.
The long list of things I cannot eat isn’t actually the worst part of having dietary
restrictions however. I haven’t been able to eat a croissant in ten years and my mouth
doesn’t even water at the smell of a freshly baked one any more. No, it’s other people’s
freaking judgemental behaviour that really is the worst thing.
Which: could you just NOT, annoying waiter?!
Thanks(!)
This comes in two parts: the first is with the staff in restaurants, the second is with
the people I’m with who die a bit inside when I have to give my order.
Wait, three things- nosy people.
So, the first of the three: restaurant staff. “How bad is it really?” and “what happens
if you eat it?” are NOT acceptable things to ask a person. Neither is it okay human
behaviour to shame someone for having a restricted diet.
On my second date with my wife we went to get dinner together- not my idea clearly
Trying to avoid food
She suggested it
so I suggested a restaurant where I had been a number of times and could hopefully
get away with ordering things slightly differently without seeming like an annoyingly picky person
So she wouldn't notice and she'd still love me
- As anyone with medical food restrictions will tell you, the worst thing in the world
is being thought of as an annoyingly picky eater.
- okay, wait, second worst after: you told someone you can’t have something but they
smuggled it into your food anyway just to test you.
That’s actually happened to me!
We went to a sushi place, the chap took my order: “Can I have this but no dressing,
and this but sauce on the side, and this but with the gluten free batter and ginger tea.”
“With no ginger?” He sneered.
I just about died inside.
OH sure, don’t mind me, just on a date here, just trying to impress this seemingly impossibly
gorgeous and lovely cool woman sat across the table from me whilst slowly easing her into my incredibly
odd medical conditions and not putting her off by being a giant weirdo but please, go
ahead, try to ruin my evening. Remind me to pop up the next time you’re on a date and
point out your excessive nose hair until she gets the ick and runs away, no worries!
Kuh!
Fortunately Claudia just ignored it and breezed right on over.
And that is why I married her
But I was dead inside for at least twenty minutes.
You don’t know shame until you’ve tried to give a complex “can I please have this
dish but without the x and with double the y instead?” order only to be grilled by
the waiter on exactly what you can’t eat and WHY you can’t eat it and WHAT is wrong
with you and WHAT will happen if you eat it whilst sitting on a large table of eight hungry
people who are being delayed from getting their food by your complex order and are thus
staring at you.
For some reason- no, actually, not ‘for some reason’-
I was going to say ‘for some reason people are much more understanding about other more
visible aspects of my disability’ but obviously they are because they’re VISIBLE.
Look, I know it must be very annoying when someone comes in and tells you they have an
allergy to gluten and thus you have to wipe down that special part of the kitchen and
get out new gloves and put new oil in the machine and handle everything specially and
then you bring it out to the diner and they snack on the gluten-y chips of the person
next to them anyway. I get it. That’s annoying.
That’s why I never say ‘allergy’, I always say ‘intolerance’- because even
though it makes me bleed internally I don’t want you to have to go through the drama of
rearranging your whole kitchen. A trace only gives me bad stomach ache. I’m not going
to be really injured just because my food saw a piece of bread across the room.
HOWEVER. I also kind of love those terrible people.
Those really annoying, whiny people who insist on ordering everything gluten free and say
they have ‘terrible’ reactions to gluten when really they just get some mild wind?
Those people are my heros.
(I’m being hyperbolic if you can’t tell but the point still stands)
It’s thanks to those annoying people that restaurants now HAVE gluten free menus! It’s
thanks to them that I can now look down a list of foods and easily spot the things I
can eat.
Believe me, there is nothing more irritating than restaurants that say “tell us what
you want and we’ll see what we can do” and then you have to sit there with a waiter
for fifteen minutes going ‘this? No? Ok, this? NO? This maybe? Right, no.
Can you do this?’
Just put a tiny ‘G’ next to your dishes! It’s not that hard!
Only about 1% of the population actually have a gluten sensitivity-
Fun fact, Italy has one of the highest incidences in Europe.
- but we one percenters would be having a MUCH harder time of life if the rest of you
weren’t making such a noise about it.
I’m just waiting for ‘sugar free’ to become the new popular trend so I can swoop
in and eat all of the sugar free ice cream.
Ah!
On that note though: why aren’t more things actually sugar free?!?!
It’s sugar that creates fat and yet all the ‘sugar free’
items I see are actually misbranded ‘health foods’ that are FULL of sugar- just a different
kind! Honey, agave and fructose are STILL sugar. As are ‘concentrated dates’.
It's just sugar!
Wah wah wah “artificial sugar is carcinogenic!”- in rats! And so is toast. Exactly how much
of it are you eating, anyway?!
- Don’t take that as a health claim. I’m not a doctor.
Don’t sue me. I’m not worth it.
I’m going to keep saying that until one day when I AM worth it. And then you’ll
know I’ve made it.
“Don’t sue me, even though I AM worth it.”
Yes, that was meant to be an old-lady voice. I’m imagining it’s going to take a long
time until I’ve made it.
So waiters sometimes suck. But so do the people you’re dining with.
Sometimes they’re amazing and leap in to save me when I’m drowning under the judgement
and also… being utterly unable to hear! Maybe it’s a deaf thing.
Speaking of being judgemental: “you can’t be deaf, you heard what she said” is not
a reasonable comment- am I meant to leave in the five minutes of me saying:
“What? What? Pardon? What? What did you say?”
And the three minutes where she told me what she was going to say before she said it???
So I know!
I just- urg!
Boy am I grouchy and in pain today- did I mention I now have merch?
[ding!]
Friends can suck. Especially since they feel like they have the right to ask super intrusive
questions when you are NOT at that level of friendship yet!
So when I say ‘friends’ I really mean ‘friendly acquaintances’. The type of
people you’re getting to know and you might send them a birthday text or leave a message
on their Facebook wall but you’re not going to be bothered to actually write them a card.
Ha! ‘Facebook wall’. Is Facebook still a thing?
Those people. They’re the people who ask exactly what happens when I eat sugar and
why I vomit, overheat, get itchy and passout feeling like I’m having a heart attack.
To which I can only reply: “Don’t you think I wish I knew?!”
I didn’t choose this stupidity! Neither did my body! It’s just fate!
Or God.
You can argue that one in the comments. I’m not saying either way.
And finally we come to the third thing… what was the third thing?
People who get embarrassed for me.
I don’t know if that was the third thing. I’m just in pain. I don’t know what I’m
doing with my life.
Right, so, there are some people in my life who tense up in horror when they see the waiter
coming over to us. AND point out every salad on the menu to me the minute we sit down like
“please just order this easy option Jessica so you don’t have to change so I don’t have
to feel really awkward and then die a bit inside.”
Despite the fact that I am SO DONE with salad. I like eating lettuce with every meal, that’s
the way I was raised- there was always a big bowl of salad on the table- but I don’t
like it BEING my every meal. Also salads come with ‘bits’ and I can never eat the ‘bits’
and by ‘bits’ I mean-
Bird food.
Nuts, needs, weird grains.
I can’t eat them and now my salad is tainted I can’t eat anything so…
Gah! Just no.
Right, have I run out of steam on the annoyance train?
Maybe. I feel really good now.
Mentally. My tummy still hurts.
The moral of today’s story: don’t be a jerk to people with dietary restrictions.
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Okay...
I'm gonna go lay down
Sending love and I’ll see you on Friday for our next video!
[kiss]