My mom was having trouble using they/them prnouns with some friends for a while. One day she said “I think the problem is that I haven’t changed the way I view their gender outside of their pronouncs which adds several extra steps in converting binary pronouns to they/them then conjugating it. So I need to shift how I see them as a gendered person entirely to make using their pronouns easier.” And since then she hardly ever messes up.
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A lot of the cis people in my life need this
This is literally why people mess up pronouns and why it’s a problem.
Like the reason you’re not calling me “they” is because you still think of me as gendered the way you initially assumed. It’s not just the pronouns I want you to change, they only serve as an acknowledgement of the gender I want you to adjust your perspective to. If you did that, you wouldn’t struggle with it.
To be fair I put bread in the freezer until I’m going to eat it that week because otherwise it will go mouldy.
But what drives me nuts is how many people I’ve lived with who don’t understand that most fruits and veggies are still living things that you’re trying to keep alive so they don’t start rotting?
Like they’ll put things like onion or garlic (bulbs) in the fridge, have the crisper way too cold to begin with or refrigerate all vegetables like they’re any other food… Like no, that’ll just go bad really fast?
Basically, you’re trying not to burst the cell membranes with cold while keeping it in a cool enough state to not be too actively trying to grow. For some fruits, roots and bulbs that’s a cool room temperature being hidden from the sun.
A lot of fruiting bodies and things intended to grow or spread are best kept alive on a clean counter because they can’t actually try to grow without soil and water.
Most veggies are only helped by cold to a very particular degree.
If you full on refrigerate an onion it will immediately start dying and rotting, whereas if you leave it on the counter it will stay alive, slowly sacrificing outer layers one at a time to stay viable until it can grow again.
Rule of thumb is to determine whether something is still a little alive or fully dead, and then whether you want the living parts of it to stay alive or die as much as possible, and then how much what level of cold will affect its texture.
Like milk is dead but has living things in it you want dead, so cold is good, but too cold will make it separate, so freezing cheese will make it crumbly and you don’t freeze milk. Yogurt you could freeze if you wanted to keep it a long time, but if it’s live culture it might be better remaining sealed in the fridge.
Meat is dead and you want it to stay dead, and ice breaking down the connective tissue doesn’t hurt the texture so it’s best frozen as long as possible to prevent bacterial growth unless you’re eating it right away.
Bread is fully dead. Mould isn’t entirely stopped by fridge temperatures and nor is the process by which it goes stale, so if you’re going to keep it more than a week before eating it, freezing it is valid and won’t affect the texture as much as the same length of time in the fridge.
Most fats are stable and won’t grow anything at room temperature or in the fridge. Putting oils in the fridge can separate the more saturated fats from the less saturated ones but will also keep them from breaking down into less healthy stuff that doesn’t taste as good. Purified fats that are solid at room temperature are generally stable at room temperature. Freezing fats doesn’t hurt them though if you need to keep them a really long time.
Most fungus is a prime target for less desired fungus and won’t stay alive long without very specific conditions, so you keep them in the fridge and use them quickly OR dry them out and store them dehydrated.
Most people who store bread cold are just sick of hot humid counter conditions making it mould quickly… Or their parents or grandparents were and no one has questioned it since… But this insanity with refrigerating onions and other living foods is just a product of no one being taught to properly preserve food and passing that ill information along.
Potatoes go in a cool dry cupboard. Bananas and tomatoes actually keep best set gently on a counter. They’ll ripen faster close together or stay green faster if you spread them apart, just don’t bruise them and let infections in, without the rest of the plant they don’t have much immune function. Thick skinned gourds do better on the counter too! They make banana hangers for a reason, they hang garlic for a reason. Those plant babies are doing their best to stay alive till you’re ready to eat them so help them out!
Obv for loooong veggie storage, more structured and starchy vegetables can be frozen long term, but delicate things like lettuces, leaves, tomatoes and cucumbers need to be pickled or canned for long storage because just freezing them would make them mushy and gross, and unless you like your lettuce pickled, I’ve found the best way to keep a head of lettuce for a really long time is just to replant it! Celery is similar, if it can’t fridge or freeze well and you need it fresh a long time, just give it light and food or water and let it grow! Stand your celery in a bit of water in the fridge short term, or plant it, or lettuce, and only take off the outer leaves as you use them. Potatoes and onions can be replanted and reharvested if they dry out too much!
Most foods you’re actually trying to eat as close to fresh and ALIVE as you possibly can. And I feel like people forget that and just think of a fridge as a magical food storage box.
ifesbob 