Intuitive Eating & Body Confidence with Terri Pugh

5. Crazy Slimming Club Mentality

May 23, 2021 Terri Pugh Episode 5
Intuitive Eating & Body Confidence with Terri Pugh
5. Crazy Slimming Club Mentality
Intuitive Eating & Body Positivity
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In this episode I dive into the crazy world of slimming clubs, their wacky rules, their quirky sayings, and the mad stuff they make you do. Find out what I had for breakfast instead of oats..... you'll never guess!

Also, this week's Great Food Debate is about dangerous food. What did someone eat instead of coco puffs, how do you eat thorns, and how sunglasses saved a person's life!

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A quick heads up - my transcriptions are automatically generated. I do not type them manually. For this reason there may be errors, incorrect words, bad spelling, bad grammar, and other things that just seem a little 'off'. You'll still be able to understand what is being said though, so please just ignore that and enjoy the episode.

Crazy Slimming Club Mentality

I just hit record. And the second that I did that the cat decides it is the right time to start scratching at her scratching post, the wind blows the doors shut, and the sink started dripping. 

I don't know that there's ever a right time to hit record for a podcast. But there we go.  Uh, How's your week been? All good I hope. Been okay here, nothing to tell really. Nothing to fill you in on. Oh, let me tell you I really messed up tea the other night. It should have been a really easy pasta bake. It should have been the simplest meal in the world. 

A jar of pasta bake sauce at that. I wasn't even making it. It should have been a case of throw it all in the oven. Bob's your uncle, fanny's your aunt, job done. But no, it didn't work out. And not only did it not work out but the meal that didn't work out wasn't even enough to feed the whole family. So I ended up. Not having any of the messed up pasta bake and having to put something else into the oven. 

And that's something else ended up being some oven chips, which is fine. But I ended up with chips, baked beans, which weren't hot enough so they were a bit lukewarm, and actually cold by the time I'd finish my tea, and a chicken Kiev that had already been cooked the day before. So I reheated it which meant that it was rubbery. 

So the reason that it was already cooked is because in our house, we are four people. Three meat-eaters and a vegetarian. And of course things come in packs of two or four don't they? So that meant buying four kievs and then I thought  I'll just cook all four of them. Lucky it was there because I needed it for tea. It was nearly half past eight by the time I sat down to eat it. I was hungry. Oh, I was starving. 

 Do you know what, if I'd have gone back a couple of years, maybe, that would have really ruined my evening. I never used to cope very well at all with food availability issues. So. If I didn't have food with me and say lunch was delayed at work or something and I had to wait an extra couple of hours and I was hungry that would throw me. If I messed up a meal at home and I had to cook something else that would really throw me. It's something actually the intuitive eating has massively helped with. I don't stress so much over food anymore. 

It is so freeing. And you don't realize the impact that changing some food rules, or getting rid of some food rules should I say, has on you as an overall personality. I used to really freak out about food and now I just don't because. It's okay. 

 It's just a messed up meal. It's not the end of the world. I will have some more food in a little while once I've finished preparing it. Because that's the thing, isn't it? Scarcity that freaks a lot of people out. You think that that's the food you were going to have and you're not going to have any more food for the rest of the day. It causes the brain to go a little bit awry and make you freak out about a possible lack of food when actually what the brain really needs to relearn is that there is more food and there is no need to have a meltdown about it. But that's something that comes over time. That's very much a learning curve. That's part of the process. 

Just interesting isn't it though. When you look back when you've changed and you look back and you see the things that you used to do and the things you do now, and it's kind of been a partly conscious journey, because I've had to work on these things, but the new patterns had formed and I hadn't even realized it. 

It's amazing isn't it how the brain works. Just thought you'd like to know that I also mess up meals  anyway. 

What should we talk about today? Oh, yes. Let's talk about slimming club mentality. 

Oh, I've been to a slimming club or two in my time. I'm a longterm dieter. So I have been to several diet clubs. Some many times over. They were quite a big part of my life for many years. They were a way to eat. They were a social group. Not that I ever went and actually socialized with the people that I went to these clubs with. But I saw them as a group of people that. We're like minded. They knew what I was going through. They knew how I felt.

 Some of them were really lovely and you ended up making genuine friendships with people. One of my really good friends now is somebody that I actually wouldn't know if I hadn't been to a slimming club. 

Whatever plan I was on, whatever diet club I was going to, at that time it was the best plan ever. This was the thing that was going to sort me out. It was the right way to eat. I was going to lose weight. I was going to be skinny and I was going to stay that way forever. 

Needless to say, I am here today. I am not on those plans. I do not eat in that way. They were not the right way to eat. I am definitely not skinny. Here I am living best life. A little while ago, I was thinking about all the mental things that slimming club consultants used to say that I really bought into when I was going into those clubs. You know, the fun little sayings. The competitive side of losing weight. The explanations and the justifications for what you could, or you couldn't eat. Cause everything had a reason. And at the time you were like, oh, that makes sense. And looking back it's madness. 

But I'm not annoyed at myself for believing it because it was part of the journey and everybody else was doing it and there were people in the group that were losing weight handover first and it was working  and I wanted a piece of that.  And I knew that if I could just figure it out, I could be like them and I could lose all that And when you're desperate, which I believe that I you believe anything and everything because when you go to these clubs, you are in a kind of desperate state. When you first start there you are desperate to lose weight. You don't know what to do. You just need somebody to tell you. And as time goes on I think you're still a bit desperate but in a different way. You're still striving for those few more pounds and then when you get to your set goal weight that you decide is the right weight to be at, whether there's any logic to you choosing that weight or not, you choose a and when you get to weight you're still not happy.  You're trying desperately to not gain any more weight but then also you're trying not to lose any more weight because then you have to answer to the diet club consultant, and you have to get yourself back on track, and you have to pay again, because you know, you're out of this small range that is an acceptable weight on the I mean, that's crazy in itself isn't it? To have this target weight that is not governed by anything and then if you're not in that weight zone you pay money. Mad. 

Maybe if the consultants had been like Marjorie Dawes, do you remember Marjorie Dawes on fat fighters on little Britain. You watch the videos back now, and it is a whole level of very un-PC writing on the script writers parts. I think people got away with a lot more back in the nineties didn't they. 

But when you look back, if you can see past that, if you can see past the stuff that wouldn't be acceptable anymore, the concept is just genius, because it pulls out all of this stuff that you don't see as being an actual thing that you're involved in when you go to a real life slimming club. Maybe if the consultants that I had had were a bit more like Marjorie Dawes I might not have stuck around because no one can take that kind of abuse. 

I did wonder if anyone had had the same experience as me so I posted on social media to ask the questions. This was going back a little while and I so if you're listening to this and it's only just gone out, you haven't missed it. This was questioning I did quite a while ago. But I posted on social media to ask about people's experiences with slimming clubs and all the stuff that came flooding in. Let's imagine a slimming club and let's start with the very underpinning of the slimming club. 

The weighing. You go in and you go to the toilet because you've got to get rid of every last drop of weight haven't you and it's not good enough that you went to the toilet just before you left home. You have to go as soon as you walk through the door so you're at your very lightest and you go in and you pay your money. A fiver. Ish. 

Five pounds. To have the pleasure of lining up like lemmings to hop on the scales and then when you're in the queue, you have a chat with somebody in front or behind you and you're like, "oh, how'd you think you're done?" " oh, I don't know. I don't know this week." "Oh I had a good week, but I feel a bit bloated" "Oh, well I been out this week, so yeah, I'm not hoping for much" you know, that kind of chit chat. 

You might have somebody at the weigh point who is friendly and discreet if you're lucky.  Or you might get loud mouth Susan who can't whisper to save her life.  The loud is fine. If you've lost weight that week but if you have gained weight it's going to become public knowledge. Whether you like it or not. Even with her " oh, nevermind". Don't you worry though, because where the Susan has announced it or not your consultant is going to. You go and you weigh and then you sit down and you discuss your results that week, because that's what you do. 

Everybody in the room gets a chat with a consultant in front of everybody and you discussed how you did that week, and if you've had a really good week then you get "Share. Tell us how you did it. What did you do this week to make that difference? What meals have you cooked this week?  But if you gained that week then you got. "What went wrong? What are you going to change this week? So that, that doesn't happen again next week." and a sympathetic smile, and lots of suggestions from the group on how you can do better this week. More ideas that you're not going to enjoy really . 

Then apparently there's no shame in a gain. That's a quirky little saying, isn't it. That was meant to make you feel better about having this gain on the scales that week but actually then you were expected to explain what went wrong so there is no feeling good in that. 

And to respond by just saying "Life. Life happened. Nothing went wrong. I just lived my life. I didn't eat dust and air. I didn't live on lettuce leaves. I just lived my life." 

what about the old Chestnut of. It's not a diet. It's a lifestyle. Yep.  Apparently the diet at this slimming club was not a diet. It's a new way of eating. This is how life was going to be for the rest of time. I will spend my life eating free foods. Counting  Recording every last morsel that enters my mouth.

How, did I ever believe that that was going to be a lifestyle that I was going to maintain for the rest of my life. It's not possible isn't it? It's not possible and it's not reasonable. No one should live with that much attention to the food that they eat. Nobody's should spend that time counting, worrying, writing food down. It's not reasonable. Does it sound like a diet? Absolutely. Yes. That's because it is. Any eating habits where there's a form of restriction is a diet. So given that these plans, these slimming clubs, they all involve some kind of limiting of foods they're all diets. There isn't one that I have come across yet, other than intuitive eating, which by the way is not a diet, that doesn't have a form of restriction. You show me the slimming club where you eat as much as you like of whatever you like with no rules 

Which brings me nicely onto the next one. Constant counting. The point system. So whatever plan you're on there is bound to be a point system. You're either going to be counting calories. Counting macros. Counting points. Counting syns. There's always something to count with these plans. 

No food in real life comes with a point system. Yeah, they have calories and that's a fact, and they have nutrients, which is also a fact, but they do not have points. Why should you have to count the amounts of delicious, nutritious food that you're eating?  With the stuff that you're eating, they tell you that you've got lots of free food, which I'll come on to in a minute but the other stuff you have to count. Which makes it feel like the stuff that you have to count is not nutritious, when so much of it actually is. 

I can't remember off the top of my head, some of the stuff , oh yes, I can. Let's think about an avocado. Avocado has never, ever on any plan that I've ever done, been a free food because they tell you it's high in fat. But will they don't explain to you is that there are such good nutrients in avocado, and the fat in an avocado is such good fats and we need fats in our diets. And we need all these nutrients that the avocado gives us. Yet on these plans you have to count it and you have to restrict it, whereas there's such good stuff to come from eating one freely. 

But. You can have the branded stuff that these diet clubs sell you. That's good for you isn't it. Don't have a cereal bar from Tesco. Have the slimming club's cereal bar.The problem with these things that you buy at the slimming clubs is that you're so dissatisfied with things that you are allowed to eat and you don't have any of the really nice stuff that you want, so the bars and the other foods that they sell you do taste reasonably good at the time. I mean, if you put it up against something, now it wouldn't taste great at all, but at the time when I'm restricting everything so heavily. It's like the best thing in the world. 

I would line up and the shop is always strategically placed on the way to the till on the way to the scales, and so pick up a box of the cereal bars or whatever,  sit down. What am I going to do? Open the box and eat one. That's how desperately I wanted to eat some food that I enjoyed eating. I just wanted some chocolate. 

On the other end of the spectrum is the free food. So these plans, they always come with free foods. Eat as much of these foods as you like. When I was doing slimming world it was potatoes and rice pasta. Fruit .Veg.  Some yogurts. Some other snacks. I am totally on board with eating as much of any food as you like but the problem with this is that those free foods come with rules. So they're not actually really free. You can have as much as you like of that pasta, rice potatoes, fruit, veg, whatever, but only if you first filled half of your plate with vegetables. You can have as much of those things as you like but only at meal times, whatever meal times really are. 

These foods are free until your weight starts to plateau and then you get told to reduce the amount of them that you're eating. Well are they free or are they not free? Because they can't be free until your weight levels out and then you have to restrict them because that means they're not free anymore. And for the record, you can eat as much of these foods as you want unless, of course you have things like allergies and medical reasons why you shouldn't then please don't because that's not a good idea. 

Next on the list was tweaking. Have you heard of tweaking? 

Tweaking was a big deal at slimming world. Whatever you do, do not get creative with your foods. Do not be using your free foods for anything other than the purposes that those foods were intended to be used for. Sounds crazy. Doesn't it? What that means is don't try and turn a free food into another food that wouldn't usually be free. 

You try to do things like make a pizza base from smash mashed potato. You know what that is, that powdered gross mashed potato? I know. I'm sorry. If you like it, you like it. I can't bear the stuff. Just mash a potato. But anyway, people used to try and turn smash into pizza bases. They used to turn lasagna sheets into tortilla chips. So they would take a lasagna sheet, which is free because it's pasta and they would break it up into triangles or whatever, bake them, and then they would be some form of tortilla chip. For what it's worth, I never really liked them, so I never did it. 

Oh, one thing I did do though, couscous for breakfast instead of oats. Oh, why did I do that? Couscous was free. Oats you were limited on because you can only have one portion a day and then you have to count them, and if I wanted to have bread at lunchtime then I couldn't have oats for breakfast. So I would have couscous instead because that's free, and at a mealtime. 

Ah, it's crazy. Isn't it? But that's what restriction does to you. It makes you find ways to cheat the system. It makes you bend all the rules so that you can fill the holes that are left by the foods that you can't eat anymore. 

Don't even think about blitzing up a banana. Ah, That is a no go. I'm sure you must have seen things going on, on social media at some point in time, about mashing a banana. You can eat a banana but you can't mash a banana and eat it. If you peel a banana and eat it whole and mash it with your teeth that's fine. If you peel a banana, mash it with a fork and then put it in your mouth, not fine. Where is the logic? Smoothies. Absolutely not. You eat that fruit whole or not at all. 

You try and find ways to swap your old lovely foods for new lovely foods. Except they're never new lovely foods. They're just half satisfying foods. What can I swap that delicious, nutritious, full fat creamy, Greek yogurt for? Here is a Miller light. Here is some watery yogurt. What can I swap wonderful cheese for? Have some cottage cheese. Oh, God. Bleurgh. Well, can I swap my lovely, fresh, white bread for have a couple of Ryvita. When is Ryvita ever gonna cut it like fresh white bread does. What can I swap my creamy, vanilla ice cream for? Whip up a fruit yogurt with some natural yogurt and freeze that. It pains me to say it. 

What is not clear is that these swaps are often processed and they're lacking in the good stuff that your body needs. So while you've swapped out that Greek yogurt, which is full of fat and protein and good stuff you're swapping out for something like a Miller light, which is not nutritious at all. Please.  Can you just eat it? Can you just eat what you want and what will satisfy you? I say this because if you make swaps and you have the healthier alternative, the chances are that you're actually really still going to want the real thing. 

You've taken out, probably some decent nutrients. You've replaced it with something that's not got that much in it, nutrition wise, and you're still going to want the real thing anyway. That will ultimately lead to bingeing because you won't be satisfied, then you'll go raid the cupboards later. So just do yourself a favor and have some of the food that you will love because you're more likely to eat that, enjoy it, be satisfied, not raid the cupboards later. You really shouldn't eat things that you don't enjoy. What is the point in trying to make overnight oats with couscous? What is the point in trying to turn a pasta sheet into crisps basically? 

 Exercise. Exercise went one or two ways. You were either praised for it or discouraged depending on your weight that week. If you had had a good loss on scales, it was bound to be because you've got some extra exercise that week, but if you'd had a gain, it was probably because you'd done some exercise that week. Huh. So if you'd lost weight, Oh, the exercise must be taking effect. If you gained weight, oh, well your muscles are building now because you're doing exercise. Well, which way is it because it can't be one way one week and one way the next week can it?   

At some swimming clubs as well you get extra points for exercise that you do. You do some exercise and you're allowed to eat more that week, which to me translates as " earn your food". I've said it before, and I'll say it again, you never, ever, ever have to earn your food. You're entitled to eat and your amount of exercise and food do not dictate each other.

Exercise I like to do for the enjoyment of it not for earning my food. It's a really dangerous area to get into when you start praising people for losing weight because of exercise. It should be a way to improve your health, to get some joyful movement, to have some things in life that fulfill you, not to reward yourself with food. Not as a way of allowing yourself to eat more. 

 Let's talk about slimmer of the week and slimmer of the month. Oh yes. These were awards. So if ever there were something so demotivating, this was it. To qualify for the weekly award. You had to have the biggest loss that week and you had to have lost weight the week before. This is at slimming world, by the way.

Each month, the person who had lost the most weight got an award. " But that's motivating". I hear you say, yeah, sure, if you're a person who can lose weight easily. If you've got a lot to lose. I say these with speech marks, you know, with air quotes, but you can't see that so you just have to take my word for it. If you've got a lot to lose and it's coming off quickly, or if you're new to the dieting game and your body is reacting to it, then you're going to earn lots of these awards. But when you've been doing it for a long time, when you don't have much weight to lose, when you've been doing it so long that your body is fighting back and it's saying no to the weight loss, then you don't get these awards.

Then comes the holidays. Oh, the summer holidays with the all-inclusive, and Christmas with all the food and drink. Easter with the Easter eggs and the lunches. Stay on plan though. I remember one Christmas going back to my slimming club, the next meeting after Christmas, and I was so pleased because I had lost half a pound. I was chuffed to bits. I had had a thoroughly miserable Christmas food wise. I had restricted. I'd missed out on things. For what, half a pound on the scales. I got slimmer the week though. Winner.  Looking back, it feels a bit ridiculous that I'd have done it, but so many of us did.

That's what people told me when they messaged in when I asked the questions, that's what I saw people do at the clubs. That's what happens. You do anything and everything to try and just lose a bit of weight and get these certificates and, you know, you get the praise of the consultant, et cetera.

 I'd not enjoyed the food at Christmas at all. I'd not eaten the chocolates that were in the bowl and I'd cut back on the amount of alcohol I had and, Oh, I only had a couple of roasts potatoes, you know, that sort of thing. Or I'd have these things I'd feel really guilty for it. Looking back, it seems ridiculous, but that's the way it is when you're on these plans. 

 Cheat days were heavily discouraged. Stay on plan a hundred percent of the time, and you're guaranteed to lose weight, that's what we used to be told, but that's not real life is it? Sometimes you just want to eat what you want to eat and doing that shouldn't be considered cheating. Cheating, implies that something bad has happened and honoring your hunger and cravings is not bad. It was quite common really to leave slimming club that day and go and do what the hell you like really for the rest of the day .

 What about though the clubs where you don't actually get to eat real food? Oh yes. They exist don't they? I know you get to eat some food, but nowhere near what your body should have.

So how does it go? A shake for breakfast, a shake for lunch, and then a lovely and incredibly low calorie meal for dinner.  Those diets even worse because they put you in a seriously low calorie deficit.  The problems with these diets are they seriously restrict those calories and the problems with them doing that can be addressed another time, but for now, let's just stay focused on the fact that you are being subjected to all the stuff that makes diet culture and slimming clubs, horrible plus you're not even getting to eat any food. So you're paying a large amount of money for the privilege of having milkshakes and really rubbish snacks and pitiful amounts of food. 

Let's remember that is no substitute for real nutrients found in food. The only time that your nutrients should be substituted is if you need it to be done medically, that's my opinion. I believe that you should get your nutrients from food where you can. 

As if those things that I've talked about, weren't bad enough there were some comments that I got off people that were quite frankly scary and sad and infuriating all rolled into one. I will just read these out. I don't think they need much explanation. But yeah, have a listen to this .

One comment was "I knew someone who was told that milk was the devil at her slimmers club so she decided to stop eating breakfast so that she could have an extra cup of Milky coffee a day"

" I was told one banana a day is probably too much banana at one group. That was the same group where I used to eat entire boxes of meringue nests and still be on plan. So that's crazy. Isn't it? Somebody is being criticized for eating a banana yet they're entitled to eat meringue nests, which are egg whites and sugar, and they're still on plan. It's crazy. 

One person was given the tip to spread the butter on the smoother side of the Cracker bread and then you might save a few calories.

One person said "my Nana had a fridge magnet from the group, which told you what you couldn't and could eat. It was huge. It covered the bottom of the fridge door. Ah, that's sad. That's an older lady being that concerned about food" 

someone was told that they should avoid fruits because it's full of sugar. Common one was people remember hearing what happened or "what went wrong". Lots of people remembered applause for people who had restricted themselves so much. They were getting praised for serious restriction in order to lose the weight and to kind of get the glory of it in the class.

These comments, "if it swims it Slims" "drink to shrink" and "little pickers were bigger knickers". Oh my God.

  So my issue was that so many of the consultants out there don't have any actual nutritional training that they're able to pass on to their groups. Those consultants that have really taken the time to learn this stuff are like needles the haystack.   I remember questions being asked if consultants, where they were being asked to justify why we could have something or couldn't have something, or, you know,  Justify some kind of rule that was being imposed by the club and they often just couldn't explain it.  The nutritional training that these consultants get is that that's given to them by the slimming club so they don't do any independent training from what I understand.

The mental damage that is done through being a member of these clubs, sticks with you for a lifetime. I've got memories going back to when I was taken to a weight Watchers club at the age of 13. I can remember things that were said, recommendations that were given at the time.

It just all sticks with you for such a long time and the habits that our learnt of how to restrict and how certain foods are good and bad become so ingrained in you that you second guess your eating habits for such a long time after.  it takes years to build these patterns into your system so it takes a long time to unpick them and to undo the damage.

It can be done, it can be done. It just takes time and it takes work.  I understand for people how they're slimming club can feel like a social event. You know, there's always the people at the back who just come for a coffee morning aren't there. They're not really that bothered about losing weight, but they come to see their mates. I understand that.  It feels like you have like-minded friends there, like I said at the beginning, but what it actually is, is a group of people who understand your pain and your frustration. That's what it is, is pain and frustration. 

Imagine a life where you weren't constantly thinking about food or counting or worrying that weigh day is coming around, and you dared to have a good night out with your friends at the weekend so God knows what's going to happen when you stand on the scales. Do you want to be that person in your old age, still sitting in a slimming club after literally decades of trying to lose weight? Choose to be happy instead. Choose to have some food freedom. Choose to eat what you want.

 All the time that you're on a plan, you think that you're happy. I promise you, if that is you, second you stop and you start finding this better way to do things you will be so much happier. The second that you realized that your body is actually able to regulate itself, if you let it, and that you'll be able to eat well intuitively, and that you won't just go off the rails and eat everything in sight for the rest of time, if you stop restricting, you will feel a huge weight is lifted. 

 That social group is still there for you in a different community. There is a huge intuitive eating and body positivity community, and they are people that can also help and support you because they have been that done that. Read the book, got the t-shirts. There are proper health care professionals in this industry that are educated. They know the facts, they know the science, they understand the actual reality between weight and health.

Shall I come down off my soap box now? It's mad though, isn't it, you think you're going to the slimming club and it's going to be the best thing ever and then all it is is actually a whole load of ridiculous. 

If you've given up diet clubs, I'm so happy for you. I'm so happy for you. I am excited for you because I know that the future is better than that. It's scary. It is a scary thing to do. Give up a diet or give up dieting full stop. It's really scary, but there are so many great resources out there that will help you do it. I am one of them. Woo. But ah, praise Terri, praise Terri. But I am. I'm here. I'm here to help you. I'm here to give you resources.

I'm here to give you information, to show you the alternative to dieting, and I'm here to help you do it. There you go, that's my chat for today. I'd love to hear it if you have been to diet clubs and you've had crazy experiences, or if you realize what weird and wacky things they used to tell you that you bought into, that afterwards you realized is absolute nonsense.

 Okay, let's do the great food debate. This week I asked people what they thought the most dangerous foods were. The examples I gave were, on cartoons people slip on banana skins all the time, and you know when you try and get a stone out of an avocado and you have to smash the knife into it and hope you don't take all your fingers off trying to do that.

Those are dangerous foods, right? I asked people to tell me what they thought dangerous foods were. There's some really funny ones. I mean, obviously I am glad that everyone is well and healthy, but they're still funny. 

Kirsty said tomatoes. Why? Because they're red and red is nature's way of saying danger, nobody listens. And then she told me that her daughter, when she was about two managed to suck in a lettuce leaf and it got stuck. Ended well though. It's so funny. 

I choked on gammon once when I was young and,  sorry if this is gross, but I had a piece of gammon and I chewed it and I went to swallow it. One part of the meat stayed in my mouth and the other part went down. into my stomach or it didn't get to my stomach, obviously, because it was held by a piece of fat and it wouldn't go up and it wouldn't come down. Gammon is a very dangerous food. I'm still alive, obviously. So it was okay in the end. 

Christina said she's never not choked on popcorn ever. Sure it's a hundred percent operator error. I'm starting to feel like it's a little bit personal. God, that stuff is lethal. You think that you've got it sussed and then this tiny speck of popcorn hits you in the back of the throat or something. .  Uh, 

Lisa said, I love butternut squash, but it's so hard to cut. I'm afraid I'm going to cut my finger every time I cut the squash. 

Oh, Gary said, I still have a scar on my thumb from foraging snails a few years ago, I reached under a rock to grab a large one and it kind of got stuck. Pulled my hand out very quickly and cut a large gash on a barnacle. Bleeding so bad that it soaked through my bandana, that I was using as a bandage. The snails were delicious though. Oh, wow.

Another Lisa says dude, frozen chicken breasts, especially if you're drunk. Uh, yeah. 

Jell-O shots, damn things sneak up on you. Oh yeah. Ain't that the truth. 

Rachel says the bread on a toasted sandwich. My top front pallet got so roughed up. Oh, toasted sandwiches. They are dangerous. The filling is like lava in your mouth. Isn't it? God, that stuff gets hot and yeah, I know what she means by roughing up the top of your mouth with bread though, as well. Ouch. 

Oh, Shelley, attacked by a coconut on honeymoon. I was wearing my sunglasses on my head, like a true douchey tourist. Apparently they saved my life. She thought somebody had chucked something at her head, but people nearby kept saying, sit down, lady, sit down. Oh, wow. That's crazy isn't it. Saved by sunglasses,. You just don't expect coconuts to come crashing down on you, do you.

Okay, Eric, I don't know how to pronounce this. Is it? No Parlez, no poles, no pails. I dunno. N O P A L E S. No matter how careful you are to take the thorns off, one somehow still makes it into your food. Right now, I'm going to have to put a picture of this on social media so you can see what I'm talking about. But I had to ask what it was, cause I've not seen it before. Apparently it's cactus and they sell it pre-packaged at grocery stores. I don't know where you'd get it. If you don't have a million cactus everywhere. Yeah, we don't have those in the UK. Then I said, what did they taste like other than prickly obviously, and Eric eats them cut up, but I made into a bit of a salady thing. When you have them fresh here to take the thorns off, but they're good. They look amazing. I wonder, does anybody know, can we get these things in the UK? Somebody tell me. 

 Lily said we actually make a lot of candy and sweet things out of it. You can get prickly pear candy on Amazon oooh this is worth a try. 

Asha says, oG Caption Crunch turns the roof of my mouth from smooth into a popcorn ceiling. The song hurts so good comes to mind. That's funny. 

 Jeff gave a kid at the grocery store one pumpkin seed and the child ended up in hospital with a scratch oesophagus. Oh my God. 

 Cutting potatoes and chicken. Same thing happened twice because I'm a slow learner. I freshly sharpened my knife and I know how hard it can be to cut and it was slicing them like butter. However, you know what else it's slice like butter, my finger. I almost chopped the top of my finger off twice. Oh, 

Oh, Tyler says hot pockets. Yeah. See, it's the lava in a thing. It's gotta be the whole pocket of heat doesn't it? He also says the end of a block of cheese with a grater yes. Who hasn't lost the end of a finger or a nail or something grating cheese. Putting my dog food next to cocoa puffs, both in clear matching air tight containers, and then having a few drinks. Ah, ooh. Oh, that's grim. Isn't it? 

Oh, I love these things. They make me laugh every single week. 

 I am going to leave it here for today and I'll catch up with you next week. Have a great week, have a really good week.  Have some nice food. Come join me on social media. Share with me your scary, dangerous foods. I'd still like to hear about them and, um, I'll speak to you next week. Bye-bye.

 

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Great Food Debate - Dangerous Food