In the ninth grade I broke my knee during tryouts for for the basketball team. Someone was playing dirty and knock me over, and my knee was the first thing to hit the ground. After surgery it took me nearly a year to recover. But even after all that time I still couldn’t run on it, and I wanted to keep playing a sport (especially one I liked). After some searching I finally decided to join the swimming team.

Among the very few problems I have is having to regularly confront people about misconceptions of fat, self worth, and what it really means to be healthy. I never cease to be amazed by the people who think they are awesome just because they are fit, even when failing to demonstrate the most basic of human niceties, let alone traits which are actually admirable such as empathy, intelligence, or humor.

I can’t believe I went for ten years of my life without ever having doughnuts (due to my gluten allergy), and that doughnuts made with safe flours like einkorn actually taste better than normal doughnuts. Doughnuts are also way easier to make than you might think.

One of the biggest problems with people’s diets is the tendency to eat less fresh food. Fanatics will often take this to the extreme and practice diets like total raw and macro diets, which is an overcorrection that can actually cause its own problems. But, there are natural compounds in some fresh foods which are especially healthful…

About 15 years ago I worked with this nice girl named Katy. She was really good at her job (we were both 3D artists and animators and worked freelance at a small design shop). Several weeks into our working relationship she one day asked if I wanted to hang out. I was immediately nervous that she was looking for a date. “Oh, uh. I’m gay,” I said, sheepishly.

For nearly the last decade of my life I’ve constantly struggled with my weight. The best thing that came out of this journey was a heightened appreciation for my body and the realization that the fat was my body protecting me and my health and not compromising it as so much conversation and medical advice surrounding weight seems to advocate.

When I was thirty years old I lived in Downtown Los Angeles with my partner at the time and our two dogs. The morning after Thanksgiving is one of the absolute best times to live in Los Angeles—because so many people are out town, not working, and recovering from the day before that the streets of the city are literally deserted. When I was younger and new to Los Angeles this deathly silence was unnerving…

Tell me if you’ve heard this one— “I’m sorry you were offended.” Because of my past tendency to be drawn to narcissists, this statement and many like it were peppered liberally throughout my life, and I wasted many years trying to communicate to those who spoke this way that they had hurt me and not succeeded in repairing the damage.

You honestly don’t know what you’re missing (unless you do!)—there is nothing like fresh, homemade pasta. Unlike the dried stuff, homemade pasta is very soft and flavorful, and contrary to what you may think, is actually one of the easiest things to make. It takes less time and effort than making cookies. So if you can make cookies, you will love making homemade pasta.

When I was in seventh grade and had only one friend, he and I decided on day to go to the arcade at the mall. We walked from our homes in the Avenues of Salt Lake City, Utah all the way to downtown. It was a warm summer day and not being allowed to play video games very often at home I was more than excited to spend a few hours away from my family playing the games that I loved.

I have been single for more years than I have been loved, and as a weepy Libra this fact comes as quite a hard pill to swallow as I swiftly approach the end of my thirties. I always assumed that I would be married with children by this point in my life, but like most queer people I did not have the support of social groups which tend to coalesce around families to support, validate, and increase the success of pair bonding.

Growing up, creamed spinach was synonymous with the holidays and our once-a-year prime rib that it accompanied. But while creamed spinach appears fancy there’s no reason not to have this all the time! In fact, preparations of foods high in vitamin K with lots of fat increases the bioavailability of the vitamin K by a factor of 4!

Everybody knows carrots are a great source of beta carotene, but what people don’t know is actually how much carotene we actually need to be healthy nor how many different types of carotene are actually in food besides just the common beta carotene.

I think I caught coronavirus—It was hard to tell, but for about 48 hours I had a strange, intense, and uncomfortable compression in the upper center of my chest around my esophagus, unlike any I’d ever felt before, and trouble breathing and a dry cough.

When I was a young man struggling with my homosexuality growing up in the midst of a bigoted and conservative Mormon community I was constantly perturbed by stories in the scriptures of God either relieving or sending plagues upon the various characters in the stories and their communities.

I don’t have to tell anyone how the coronavirus COVID-19 has disrupted markets, caused massive layoffs and financial losses, and contributed to panic, fear, and economic instability and hardship across the globe. Ironically, the panic has been no where worse than in the United States, a country blessed with obscene economic property with no real need for panic, except that it is now a country full of angry, ungrateful, suspicious, selfish human beings

Sorghum is one of the most ancient human foods. Endemic to Africa, it was likely one of the very first foraged and cultivated cereal crops. Sorghum is not at all popular in Western societies, to their detriment, as sorghum has many healthful properties which can be used to restrain metabolic illness and promote health and wellness.

Ever since recovering from cancer I have only gotten sick twice—a cold once and a more serious viral throat infection which took about a week to fully resolve. But in spite of having been recently very ill with cancer and thyroid disease, before and during which I would catch the flu every year and which took near a month each time to fully recover, I have not gotten it once since recovering. This is no accident, as some of the various techniques I use to help improve my own health

When I was fifteen years of age and struggles with my parents began to reach a fever pitch, my mother one day came into my room after a row and told me she was afraid I would not be able to provide for a family when I grew up. She was not concerned about an abundance of employment opportunities or the decreasing trend in wages compared to inflation and the const of living..

One night when I was still fairly new to Los Angeles I attended the premier of a friends’ comedy show. If I had known then that making friends with aspirational actors would be a liability to my happiness I would gladly have altered course in this time of my life (people whose purpose in life is to “make it” do not make good friends).