what was bethesda thinking when they decided that crab chitin + charred rat meat should = cure disease + restore stamina + something else all positive effects

what other recipies include questionable ingredients but make awesome ?

They were thinking, "let smake some 'garbadge' drank"

Tastes good yeknow. Then use your leftover charred skeever meat with some blue dragonfly wings to cure the wounds you caught the disease from.

Don't you know the saying? The more vile the cure, the better the medicine.

never heard that before

Evidently you never visited a canned food manufacturing plant. You'd be eating only fresh vegetables from that day on, I can guarantee!

The good things are bad for you, the bad things are good for you. Also, I hate to be the grammer Nazi, but my ocd wants to tell you it's spelled 'garbage.'
lol, the spell check thinks grammer is not a word.

That's because it's spelled 'grammar'.
http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/grammar?q=grammar

And if we continue doing grammar corrections, I will tell you that acronyms always use capital letters, so it should be OCD.

BAHAHA Sorry, no hate. Just think it's hilarious when somebody correct's grammar, and then destroys it. Grammar is for important, official things. Not internet forums.

EDIT: What I mean by corrects grammar, is when they don't just point it out the mistake, but then they go on to mention that it is a grammatical error....

So what you're saying is that it's perfectly normal to have Frost Trolls, Dragons, Hagravens and magical abilites but creating a potion using animal parts to cure diseases is... absurd?

You're a strange little man, you know that?

It's the same thinking that turned Skooma into a Minor Fatigue Potion.

Is there a single thread that you can't disrupt?

Weird ingredients have always created good potions. Dreugh Wax, anyone?

Stop trying to hijack other people's threads so you can bring up your streamlining arguments.

Gee, you're quite touchy. I thought this was a topic about potion effects that don't quite make sense. I never used the word streamlining. I don't even think streamlining is a tangential angle to why a potion that has been traditionally a double-edged sword is now Tamriel's Red Bull.

You brought this in as a "streamlining issue" all on your own, who am I to say you're seeing things wrongly.

Don't be coy. You made it sound as though this was some new design issue, and that it had anything to do with Skooma. Weird/gross ingredients have always had unexpectedly beneficial effects. It's just best not to think about what went in the potion you're drinking.

No... I didn't. I don't even have that argument for you now.

I'm being truthful, because if this was about Spellmaking or Balance I'd continue on undeterred because I'm always up for that fight... Skooma is a Minor Fatigue Potion, it's silly, or at worst... unimaginative. Really though, that's all I got... this isn't a streamlining issue ...or a "new design issue", a potion that gives you just 25 Stamina and that's it can not possibly effect gameplay enough to cause a "design issue".

You rode in on the horse called Streamlining all on your own.

Off topic:
You're saying that a forum, which is a place to have intelligent conversations about specific topics, is no place for proper spelling and grammar? What's more, there is any type of conversation anywhere where not sounding like a incoherent jabbering fool is acceptable? I have to disagree there.

On topic:
I have to agree (with the fact that Skooma lost everything about what made it illegal and an interesting part of the game, not the argument the other guy is forcing on you). It seems odd that an illegal drug in this game is one that has the exact same effects as a potion I can make with any of 19 ingredients, many of them very common.

Alchemy has never made any sense.

What I am saying, is that perfect grammar shouldn't be expected on almost anything online, especially when it is a forum about a video game. It is not impossible for anyone to communicate an idea, or for somebody to correctly interpret that idea, without perfect grammar. I like these forums a lot, but I miss the times of Morrowind (please don't relate me to those people complaining about Skyrim not being Morrowind, that is not my point) when the forums were a happier place. Back when it was forums.elderscrolls.com... It seems like now, the forums have a very negative overtone where people are constantly taking stabs at each other. Ya I've made fun in this very thread, but I at least try to show that it is all in good fun. I've taken my college English courses already. When I am online, grammar is nowhere near as important as getting a point across.

I really like the ingredient recipes you can acquire throughout the game, but if I'm not mistaken, some mention items not listed in the ingredients menu, but under food instead. Also, I found a book about vampires that includes how to make a powerful poison, and how to make an invisibility potion with vampire dust.

As to the OP, what is wrong with crab chitin and charred skeever hide being mixed for all positive effects? I understand lots of rats are hosts to some diseases, but it's cooked to a char and then extracted to be used in a potion. Not 100% sure this is completely safe, but I would feel better with that than using raw rabbit leg.

EDIT: remembered that your main point is that they cure disease. Cant help ya there ha. Maybe the... uh.. antibodies of the disease are killed by the contents of that potion. (When it comes to how medicine works, I have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about haha)

EDIT(again): I just remembered, I don't think that book was about vampires, but about a town being attacked by bandits. Don't really remember.