Category: Nutrition

Eat Powerfully

My wife and I met with an old friend (by “old” I mean elementary school days) in Hayward for brunch the other day. It was past one in the afternoon and neither of us had eaten. We were all eager to get something to eat, but not suffering from hunger.

In passing, we brought up the fact that both of us often train on empty stomachs. For both of us, it was common that a good workout happened without food for several hours. When I say good workout, I mean a focused, energy-steady, and positivity-surging session of training.

I mentioned to my friend that without eating, I am able to maintain steady focus and get a lot of work done. As long as I have a task at hand, I feel just fine. If I have nothing to do, though, it’s common that I get hungry sooner in the day. He agreed, saying he thought it was the distraction from food that enabled us to drive forward without it.

I don’t think it’s necessary to gloat over the fact that I can go through the day without food. I’m not an ascetic, I eat a lot, especially at night, and I love love love food. But I think it’s important to see what’s going on with each of our own selves in the realm of hunger, satiety, productivity, focus, and overall effectiveness and quality of life.

If we can master the knowledge of our needs and our natural ebbs and flows of energy, we can position ourselves to be effective at the time we are needed and rest ourselves when we are not. We can consume our resources when they are most effective to our minds and bodies, and we can set them aside when they’ll have little to do with the outcomes of life.

I speak to the short and long term for myself in terms of food and eating. On a short term, day to day basis, I’ve reduced my eating to twice a day. I have butter coffee in the morning, and a large dinner at night. As for the long term, I’ve been living with this eating schedule for the past four years without any sign of energy deficit, malnutrition, or chronic illness.

The only significant break from this has been my three and half month long travel this year. There have been differences while I was overseas and backpacking. I’ll get more into this in another post. I want to focus on long term pattern and effects here.

People have asked me if I don’t get stomach problems from eating so much at night. In fact, I’ve never felt better since having fats in the morning and eating all of my food at night. My stool is regular, my energy is regular and full, and my body is well-toned and responsive. As long as I follow this well-fitted pattern of eating and nutrition.

The truth is, I’ve always had digestive issues. Since I was a teenager, I’ve had bad gas and upset stomach much of the time. I remember so many nights out with friends, during deep talks, where I was just dying from the struggle to hold in my farts.

Looking back, and with my present knowledge and experience, most of this had to do with what I ate. So much wheat in the form of bread, pasta, and sweets, bad fats, and milk were among the culprits. I had energy when I did, and I forced energy when I had none. I was often exhausted at night and in the morning.

This unnatural living created a deficit that continues to suck energy from me today. I’ve found the gaping holes and leaks and stopped the flooding, but I’m still getting leaks of energy here and there. Enough with the analogy.

At thirty years, I’m at a sort of turning point. I know what’s good for me. I’ve discovered it. During my mid to late twenties, I went to all ends to capitalize on it. I did everything I could, within my means, to make myself better. I had to with the circumstances I was in, but I also wanted to.

Now I’m at the tail end of this stage of awe at what has been discovered. Many, many other people, including you, have also found out that we’ve been in a matrix version of the truth about nutrition and eating. And you’ve also come to navigate your way through the webs of lies spun around us. Something was not working but everyone was trying to ignore the skips in the beat. The glitches.

The thing about our world, as opposed to that of the Matrix, is that even though we’ve been out in the cold, hard reality, and have found how to light the fire and thrive, the webs continue to spin around us. Just go to the nearest “health foods” or “farmer’s market” store and see how many gluten-free and paleo products line the shelves. They’ve simply taken the spotlight from cereals, which are still the next aisle over, and they’ve become the new idea of healthy eating.

The matrix of this world continues to expand. We’ve definitely torn away the webs at the fringes and made our way out, but it’s more like Harry Potter’s Triwizard Tournament hedge maze. It keeps growing, changing directions, and trying to engulf us.

What to do? Remember that the prize lies within you. I have to keep the focus on me. I have to remember, day to day, and year to year, that the ultimate goal with eating, food, and wellness is my own self. The closer I can get to fulfilling the center of me, the further I stay from the web of the food matrix.

Yes, there is truly good stuff out there. You can find good food. Clean veggies. Happy meat. People who give a damn, who want you to share in the wellness of their products. People who do the high level research to find more of the truth to share with us.

We’ll find it, we’ll invest in it, it will grow, and truth and goodness and thriving will overcome the lies and suffering. We’ll keep guiding each other, and the universe will fill in the gaps.

The key is to stay true to yourself. Seriously, that’s all.

Live powerfully, eat powerfully,

Steve

P.S., a big thanks to my friend for coming out and sharing deep thoughts. If you read this, you know who you are.

The Brilliant Beast Blog Daily

How To Keep Butter Coffee Hot

The best butter coffee is hot, creamy, and well blended.

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To make it hot, you have to blend it when hot. Hot coffee will emulsify better with butter. So it has to be steaming from start to finish. It just won’t turn out well if the coffee cools down by the time you blend in the butter. The key is timing.

I had the chance to cruise up to San Francisco the other day. Sun was shining, the air was crisp, and Gary Vaynerchuk was hammering home some life lessons through the speakers. Best of all, the butter coffee we sipped was creamy, hot, and reviving.

Way back, my first few tries at butter coffee didn’t turn out so well. I was adding all of my ingredients after I brewed the coffee. I had to cut butter, scoop powders, and measure out the MCT oil. Sometimes I would forget the night before to take out a new stick of butter from the freezer to defrost. That meant I had to wait for it to soften up enough to cut.

By the time I was ready to blend, the coffee had cooled quite a bit. I didn’t get nice and hot, smooth butter coffee. It became a lava lamp after a few minutes. Not tasty.

Eventually, I turned the process around. I got all the ingredients into the blender before brewing the coffee. Even better, I took care of the ingredients while the water was boiling. It made all the difference.

When I was done putting in the chocolate powder, vanilla bean, MCT oil, and grass fed butter, the water was hot and ready for brewing. And once the coffee was brewed, I got straight to the blending. It came out steaming, foamy, and satisfying every time.

Pour Over

I use a Hario dripper for pour over brewing. I set the filter cup on top of the opening in my blender lid, so the coffee drips down right into the ingredients. It’s a good way to melt and dissolve everything too. You can go through these detailed steps on brewing butter coffee.

French Press

Using the French press is a little trickier. If it takes a while for you to add all your ingredients, you may want to heat water and brew at the after it’s all ready. I found it was possible to start the water, start adding the ingredients, and then add the hot water to the French press when it was boiled. The last four to five minutes of brewing time were enough to finish up the ingredients.

Coffee Maker

If you’re using a coffee maker, it’s still better to get the ingredients into the blender while it’s brewing. You’ll have enough time before the coffee’s ready, and then pour the brewed coffee into the ingredients to blend.

Whichever way, figure out how to keep your process hot and concise. Cruise through your city with nothing but the best, creamiest, most satisfying butter coffee in your mug. Let me know if you try one of these or another method, and how it goes.

Live powerfully,

Steve

The Brilliant Beast Blog Daily

How Earthing Balances Immune Response

I love earthing. It calms me down and helps me recover from exercise, infection, and anxiety. Here’s a scientific stance on earthing as it relates to inflammation. Read this great research paper for the nitty gritty.

Our bodies respond to exercise, infection, or injury damage by immune response. The immune response sends oxidative bursts that clear damaged tissue at the site of injury. This makes room for building healthy tissue. Think muscles getting bigger after training. Or you feeling amazing after all the coughing, sneezing, green yellow snot, and fevers from an infection. There’s a breakdown, then a buildup. Same response, different concentrations.

It’s called “oxidative burst” because agents are produced that have reactive oxygen molecules. The molecules have open-ended electrons that react with other molecules that make up the cells in our bodies. A common one made by our immune systems is superoxide. Contact with these molecules is called oxidation, and it leads to cell death. That’s why you don’t want to eat “oxidized fats”. They’re damaged by oxygen in the air, UV, and overcooking. The damaged fat’s free radicals will react with your body if you eat them.

The problem with the oxidative burst cell clearing process is that it affects surrounding healthy tissue. Oxidative bursts are not sniper shots. They are more like shotgun sprays in the general area. So what should have been protection for a tiny cut can become a whole swollen limb, if your immune system is not held in check. You’ll see what I mean in a moment.

Now for the experiment from the research paper. A group of people were subjected to soreness from calf raises. They were divided into earthed and non-earthed groups for the recovery period. Half of the subjects were given earthing mats and patches on their calves, and the other half were given placebo treatment. According to this research, swelling and muscle pain lasted longer for those who were not grounded. The subjects who were grounded experienced quicker resolution of swelling and pain. They also saw quicker white blood cell clearing from the repair areas. The ungrounded subjects had white blood cells lingering much longer.

So what’s the connection? Grounded means Earthed. Earthed means connected by bare skin to the surface of the Earth. The studies conducted regarding tissue inflammation and Earthing used grounding mats (example). These are semi conductive mats or patches that are attached to a person’s skin and plugged into the ground. The electrical connection to the ground brings the person to about the same voltage as the Earth.

That’s because they are connected to the earth’s electron supply. And electrons are antioxidants. Antioxidants diffuse oxidation within tissue. Remember that an oxidized molecule has a free electron, or free radical that makes it harmful. So a free electron from the earth or a donated one from vitamin C can stabilize the oxidant and stop the killing process.

So when you’re hurt, your body sends the immune response. White blood cells go there, and start clearing out dead tissue or killing off pathogens with free radicals like superoxide. The oxidative products from this cause inflammation at and around the injury. If you’re earthed, the balance comes from free electrons from the earth. They quickly subdue the killing, swelling, and pain. It’s nature’s balance.

If you’re making contact with the ground, an unlimited supply of free electrons from the earth are passing into your body. They are stored throughout your tissue and can eventually be used at the site of an injury, to resolve an inflammatory immune response.

If you’re not grounded, you don’t get that influx of electrons. Sure, there are antioxidants from foods and chemicals like bilirubin and vitamin C. But these are limited supplies, especially if we are not feeding ourselves with antioxidant-rich foods. Not only are we not eating enough nutritious foods, we are also eating oxidized fats and keeping the balance tipped toward inflammation.

When earthing, think electrically. Anything that doesn’t conduct electricity between you and the ground blocks that flow of free electrons. Rubber, wood, plastic, floor finish, glass, you name it. Dirt, grass, water, wet sand, and even concrete, with water molecules throughout it’s structure, are conductors and semiconductors that will allow earth’s electrons to flow into you. You don’t need much. Our bodies are hyper sensitive to electricity. The minuscule flow of electrons from the ground is enough to help us.

Without free and mobile electrons from the earth, inflammation lasts longer than it needs to. Swelling gets bigger than necessary. And sometimes, even if the initial hurt subsides, the inflammation never really goes away. Not only are we experiencing inflammation from injury, exercise, and infection, we are also getting it from environmental toxins and the food we eat.

The key is to keep the balance tipped in favor of quick healing and minimal inflammation. Earthing will keep your supply of electrons full and push you toward thriving.

Live powerfully,

Steve

Deep Sleep Dashes Sickness

I was sick and tired of being sick and tired.

It had been five days since returning from a three month trip. We were living in a time zone 16 hours ahead of California. I was jet lagged with a runny nose, sore throat, sinus pressure, cough, and body aches. Vitamin C megadosing, sun bathing, and earthing were only scratching the surface. I just wasn’t getting enough sleep.

I don’t know why I didn’t think about it sooner, but yesterday it occurred to me that I should wear ear plugs to bed. Normal neighborhood and house noises, however subtle, were waking me up earlier than I wanted. So I plugged up and covered my eyes from light. I also kept a small fan on to keep the temperature down. The summer heat was adding to this sleep deprivation.

With these simple little hacks, it was cool, dark, and quiet at night.

And damn, but I slept like a log. I woke up like a dragon from it’s thousand year slumber. I swept the blanket aside like it was piles of gold being hurled aside by the dragon’s monstrous, scaly tail. I breathed deep, loving the air as much as the reptilian beast would after such an abysmal sensory absence. Seeing the sunlight filtering through the window, I was the dragon emerging from his cave. I flexed and stretched my fresh limbs, feeling blood surge through my tissues.

The achiness was gone. My nose was no longer runny. The sinus pressure was minimized. There was just the slightest sense of head cold left. I was coughing up green phlegm, which is a good sign for me. Still rusty, but I’m on the downhill side of recovery now.

As I stretched out in the sun, I felt better and better. Sleep, I thought again as I have many times in the past, is such an effective tool for human wellness. A UPenn study showed that flies who slept more recovered and survived longer than their brethren who didn’t sleep as much. Sleep triggered the gene pathway NFkB in flies.

NFkB regulates immune response, in addition to DNA transcription and cell survival. Other studies showed that problems with this gene activation were linked to cancer, inflammation and autoimmune disease, and uncontrolled infection.

Sleep, then, as the trigger for this gene expression, has a lot to do with recovery from illness.

Once again, I can attest to this. One night of good sleep dashed away the effects of jet lag, body aches, and misery. I’m betting that one more night will do away with the rest of this pesky cold. Of course, I’m going to keep up the vitamin C dosage, sun time, and everything else.

One hint to getting good sleep if you just can’t: try staying up instead of napping. A bit of sleep deprivation can help with prolonging sleep later and increasing stimulation of NFkB, as the fly researchers found.

Live powerfully,

Steve

The Brilliant Beast Blog Daily

The Taipei Ninja

Visiting Taipei was a wonderful end to our first escapade into travel. We got there in the afternoon, bused over to the city, and explored the main train station. On the ride there, I realized that Taiwan was a tropical island in climate and culture.

The mountains along the road are furnished with the lushest of green trees, the air is moist and exciting, and the people are watercolored with that sense of ease that only comes from being surrounded by the environment of the sea and forest.

The main station is gargantuan. It goes down several floors as an underground mall, and the central hall towers several stories above street level. Windows up the height of this building let natural light pour down onto hundreds of youngsters, families, and travelers lounging on the expansive checkered floor below.

As we approached this hall, something caught my eye from across the atrium. A shadow slowly descended from the ceiling. Just as I made realized it was a man in black, struggling with rope attached to a harness, he suddenly swung himself head first. Not even a moment after this startling flip, he plunged. I gasped.

This strange, dark figure flew toward the floor. The velocity was constant until he halted, face a few feet from the ground. The man flipped right side up, feet meeting the floor, unhooked and disappeared into the crowd.

As I collected my jaw from the marble floor, I searched the crowd for this guy. My wife and I rushed toward the scene, but couldn’t find him anywhere. There was a section squared off with orange cones where he had landed. By the time we got there, everyone had dispersed and the man was nowhere to be seen.

Following the black nylon rope up with my eyes, I saw that it came from a section of the wall that was opened up near the ceiling. I didn’t have time to figure out the circumstances of this strange performance.

When you see something different like that, done boldly, it causes discomfort and awe and questioning. It reorients your perspective and acclimates you to things outside the norm.

I would never have thought someone would rappel down from the top of a train station. But now it’s possible and I think, what a great use for all that space up there!

Whatever new or unconventional thing it is that you’re discovering for your wellness, just remember that there’s always a first. It’s either going to be you or someone else.

I was one of the first people in my former workplace to drink butter coffee. At first I was shy about it. I thought people would think I was dangerous and weird. So I drank it in a covered mug so no one would see. Eventually I was so convicted with the results that I started telling people closest to me.

A few years later, it was so common that there was often Kerrygold butter in the office fridge. Someone had even brought a Magic Bullet blender, and I learned that there were occasional butter coffee making sessions.

Be different and be bold.

Live powerfully,

Steve

 

 

 

Jet Lag Recovery

I am tired.

We flew in from Taipei last night. It was a full day of plane rides, bus station exploration, hot spring bathing, and more plane riding. I’m fatigued, jet lagged, and sore throated.

I stayed up for most of the overnight flight. In Pacific time, it was morning when we took off. But since it was 11:30 p.m. in Taipei, I had to pull two full days of wakefulness. Even with the exhaustion, sleep didn’t last too long last night. I meditated and had magnesium before bed, which helped. But I woke up around 5:30 a.m.

Although I was tired, I didn’t want to struggle back to sleep to wake up late in the afternoon. So I stayed up and slowly awoke. I made butter coffee with a blender for the first time in weeks. I was also able to add cacao butter and vanilla powder, two ingredients I sorely missed during travel. The resulting concoction was heavenly.

My game plan is to take vitamin C throughout the day, stay up until bed time, exercise, and take a good dose of magnesium at night. The C is going to help with my throat and also with my general well being. After all that traveling, with sweets on the plane, and lack of sleep, my body really needs the extra antioxidant boost. Now that I’m home, I have my powder form of vitamin C. Just mix into a glass of water. It’s my favorite way to take it.

Earthing is also key to recovery from jet lag. I got outside as soon as I woke and spent some time with the dogs, barefoot on the concrete. Later in the afternoon, I had a barefoot squat session. Reconnecting with the Earth’s electromagnetic field is essential to healing. Getting good sun time also feels magnificent.

I can’t wait to get up refreshed tomorrow morning.

Live powerfully,

Steve

The Brilliant Beast Blog Daily

Keep On Going

Why is it that making a change for ourselves has to involve everyone else we know and love?

Because what you do, I care about because it affects you. What I do, you care about because it affects me. And we all have ideas about what is good and what is bad for us. And we don’t want each other to be hurt.

So when we try to do something new for ourselves, especially in terms of health or wellness, we get a lot of resistance. It hasn’t been tried much. Media hasn’t caught on fire with it. Doctors wouldn’t approve of it. Or just don’t know about it. So naturally, our loved ones are going to question, bug, and all out resist what we try.

Sometimes, the clash ends well. We reach agreements, understanding, and most importantly, we see positive results. And the new stuff becomes commonplace, and we all return to eating egg yolks.

Sometimes, it’s not going to end well. We are just too deeply rooted in something. We’ve been told for so long one way, and we can’t begin to accept the other way. And we end up divided, some eating breakfast as the most important meal of the day, and others skipping it. Hopefully, everyone still sits together at the table to talk.

I’ve experienced both ends of the spectrum. And sometimes, I make compromises. One of the most effective diet changes I’ve made was to eliminate wheat for six months. Depression, mood swings, and joint aches all just vanished. I treated bread and pasta like rat poison. This caused surprise, anger, arguments, silent treatments, awkward situations, and all sorts of emotional turmoil for me, my family, my friends, and even my coworkers.

I spent hours thinking of what to cook, how to cook it, and how to pack food for lunch at work. Lunch with my boss and coworkers became less frequent, and lunchtime became a solitary ordeal. Visiting family often involved heated talks about food. It took a lot of work, a lot of effort, some pain, and tons of thinking to make a wheat-free diet happen. And the results were priceless. Just from that strict period of avoiding wheat, my mind, my body, my life changed for the better.

I still eat bread and desserts once in a while, knowing it’s gonna hurt. And it does. I know my limits. In the long game, I know where I’m headed. And I have to avoid wheat for my wellness. But it’s my decision moment by moment, even after the struggles I overcame. So I move forward.

Here’s the thing. Change comes when you try something new. Or when someone else does. And then, a dialogue opens. One person expresses interest, disgust, excitement about what the other is doing. And from there, it can be a long road to mutual understanding. For that to happen, you’ve got to be willing to share. What are you doing, why, and how.

Sharing means to open yourself up to critique. People get the chance to say things about what you’re doing. And you might feel vulnerable. But it’s the catalyst for change. And if you really believe in what you’re doing, because it’s changed your life, or it’s brought real benefits, or it’s made you a better person, remember the utmost important thing.

To keep on going.

Live powerfully,

Steve

What We’re Doing

Brilliant Friends,

I just wanted you to know, last Saturday I wrote my 100th newsletter to you. When I started these letters, I wanted it to be a way to teach powerlifting and strength training in a simple way. I wanted to share with you how I got strong and mobile. And I wanted to share secrets about nutrition that shouldn’t be hidden. But my newsletter turned into something else.

It became more, because to be honest with myself, I had to write about the other things I’ve been exploring. More than strength, I was looking into mind cultivation. I wanted to become more deeply in sync with myself. I wanted to control my negative emotions, and downward spiral thinking. I was stressed out at work, I worked harder, and I tried to make things better by fixing things.

But I realized I had to stop and dig down within myself. I needed to recover on a daily basis. I needed to heal my mind. This led to meditation and heart rate variability (HRV) practices. I learn from Pema Chodron and Tara Brach.

Much of my exploration into meditating happened at a park near my home. I loved being outside on the grass, with trees all around, and birds singing from those trees. The sun gave me a kind of energy I had forgotten about since childhood. I had already known about earthing, but spending time regularly outside, barefoot, etched the benefits in stone for me.

My goal is to make known some of the basic things about human well-being that, as a race, we’ve forgotten. I want to reconnect us to the earth and bring us into a real understanding of our relationship to this planet and the universe. In addition to spending time outside barefoot, I believe earthing mats are part of the answer.

We’ve let our bodies become twisted and gnarled in pain, immobility, and incapability through sitting. Sitting in classroom and office chairs, sitting in cars, sitting on couches. That’s not how our bodies are designed to exist. I see Kelly Starrett as one of the leaders of the physiological revolution.

Food was engineered and production amplified to feed the exponentially growing population of the world. And it worked. And now we need to get the quality of food back. We just are not getting nutrients that we need. We aren’t eating the right stuff. We need to look for the good stuff. We need tons more green leafy veggies and fat and meat from animals that are raised right. We need food that is free of herbicides, pesticides, and antibiotics. There are countless leaders bringing us solutions today. Look at Terry Wahls, William Davis, Mark Sisson, and Dr. Mercola.

Life is great, and keeps getting better in many ways. But these are some fundamental things that we’ve left behind in the search for higher answers.

The more we try and the more we explore, the more we’ll be what we were meant to be. I believe we’re inclined to be good when we’re well nourished, rested, and finely tuned in every way. We’ve restricted ourselves as a race to reach specific goals. Now that humans have reached those goals, it’s time to take care of ourselves again. There’s a lot to reverse. Just take a look at epigenetics to see that the lives of our ancestors are written into us.

What I find I share with you, and it gives me satisfaction to write to you. You’ve intentionally signed up for my newsletter. You search, dig, read, and act to make life good. If my letter resonates with someone else you know, please forward it. You never know how far they may go with it. There’s a lot to work on with ourselves, but you’ll find that the more you tell people about things, the better you understand them.

So connect with the ground, eat well, get strong and get mobile, and cultivate your mind. When you find what is good within you, let it thrive. Simply doing good is the easiest way to share it with the world.

Thanks for being with me.

Live powerfully,

Steve

The Brilliant Beast Blog Daily

Your Share of the Sun

The beast didn’t have exact measures. But he thought it was true that there was an optimal amount of sun exposure each day. He knew there was a certain time of day that the sun radiated good feelings through him.

There were also times of the day when it merely burned him and didn’t give him warm energy. He knew he did not feel well if he were not in the sunlight for more than a day. So the beast tried to go out into the sun, at least once a day, in the late morning and early afternoon.

When he first paid attention, and sat in the sunlight as it glowed down on him in the late morning, it felt amazing. He became vibrant and happy. It was so good he did this again the next day, and the next, and the next.

One day, the beast wanted to have as much sunlight as possible. He stayed outside in the bright day a very long time. At first he felt wonderful, just like the days before. The grass was green, the breeze tickled the trees around him, and the birds chortled with glee. The sun filled the beast with joy. But he became greedy and wanted more. He sat, and sat, and sat. Then he felt dizzy and weak, as though the sun were leeching energy from him. He knew it was time to go home to his cave.

The next day, as the beast washed himself, he noticed that his skin had darkened more than usual. In some places, it looked dry and wrinkled, like aged leather. It was soft, but no longer firm and strong. His skin was hurt, and he was humbled. He was astonished by the power of the sun. It brought him life, but it also ushered in death.

So there was a balance. Sunlight was good. And it was very good in the late morning and early afternoon. It made him calm and happy. He slept deeply at night and woke bright and energized. But meetings with the sun were only good for him if he respected the power of the sun. It was important that he retreat with his gift before he paid the price of overindulgence. He thought about this at length and decided it was worth the risk of death to seek life from the sun.

The beast made a daily effort to make his appointment with the sun. He went out into the daylight, receiving his share of the life giving force shining down on the earth. He walked amongst the trees, flowers, and grass that also received their share. He paid close attention to see when it was time to retreat. Some days he could take much, and other days he could not. He learned that when he was tired, he could not have as much. But it was fine. When he was well rested, he could have more. Soon, it all began to make sense.

He encouraged other humans to take part in this powerful thing. Many of his kind had shied away from it, afraid of the death it could bring. Humans were intelligent beasts, and had wanted to separate themselves from the rest of the world, and from each other. They learned that many things brought death, forgetting that those same things, taken humbly, gave life. So humans restricted themselves from the earth and from the universe. They thought that they could become immortal by doing so.

They covered themselves in pastes that shielded them from the sun’s magic. Their intelligence often outweighed their instinct. But in hiding from death, they had forsaken life. So the beast kept telling them of the wonders of the sun.

Slowly, humans learned to cast away their fears and let the sun touch their bare skin. They came to experience the joy of the sun. People were all different, and so were their needs for this source of energy. Some beasts found that a small amount of time in the sun was ample. Others found they needed to be in the sun longer. Each had her own share and learned to take humbly.

Those that learned to see themselves as part of a world from which they could not part in mind nor body learned to dig deeper into the earth and the universe. They became even greater. Their energy surpassed those of beasts who chose to remain separate, because their energy incorporated that of the universe. With that energy and love they chose to encourage the rest of their kind to embrace life.

And with time, every brilliant beast shared in the same sun and vibrated with the energy of the universe.

The Brilliant Beast Blog Daily

The Perfect Boiled Egg

Is not boiled. It’s steamed, actually.

Plenty of egg yolks make you healthy and happy. But only if they’re done right. Overcook them, to where they get dried and powdery, and you get the opposite. Inflammation and unhappiness.

The surest way to get the right yolk is steaming. You need a steamer basket for the best results, from my experience. Put the basket in the smallest pot that will fit it. Fill the pot with water up to the bottom of the steamer basket. Cover and turn the heat on high, leaving the eggs out.

When it starts to boil, which you can tell by the steam coming out, get your eggs ready near the pot. Open the lid and gently place the eggs onto the steamer basket. It’s gonna be hot in there, so use a spoon or something to place the eggs. If you’re quick you can just nimbly place with your hands, but beware of burning yourself. Do this all very quickly, within a few seconds. Steam cooks fast and you’ll get different yolks if you take too long.

Cover and start a timer for seven minutes. As soon as the timer goes off, turn off the heat and remove the pot from the stove. Fill it with cold water up to the top, pour out, and fill again with cold water. The eggs will not crack. Leave the eggs in the water to cool. You can take the steamer out if you want. Watch out because it can be very hot still.

Don’t freak out about the cooling part. As long as you turn off the stove right away, you can delay the draining and cooling part. It wont make a huge difference. The key is keeping the eggs out of the boiling water, and timing the steam.

To peel, start with the fatter end. Gently smash where the air pocket is, and start to peel from there. Enjoy with lots of sea salt.

Live powerfully,

Steve

Fatten up your nutritional knowledge.

The nutrients in egg yolks and why cholesterol is good for you.

Reasons to stop avoiding salt, and why we should eat natural salt.

Saturated fat doesn’t cause heart disease and it’s good for you.

NL 102 Perfect Egg Yolk The Brilliant Beast Blog.jpg

The Brilliant Beast Blog Daily