Aren’t you tired to compete with your male coworkers, just to show your boss you are equally ‘good’? Well, this is not what it means to be a strong woman. As someone who has been often called ‘strong as a man’, I have felt the pressure of gender competition my entire life. However, such pressure and competition should not exist in the first place.
Indeed, whilst men and women share many qualities and deserve the same rights, they also differ largely in nature and genetics. Most importantly, men’s internal clocks are designed to work within a daily circadian rhythm, while women have a 28-day cyclical internal clock. For this reason, comparing men and women’s performances on a daily basis is a mistake; on the other hand, a monthly comparison would be a much fairer option.
Even more than this, if women neglect their cyclical nature – and strive to compare themselves with men all month long – they will end up renouncing their biggest strength. But what does it mean, therefore, to be a strong woman? To answer this question, we will have to provide a new, holistic, definition of ‘strength’. And to do so, we will have to go through some brief genealogy of modern masculinity and femininity.
What does it mean to be ‘strong’?
What defines ‘strong’?
When you look up ‘strong’ on Google dictionary, here are the definitions that come up:
‘having the power to move heavy weights or perform other physically demanding tasks’;
‘able to withstand force, pressure, or wear’ (italics added).
As it emerges clearly, physicality is the main characteristic of strength. But is it the only one?
Can we redefine ‘strong’?
For as much as I dislike using the word ‘patriarchy’ and adhering to an exclusively feminist narrative, I don’t know of any better ways to put it: history has been written by men. And both our grammar and thinking pay the consequences of it. However, masculinity itself has been scrutinised and challenged over the past 30 years, and this process has had a relevant impact on the notion of ‘strength’.
In the early 90’s, American post-Jungian poet Robert Elwood Bly (Bly 1990), analyst Robert Moore and mythologist Douglas Gillette (Moore & Gillette 1990), became the main advocates of the so-called ‘mythopoetic men’s movement‘. The objective of the movement was to challenge the traditional notion of ‘masculinity’, all centred on physicality and violence. By so doing, men would be enabled to reconnect with forgotten qualities, such as wisdom and care, and reclaim their so-called ‘mature’ masculinity.
At the same time, new definitions of femininity also made their appearance in the 90’s (most notably thanks to Clarissa Pinkola Estés), claiming the same rights: a more comprehensive, less stereotypical idea of femininity. Both notions of masculinity and femininity initiated a new debate on strength: can strength be more than just physically strong?
Albeit relevant to both men and women, a new definition of ‘strength’ will mostly benefit women, as we shall see in a bit.
What makes a woman ‘strong’?
What Makes a Woman ‘Strong’, Then?
Let’s go back to the cyclical nature of women
As already pointed out, women’s physical, mental, emotional and social strengths vary over the course of their menstrual cycle. Here is exactly how:
Menstrual Phase (Inner Winter). In this phase, basal body temperature (BBT) and physical energy are low, whilst introspection, long-term planning and emotional connection are highest;
Follicular Phase (Inner Spring). BBT is still low, however, due to increased physical and mental energy, women can excel at medium-term planning, marketing skills, physical strength and skill practice;
Ovulatory Phase (Inner Summer). BBT is now high, and energy is peaking. Women have the highest physical energy, social skills, short-term planning, physical, mental and emotional endurance;
Luteal Phase (Inner Autumn). BBT is very high, however, physical energy and social skills are running low. In this phase, women have high emotional connection and care ability, and highest organisational skills (e.g. decluttering, reviewing and revising, etc.).
How different phases of the menstrual cycle affect different energies: emotional strength, mental strength, physical strength, social strength
Different ‘strengths’ across the month
When we replace the old definition of ‘strength’ with a new one that includes mental, emotional and social components, women can be ‘strong’ all month long. In fact, women can be physically and mentally strong around follicular and ovulatory phases; they can connect emotionally with themselves in the menstrual phase, and with others in the luteal phase; they can perform challenging social tasks (like closing deals, meetings and trips) around ovulation time; and they are best suited to review, revise and declutter in the luteal phase.
To Conclude
Strong men and strong women
Whilst both men and women’s hormones fluctuate over the month, hormonal fluctuations affect women in much greater measure than men. By virtue of this, a woman’s ‘strength’ shifts continuously from physical to mental, through emotional and social. Therefore, a ‘strong’ woman is a woman who is:
connected with her emotions in the menstrual phase;
engaged in goal-setting and planning, as well as in physical strength and skill practice, in the follicular phase;
wiling to give her best physically, mentally and socially in the ovulatory phase;
able to connect with, and take care of others in the luteal phase.
Interested in learning more?
Do you want to learn more about how your hormones affect your performance, and how you can organise your monthly schedule to work with your cycle? Would you like to know what foods to eat and what workouts to do in each phase, to be your strongest self all month long? Do you need recipe ideas to support your hormones? Do you want to get rid of cramps and migraines for good?
Join my Masterclass here and learn to work ‘with the flow’, not against it. Looking forward to seeing you there!
Book your FREE consultation today and balance your hormones in 12 weeks!
Remember: my biggest mission is to help you build your strongest body, sharpest mind and most connected Self.
If you need an extra boost to feel strong all month long, support your energy with ActiveIron: the only clinically-proven iron supplement on the market. It has 2x better absorption rate than other OTC supplements, and causes 6x less gut irritation. Get 10% with the code ‘GAIA10’. Just make sure you speak with your GP first.
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And thanks for supporting me on my journey: your presence means the world to me! A new podcast is also coming soon: stay tuned!
By the way, if you want to learn all about women’s hormone health, follow my new Instagram. I post daily and look forward to seeing you there. Moreover, I am going to give away free coaching sessions soon: you don’t want to miss the chance. But make sure you follow my old account, too, for daily fitness contents.
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Why is Beef Bone Broth so Popular? 3 Benefits You Might Not Know About.
Everyone praises the benefits of bone broth, but only a few really know why. Here are the 3 main benefits you can get from beef bone broth.
Firstly, beef bone broth is the richest and most bioavailable source of collagen. Collagen is the most abundant protein in the human body. It is present literally everywhere, but particularly in structures (bones, teeth, joints, organs, skin, hair, nails). There exist about 28 classified types of collagen, the most important ones being type I (present in skin, tendons, blood vessels, organs, bones) and type II (mostly present in cartilage). However assuming adequate amounts of type I collagen enables production of type II, too. Beef bone broth is an excellent source of both type I and type II collagen.
Secondly, the predominant amino acid in collagen is glycine. Assuming enough glycine is essential to counterbalance the excess methionine, which a diet too high in muscle meat, fish and eggs can cause. While methionine is essential to protect us from fatty liver disease and to prevent anxiety and depression, glycine stabilises blood sugar levels, and helps our mind stay focused. However, consuming too much methionine can deplete our glycine stores, making us more at risk of type II diabetes and metabolic syndrome.
Lastly, beef bone broth is also high in glutamic acid, which the body can utilise to manufacturel-glutamine. L-glutamine is shown to preserve the gut barrier function, and to prevent gut permeability. Evidence suggests that, due to its properties, l-glutamine can not only repair leaky gut, but also prevent IBD and IBS. It is important to notice, however, that IBS has been correlated with gut dysbiosis, too. So bone broth alone might not be enough for you to heal.
Easy Recipe
Ingredients
Beef Bones or a Chicken Carcass
1 Large Carrot (peeled and halved)
1 Onion (peeled and halved)
1 Stalk Celery (optional)
1 inch Ginger Root (optional)
1 tsp ACV
1l Filtered Water
Method
If you are using beef bones, roast the bones in the oven at 250°C for about 10 minutes on each side. If you are using a chicken carcass, skip this passage.
In a large pot, Crockpot, or slow cooker, place bones, carrot, onion, celery, ginger, ACV, and water. Cover with a lid and slow cook for at least 24 hours.
Once ready and cooled, broth can be poured in airtight containers or mason jars, and stored in the fridge for up to 1 week. Sprinkle with salt and lemon juice prior to serving. Enjoy!
What If Making your Own Batch is Time Consuming?
As making our own beef bone broth every week can be time consuming, keeping a jar or two of beef bone broth concentrate comes in handy. Two brands I would recommend are: Australian Bone Broth Co, and Best Bone Broth.
What If You Don’t Like the Taste?
A delicious alternative to beef bone broth is collagen powder. Even though I would never encourage to replace whole foods with supplements, collagen powder is a great tool, if you feel like getting creative with ʻhealthy recipesʼ. Indeed, flavoured collagen powder can be used in a variety of desserts and other treats, making them delicious and healthy at the same time. My favourite flavour is vanilla, and my favourite brand is Bulk Powders (or use this link to get 35% off your first order).
If you need inspiration on how to incorporate more collagen powder into your diet on a daily basis, in my ebook Nourish Your Body Realise Your Self, you will find 15 treat and dessert recipes with collagen powder.
Also, don’t forget to check out my YouTube channel for more recipe ideas.
I first started questioning the role of fibre in my diet when I was diagnosed with IBS for the first time in 2009
Back then, I was told to cut back on leafy greens, pasta, bread and gluten containing grains. I recall experiencing significant benefits within less than one week. However, due to my lifestyle at the time, I slowly reintroduced most of those foods back into my life as soon as all my symptoms went away.
When my IBS reached its apex in 2018, however, I was put on a strict low FODMAP diet by my GP, which excluded way more food groups than those listed above. After cautiously testing which ones I could reintroduce back into my diet without triggering IBS symptoms, I realised that there were still a whole lot of foods, which I would never eat in my life again, if not on very special occasions (e.g. most grains, alcohol, cherries, watermelon, apricots, mushrooms, just to name a few).
Despite what the mainstream culture seemed to promote, I found out I was better off without fibre, or with just a minimum amount of it.
What is fibre?
Technically, fibre is a subspecies of carbohydrates. Carbohydrates can be thought of as long and complex chains of simpler glucose molecules (made out of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen). Even though carbohydrates are non essential macronutrients (in fact, through a metabolic pathway known as ʻgluconeogenesisʼ, glucose molecules are manufactured in the liver from carbon substrates found in amino acids and lipids), paradoxically, they happen to be the bodyʼs preferred source of energy. Indeed, they appear to be the most accessible source of glucose, which is essential to run vital brain functions, as well as one of the muscle-skeletal energy systems.
Not all carbohydrates, however, are broken down by the body to produce energy, and here is where fibre comes into play: both soluble and insoluble fibre, along with resistant starch, present a molecular structure that our enzymes are unable to break down. The function of fibre, therefore, is not that of providing our body with energy.
Fibre can be soluble or insoluble:
Insoluble fibre (roughage) passes through our GI and its only function is to create stool volume.
Soluble fibre and resistant starch are fermented by gut bacteria and dissolved in water, forming a gel in the colon.
Both soluble and insoluble fibre have been popularised in recent years, due to their positive association with: colon cancer reduction; blood glucose reduction; LDL reduction (which might not be as a positive thing as you think, after all, but it would be off-topic now). However, all those positive associations should be rediscussed if you have a GI pathology.
Some literature
Even though fibre (without differentiating between soluble and insoluble) was said to be effective in a small group of Chinese population (33 constipated patients and 20 healthy individuals) who underwent a 4-week kiwi fruit treatment (On On Chan et al. 2007), a causation fibre-relief from constipation is still controversial. In particular, the benefits found in the consumption of a kiwi fruit twice a day could come from water, vitamins and minerals and not necessarily from the fibre itself. A meta analysis of the existing literature from 2012 showed that ʻfiber intake can obviously increase stool frequency in patients with constipation. It does not obviously improve stool consistency, treatment success, laxative use and painful defecationʼ (Yang et al. 2012).
Two studies are worth being mentioned in this regard:
An interventional study from 1997 (Voderholzer et al) investigated the role of dietary fibre in the treatment of chronic constipation. What was found was a positive outcome in patients with no GI issues, whereas no significant change was seen in the other group: ʻEighty percent of patients with slow transit and 63% of patients with a disorder of defecation did not respond to dietary fiber treatment, whereas 85% of patients without a pathological finding improved or became symptom freeʼ. So, they concluded ʻSlow GI transit and/or a disorder of defecation may explain a poor outcome of dietary fiber therapy in patients with chronic constipationʼ.
A more recent study from 2012 (Kok-Sun et al) investigated the role of fibre in idiopathic constipation and found no benefits in introducing fibre in the diet. In fact, ʻpatients who stopped or reduced dietary fiber had significant improvement in their symptoms while those who continued on a high fiber diet had no changeʼ. So, the authors conclude, ʻidiopathic constipation and its associated symptoms can be effectively reduced by stopping or even lowering the intake of dietary fiberʼ.
Further Reflections
Gut Dysbiosis
One more thing to be considered is the dysbiosis (microbial imbalance) characterising IBS sufferers and its relation to the efficacy of a low FODMAP diet: according to the most recent hypothesis on IBS, most of the symptoms appear to be triggered by an excess of bacteria in the colon, that can be overfed, when too many prebiotics are ingested, leading to an excess of fermentation, and, therefore, gas and pain (see Lyra and Lahtinen 2012, Collins 2014, Simrén 2014, Shukla et al. 2015, Putignani et a. 2016, Benno et al. 2016, Principi et al. 2018, ).
High FODMAP foods, by definition, are fermentable sugars: some of them (mono and disaccharides) are very small molecules, others are bigger polymers (e.g. polyols), others are long glucose polymers, known as polysaccharides. Fibre and starch are also polysaccharides, which makes it easy to understand why many fibrous or starchy foods also happen to be high FODMAP. However not all polysaccharides are highly fermentable, and nor are all other mono and disaccharides, which explains why some fibrous foods are still tolerated by IBS sufferers.
Soluble and Insoluble Fibre and IBS
Moreover, the tolerance level is individual and depends upon each individual’s unique microbiome. Consuming soluble fibre and resistant starch will obviously increase the chance of the bacteria being overfed, even within the recommended intake for average population.
Consuming insoluble fibre might also aggravate IBS symptoms. Indeed, due to the impaired fermentation in the colon, also the stool transit appears impaired: in so called ‘IBS-D’ (IBS-diarrhoea) sufferers, excess water is drawn and bowel movements are accelerated; by contrast, in so called ‘IBS-C’ (IBS-constipation) sufferers, bowel movements are slowed down. Ingesting a bulking, such as insoluble fibre, might potentially interfere with the transit, especially in the case of IBS-C sufferers, as happened in the populations of the constipation studies discussed above.
SIBO, IBD and Other Conditions
A similar discourse could surely be done in regard to SIBO (Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth), which differs from IBS in that the overgrowth appears to be localised predominantly in the small intestine (it is possible that someone with IBS is also affected by SIBO, whereas someone affected by SIBO might not experience IBS symptoms). In that case, fermentation might occur in the small intestine, at the stage of absorption and assimilation of nutrients, which would in turn be impaired even more by the excess of bacterial population.
Lastly, also IBD (Inflammatory Bowl Disease), an umbrella term describing Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis also appears to be characterised by dysbiosis (see Putignani et a. 2016) and therefore might be impaired by a diet high in fibre.
Conclusion
Including both soluble and insoluble fibre in the diet of a healthy individual, with no GI issues, is not only harmless but even beneficial. In the case of IBS, SIBO or IBD sufferers, however, an overconsumption of fibre might aggravate some of the symptoms.
These days we find ourselves surrounded with all kinds of diets and lifestyles, each of them advocating to be ‘the best one’ and/or ‘the most suitable for humans’. Even celebrities popularise certain diets or lifestyles, and other ‘gurus’ claim tons of scientific evidence behind what they promote. It’s important, instead, to understand that not every diet or lifestyle can be suitable for everyone.
To cut a long story short, before jumping into a fad diet, or before making any relevant dietary intervention, please, do your own research and seek professional help.
Benno, Peter; Dahlgren, Atti-La, Befrits, Ragnar, Norin, E., Hellström, P. M., & Midtvedt, T. 2016 . ‘From IBS to DBS: The Dysbiotic Bowel Syndrome’. . Journal of Investigative Medicine High Impact Case Reports. https://doi.org/10.1177/2324709616648458
Botschuijver, Sara; Guus Roeselers; Evgeni Levin; Daisy M.Jonkers; Olaf Welting; Sigrid E.M. Heinsbroek; Heleen H. de Weerd; Teun Boekhout; Matteo Fornai;Ad A.Masclee; Frank H.J. Schuren; Wouter J.de Jonge; Jurgen Seppen; René M.van den Wijngaard. 2017. ‘Intestinal Fungal Dysbiosis Is Associated With Visceral Hypersensitivity in Patients With Irritable Bowel Syndrome and Rats’. Gastroenterology 153(4): 1026-1039. https://doi.org/10.1053/j.gastro.2017.06.004
Collins, Stephen M. 2014. ‘A Role for the Gut Microbiota in IBS’. Nature Review Gastroenterology Hepatology 11: 497–505. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrgastro.2014.40
Lyra, Anna and Sampo Lahtinen. 2012. ‘Dysbiosis of the Intestinal Microbiota in IBS’. In Godfrey Lule (ed.). Current Concepts in Colonic Disorders. Rijeka (Croatia): InTech:261-276.
Yang, Jing; Hai-Peng Wang; Li Zhou; and Chun-Fang Xu. 2012. ʻEffect of dietary fiber on constipation: A meta analysisʼ. World Journal of Gastroenterology 18(48):7378–7383. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v18.i48.7378
Kok-Sun Ho; Charmaine You Mei Tan; Muhd Ashik Mohd Daud; and Francis Seow-Choen. 2012 ʻStopping or reducing dietary fiber intake reduces constipation and its associated symptomsʼ. World Journal of Gastroenterology 18(33):4593–4596. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v18.i33.4593
On On Chan, Annie; Gigi Leung; Teresa Tong; and Nina YH Wong. 2007. ʻIncreasing dietary fiber intake in terms of kiwifruit improves constipation in Chinese patientsʼ. World Journal of Gastroenterology 13(35):4771–4775. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v13.i35.4771
Principi, Nicola; Rita Cozzali; Edoardo Farinelli; Andrea Brusaferro; Susanna Esposito. 2018. ‘Gut dysbiosis and irritable bowel syndrome: The potential role of probiotics’. Journal of Infection 76(2): 111-120. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jinf.2017.12.013
Putignani, Lorenza; Federica Del Chierico; Pamela Vernocchi; Michele Cicala; Salvatore Cucchiara; Bruno Dallapiccola. 2016. ‘Gut Microbiota Dysbiosis as Risk and Premorbid Factors of IBD and IBS Along the Childhood–Adulthood Transition’. Inflammatory Bowel Diseases 22(2):487-504. https://doi.org/10.1097/MIB.0000000000000602
Shukla, Ratnakar; Ujjala Ghoshal; Tapan N. Dhole; Uday C. Ghoshal. 2015. ‘Fecal Microbiota in Patients with Irritable Bowel Syndrome Compared with Healthy Controls Using Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction: An Evidence of Dysbiosis’. Dig Dis Sci 60:2953–2962. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10620-015-3607-y
Voderholzer, Winfried A.; Schatke, Winfried; Mühldorfer, Birgit E.; Klauser, Andreas G.; Birkner, Berndt; Müller-Lissner, Stefan A. 1997. ʻClinical Response to Dietary Fiber Treatment of Chronic Constipationʼ. American Journal of Gastroenterology 92 (1):95-98
You’ve just committed to a low-carb diet and experienced the first benefits; you’re enthusiastically spreading the message to your friends and colleagues when you realise that your next business travel is scheduled next week. After all your hard work to get rid of your sugar cravings, you’re now fearing that your effort might have been in vain.
Don’t Panic!
Here’re some strategies that will help you stay on track when travelling.
Stock up on nuts and seeds. Make sure you have enough to snack on throughout your journey. To improve digestibility and nutrient absorption, don’t forget to soak them overnight and to either dehydrate them, or bake them at a low temperature prior to packing them (here’s a recipe idea). Once you’ve prepared your nuts and seeds, pack them into individual portions to keep in your bag or pocket: this will prevent you from overeating and will ensure that you’ve got enough for your whole journey.
Make sure you’ve got plenty of water. I know this tip sounds trivial, but sometimes it’s not so easy to have access to bottled water during a business trip. Keeping yourself hydrated is vital because not only does it ensure all of your electrolytes are being constantly replenished, but it also prevents you from feeling hungry when in fact you just need fluids. Dehydration is one of the most common triggers for snacking. And, guess what, when your body feels that hungry, the first thing it will go after are carbs!
Always start your lunch from protein. When you’re at the restaurant, make sure you consume your high-fat, protein-rich main (fatty steak, chicken or fish) before your side dish. This will prevent you from overeating carbs.
Go for low-carb side dishes. Try to choose spinach, green beans, carrots or mixed salad over potatoes, when possible, and avoid ordering rice or pasta. However, if you’re still hungry after your main and side dish, prefer potatoes over rice or pasta: even though they have a higher GL, they’re simpler for your body to break down and digest and are less inflammatory. ‘Lower carbs’ doesn’t always equal to ‘better choice’.
Choose fruit over cake. If everyone else is ordering a dessert and you can’t escape it (I’ve been there myself many, many times), then try to go for a fruit platter. It’s getting more and more common for restaurants to have fruit platter options — sometimes they even sell plain pineapple or strawberry bowls (you can add sugar free whipped cream too!). If the restaurant doesn’t have that option, however, always go for sorbet, ice cream or mousse over cakes: due to their ice and air content, they tend to contain less calories per volume of food and, in many cases, less sugar.
Avoid or restrict alcohol. I know a business trip can be regarded as a social event, however, alcohol consumption will undermine your weeks or months of progress. Can’t avoid alcohol at all? Well, go for a glass of red wine over white: red wine is slightly less toxic — especially Pinot Noir seems to contain the least tannins — ; it contains resveratrol, notably an antioxidant (although the way such antioxidant works is still stressful for the body and more research is needed to establish whether polyphenols can be really considered health friendly); white wines tend to have more added sugars. If you really want to have a glass of wine without feeling guilty, you can skip your dessert or potato side dish and have wine instead, or have half a serving of each.
To conlcude
If you’ve got enough nuts to snack on and enough water to feel hydrated, you won’t feel too hungry when you arrive at the restaurant. When you start your meal from a high fat, protein rich main, you’ll be less likely to crave high-carb side dishes. If you can’t give up your dessert, just choose fruit over cakes, and should you want to have a glass of wine, try to go for red over white. If you want to do this guilt-free, you can either skip dessert for wine, or maybe have half a serving of each. With these simple strategies, you should be able to go on your business trip, while staying on track with your low-carb nutrition plan, totally stress free. Enjoy your trip and make nice memories! You can have your carbs, and eat them too! 😉
In the Nietzsche Haus in Sils Maria (Engadin) is a collection of gadgets and various merchandising inspired by Nietzsche: among these, some energy bars stand out, upon which a stylised superman [Übermensch] is sketched out. There is a common tendency to implicitly connect Nietzscheʼs Übermensch with athleticism. Other concepts of Nietzscheʼs have been sometimes applied to the sports or other forms of physical activity –– for example, Nietzscheʼs idea of the ʻfree spiritʼ has been recently compared to football player Zlatan Ibrahimovic (Portier 2014). Moreover, Nietzscheʼs relationship to dance has been exhaustively analysed over the years (Müller 1995; Reschke 2000; Röller 2001). However, albeit widely acknowledged, Nietzscheʼs actual impact on fitness and bodybuilding is still to be explored.
In the essay ʻOrchids and Musclesʼ, Alphonso Lingis portrays bodybuilding very critically, in what could be arguably described as a negative way. This is his opinion on bodybuilding:
In the absence of a public cause before them and before us, the public mind can only rummage around for psychological causes producing these cases […]. One sees them narcissistically pumping themselves into ostentatious sex symbols –– but symbols that sexually liberated public recognizes as the obsolete figure of virile protector, who was also phallocrat and wife-beater. When the mind finds itself seduced to look where there is no cause inscribed, it turns away in resentment (Lingis 1988: 103).
At the very end, Lingis describes bodybuilding ʻas the monstrous excrescence of maternity in the virile figure of powerʼ, and relates it to Nietzscheʼs idea of ʻpowerʼ, as well as to narcissism (ibid: 115). Although I quite disagree with the author’s view on bodybuilding as an expression of narcissism, I sure agree on pointing out some Nietzschean elements too, but I want to extend the concept of ʻpowerʼ to its two manifestations as: self-overcoming and self-becoming.
Power and Self-Overcoming
What is Nietzscheʼs understanding of ʻpowerʼ?
Beside the popular book which Nietzsche had never agreed to publish but was nonetheless released posthumously by his sister and Peter Gast, based on one of Nietzscheʼs private publication plans, the idea of ʻwill to powerʼ appears in Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1883-1885) and Beyond Good and Evil (1886).
In both works, Nietzscheʼs understandings of ʻpowerʼ and ʻwill to powerʼ are to be read in terms of interpretation. So he writes in Zarathustra: ʻWhat urges you on, and arouses your ardor, you wisest of men, do you call it “will to truth”? Will to conceivability of all being: That is what I call your will. […] That is your entire will, you wisest men; it is a will to power, and that is so even when you talk of good and evil and of the assessment of valuesʼ (Za II, ʻOf Self-Overcomingʼ, KSA 4: 146). According to Nietzscheʼs understanding, ʻwill to powerʼ means nothing but life itself, that is to say, no individualism or social implications are implied in the conception, given that such concepts are created by life in its own evaluation process and are given merely as a result. So Nietzsche carries on, through Zarathustraʼs mouth: ʻWhere I found a living creature, there I found will to power; and even in the will of the servant I found the will to be master. […] The living creatures value many things higher than life itself; yet out of this evaluation itself speaks –– the will to powerʼ (ibid, KSA 4: 147-49). In Beyond Good and Evil, the same meaning is expressed through the famous sentence, at the end of aphorism 22, with which Nietzsche anticipates a response to possible criticisms to his notion of ʻwill to powerʼ: ʻSupposing that this also is only an interpretation –– and you will be eager enough to raise that objection? –– well, so much the betterʼ (JGB I, 22, KSA 5: 37). So long as everything is subject to interpretation, in fact, the concept of interpretation itself stops making sense, when understood in terms of ʻtruthʼ.
In this sense, this concept goes also hand in hand with that of self-overcoming: there must be no ego, life must be allowed to transcend and constantly overcome itself. Such an idea is elsewhere defined by Nietzsche as ʻAmor Fatiʼ, a latin phrase for ʻlove for fateʼ, representing the condition of someone who has learnt not only to accept their own impotency towards their own destiny, but also to love and embrace such unfathomable, inescapable, destiny. The concept appeared for the first time in a fragment from Autumn 1881 (15[20]), was re-elaborated in another note a couple of months later (16[22]) and also in a letter to Nietzscheʼs life-time friend Franz Overbeck (5 June 1882). It was then officially introduced for the first time in the Gay Science (1882/1887, § 276), and then re-elaborated again in a few private notes (NF 1884, 25[500]; NF 1888, 16[32]; NF 1888 25[7]), to be finally redelivered to his readers in Nietzsche Contra Wagner [1888] (1889, ʻEpilogueʼ, § 1) and Ecce Homo [1888] (1889, ʻWhy I Am So Cleverʼ, § 10; ʻThe Case Wagnerʼ, § 4).
Self-Overcoming and Bodybuilding
How does this all relate to bodybuilding? As I will show in this section, there are several aspects of Nietzscheʼs idea of ʻself-overcomingʼ that can be easily related to bodybuilding –– the most obvious one being the constant hitting and breaking PR: every time you hit a new record, you’ve automatically overcome your old self –– to put it in a more Nietzschean way, life (the ʻwill to powerʼ) has overcome itself through your hitting a new pr. Likewise, your constant improving your strength, your physique, your endurance, etc., can all be thought of as examples of self-overcoming.
Even more than this, however, one should point out the egoless element of a real bodybuilding journey. First of all, a true bodybuilder dissolves him or herself in the workout; they put concentration before anything else, and their egos ultimately undergo a dissolution: when training, a bodybuilder becomes humble, they start from a low weight and then slowly, religiously, increase it, improving their strength over time.
Finally, and this is the most important aspect, like Nietzsche, as a bodybuilder, you acknowledge that your progress is not really yours but belongs to something greater, of which you’re just a part (e.g. constant training, proper diet, genetics, motivational environment, etc.).
You might raise the objection that this kind of discourse applies to other philosophies too on the one hand, and to any other sport or discipline too on the other hand. And that’s sure the case, after all this is precisely why Nietzsche considers everything as an expression of the ʻwill to powerʼ. However, if we proceed further with our analysis, we shall see how another corollary of Nietzsche’s understanding of ʻpowerʼ resonates with bodybuilding even more, namely, the idea of ʻself-Becomingʼ.
Self-Becoming
What does it mean to become who one is?
In Ecce Homo (1888), Nietzsche dwells upon the concept of self-becoming extensively, although without explaining what he means by that. He just talks about how he has become who he is. And this means that there’s no one-size-fits-all rule when it comes down to self-becoming. However, Nietzsche gives us some advice to become who we are –– the most important one being to reconnect with our instincts. Interestingly, knowing one’s own ideal diet and exercise is one of the key elements of self-becoming.
Indeed, Nietzsche used to self-prescribe diets and exercises to fight his painful migraines; he was into hiking, ice-skating, swimming, and found the typical German diet totally unhealthy. As he writes in EH, ʻWhy I Am So Cleverʼ, §1, Nietzsche seems to perceive a correlation between not only diet and overall health, but also between diet and individual, as well as collective, morals:
Indeed, I can say, that up to a very mature age, my food wasentirely bad—expressed morally, it was “impersonal”, “selfless”, “altruistic”, to the glory of cooks and all other fellow-Christians. It was through the cooking in vogue at Leipzig, for instance, together with my first study of Schopenhauer (1865), that I earnestly renounced my “Will to Live”. To spoil one’s stomach by absorbing insufficient nourishment—this problem seemed to my mind solved with admirable felicity by the above-mentioned cookery. (It is said that in the year 1866 changes were introduced into this department.) But as to German cookery in general—what has it not got on its conscience! Soup beforethe meal (still called alla tedesca in the Venetian cookery books of the sixteenth century); meat boiled to shreds, vegetables cooked with fat and flour; the degeneration of pastries into paper-weights! And, if you add there to the absolutely bestial post-prandial drinking habits of the ancients, and not alone of the ancient Germans, you will understand where German intellect took its origin—that is to say, in sadly disordered intestines…. German intellect is indigestion; it can assimilate nothing. But even English diet, which in comparison with German, and indeed with French alimentation, seems to me to constitute a “return to Nature,”—that is to say, to cannibalism,—is profoundly opposed to my own instincts. It seems to me to give the intellect heavy feet, in fact, Englishwomen’s feet…. The best cooking is that of Piedmont. Alcoholic drinks do not agree with me; a single glass of wine or beer a day is amply sufficient to turn life into a valley of tears for me;—in Munich live my antipodes. Although I admit that this knowledge came to me somewhat late, it already formed part of my experience even as a child. As a boy I believed that the drinking of wine and the smoking of tobacco were at first but the vanities of youths, and later merely bad habits. Maybe the poor wine of Naumburg was partly responsible for this poor opinion of wine in general. In order to believe that wine was exhilarating, I should have had to be a Christian—in other words, I should have had to believe in what, to my mind, is an absurdity. Strange to say, whereas small quantities of alcohol, taken with plenty of water, succeed in making me feel out of sorts, large quantities turn me almost into a rollicking tar. Even as a boy I showed my bravado in this respect […]. Later on, towards the middle of my life, I grew more and more opposed to alcoholic drinks: I, an opponent of vegetarianism, who have experienced what vegetarianism is,—just as Wagner, who converted me back to meat, experienced it,—cannot with sufficient earnestness advise all more spiritual natures to abstain absolutely from alcohol (translation by Anthony M. Ludovici. 1911. Edinburgh and London: T. N. Foulis: 30-32).
The first thing we learn from the above passage is the necessity of a diet being: personal, individually designed, egoistic (in the sense of being perfectly adapted to individual needs). Indeed, he blames his youth diet (a typical German diet) for being ʻimpersonalʼ, ʻselflessʼ, ʻaltruisticʼ and therefore Christian –– which according to his mature understanding means opposed to life and instincts (as he explains inThe Anti-Christ; [1888], 1889). So Nietzsche advocates a reconnection with one’s own, individual, ʻinstinctsʼ, for both optimal physical health (he speaks about ʻdigestionʼ) and best intellectual activity. In his specific case, one can deduce that Nietzsche prefers to avoid: excessive ʻfat and flourʼ; heavy cooking (ʻthe degeneration of pastries into paper-weightʼ); excessive alcohol. Interestingly, we also learn that Nietzsche had tried a vegetarian diet on himself at the time of his fascination for Schopenhauer and Wagner, and been dissuaded from this type of diet by this latter himself (later in his life, Nietzsche will notoriously discourage young students of his from attempting vegetarianism by using Wagner’s own argument indeed).
Then he makes his point of what a balance diet should look like:
A heavy meal is digested more easily than an inadequate one. The first principle of a good digestion is that the stomach should become active as a whole. A man ought, therefore, to know the size of his stomach. For the same reasons all those interminable meals, which I call interrupted sacrificial feasts, and which are to be had at any table d’hôte, are strongly to be deprecated. Nothing should be eaten between meals, coffee should be given up—coffee makes one gloomy. Tea is beneficial only in the morning. It should be taken in small quantities, but very strong. It may be very harmful, and indispose you for the whole day, if it be taken the least bit too weak. Everybody has his own standard in this matter, often between the narrowest and most delicate limits. In an enervating climate tea is not a good beverage with which to start the day: an hour before taking it an excellent thing is to drink a cup of thick cocoa, freed from oil [entölten]. Remain seated as little as possible, put no trust in any thought that is not born in the open, to the accompaniment of free bodily motion—nor in one in which even the muscles do not celebrate a feast. All prejudices take their origin in the intestines. A sedentary life, as I have already said elsewhere, is the real sin against the Holy Spirit (ibid).
The first condition for optimal digestion is simplicity (ʻa heavy meal is digested more easily than an inadequate one. […] the stomach should become active as a wholeʼ). The other conditions can be translated as: avoiding snacks between meals; avoiding coffee; drinking tea sparingly and in the morning solely –– however tea should always be strong––; drinking fat free, thick hot chocolate one hour prior to morning tea in ʻenervatingʼ climates; being as active as possible and mostly outdoor(ʻRemain seated as little as possible, put no trust in any thought that is not born in the open, to the accompaniment of free bodily motion—nor in one in which even the muscles do not celebrate a feast. All prejudices take their origin in the intestines. A sedentary life, as I have already said elsewhere, is the real sin against the Holy Spiritʼ). So, later in § 10:
these trivial matters—diet, locality, climate, and one’s mode of recreation, the whole casuistry of selfishness; self-love—are inconceivably more important than, all that which has hitherto been held in high esteem! It is precisely in this quarter that we must begin to learn afresh. All those things which mankind has valued with such earnestness heretofore are not even real; they are mere creations of fancy, or, more strictly speaking, lies born of the evil instincts of diseased and, in the deepest sense, noxious natures—all the concepts, “God”, “soul”, “virtue”, “sin”, “Beyond”, “truth”, “eternal life”. … But the greatness of human nature, its “divinity”, was sought for in them…. (ibid: 52).
Therefore, a return to what was traditionally perceived as ʻtrivial mattersʼ, such as ʻdietʼ itself is key, according to Nietzsche, to accomplishing the ʻdivinityʼ of ʻhuman natureʼ, its ʻgreatnessʼ.
In his Letters From Turin (1889), Nietzsche explains what a usual meal of his at the restaurant looks like: ʻminestra or risotto, a good portion of meat, vegetable and bread—all good … I eat here with the serenest disposition of soul and stomachʼ; in other words, carbs, protein and just a little bit of fat, the typical bodybuilder diet (let’s forget about the bread for one moment). One of his favourite carb sources has always been risotto, as we learn from a few letters, whose prep technique Nietzsche was taught by his housekeeper in Genoa (very interestingly, I found a reproduction of his recipe on this website: https://paperandsalt.org/2014/03/31/friedrich-nietzsche-lemon-risotto-with-asparagus-and-mint/). Ultimately, in a letter to his mother and sister written in Genoa (Italy) on 6 April 1881, Nietzsche claims that his diet is ʻso changeable […], depending on the place or the climateʼ –– as mentioned above, Nietzsche was very sensitive to his somewhat poor health, in particular concerning his migraine and digestive issues.
Although, on a general level, there are certain principles which most individuals should benefit from (such as consuming simple meals and being outdoor as much as possible), in Nietzsche’s overall idea of ʻself-becomingʼ, individuality is key. Such individuality, however, manifests itself through one’s own diet in the first place. Understanding how important and unique one’s own nature and instincts are is the only way for a man or woman to become who they really are; however, it also means that the first thing they have to learn is to abandon their egoistic prejudice (Nietzsche dwells upon the ego delusion in the first part of Beyond Good and Evil extensively), and embrace the uncontrollable chain of inner instincts and surrounding events that has built their individuality over time, and that will continue to do so. This is why I like to think of Nietzsche’s idea of ʻSelf-Becomingʼ as a ʻcorollaryʼ of his ideas of ʻwill to powerʼ and ʻamor fatiʼ. In Nietzsche’s view, connecting with one’s own instincts and individual needs is the best way to become who one is. As we shall see, this has much to do with bodybuilding too.
What Does ʻSelf-Becomingʼ Mean in Bodybuilding?
The aforementioned individuality that is so important in Nietzsche’s idea of ʻbecoming who one isʼ finds its equivalent meaning in the bodybuilding idea of fulfilling one’s own genetic potential. First of all, in bodybuilding, understanding and mastering concepts such as ʻbody typeʼ, ʻmetabolic rateʼ, ʻindividual dieting and trainingʼ is the basis for success. Every good bodybuilder knows whether their body type is ʻectomorphicʼ, ʻmesomorphicʼ or ʻendomorphicʼ, and designs their workouts and diets accordingly. Secondly, knowing how a bodybuilder’s body reacts to certain foods, beverages, stress and certain exercises is paramount to tailoring the best workout programme and meal plan a bodybuilder can benefit from. For instance, some individuals do well on high carbs and low fats, as opposed to others who perform at their best on a high-fat diet; some people (especially women) have genetically strong legs and weaker upper bodies, some others are stronger in their back and chest and not so in their legs; certain people respond well to steady cardio, versus others who prefer HIIT; some individuals need to consume more or less calories than others to achieve the same results, etc. Thirdly, this discourse applies to the division choice: to give you the most obvious example, typically, a Bikini competitor can hardly do well in a Women’s Physique or Bodybuilding contest, and vice versa; whereas a Figure competitor can potentially move up or down her division, but will have to work really hard to achieve her goal physique. One could even argue that:
bodybuilding is the constant pursuit of the ideal body, based on acknowledging one’s individual strengths and weaknesses, and striving to realise the full potential of the former, while working hard to compensate for, and minimise, the latter.
Another element from Nietzsche’s idea of ʻSelf-Becomingʼ deserving attention is his emphasising the role of one’s diet in their ʻbecoming who they areʼ. Diet is obviously as important as workouts in bodybuilding. As everyone knows, one needs to eat in a caloric surplus, if they want to build muscle, however ʻabs are made in the kitchenʼ, meaning that one has to eat clean and below their maintenance caloric intake, if they want their hard-built muscle to finally stand out. Even closer to Nietzsche’s idea, however, is the fact that bodybuilders don’t eat for personal enjoyment, but consider food as fuel, constantly calculating macros and adjusting their ratio based on their personal needs (bulking, maintenance, cutting). As it was for Nietzsche, here simplicity plays again a pivotal role: meals should be simple, effective and easily digestible. Moreover, it is important to point out the role of certain foods and drinks (such as carbs, salt and water) during peak week and on show day: often time, restricting carbs and manipulating sodium and water intake during the week leading to the show, and then carb-loading on show day, can really determine a competitor’s placement in their competition. Lastly, timing is also imperative, if one wants to succeed as a bodybuilder: whether you intermittent fast or not, consuming small meals in a certain time window, possibly the same everyday, is common practice among successful bodybuilders. Similar to Nietzsche’s advice, bodybuilders want to stick to the same amount of meals everyday, and not to snack in between.
The Übermensch at Mr Olympia
Self-Sculpting and Self-Experimentation
What is accounted in Ecce Homo represents Nietzsche’s own, personal and unique, self-becoming. If one wanted to find a more generalised ideal of self-becoming, the figures of the Übermensch and of the ʻhigher manʼ described in Zarathustra and Beyond Good and Evil, respectively, are to be looked at. Both types of men are depicted as something that has yet to come; they appear far away from the men of the crowd, able to incorporate their instincts in their personality, without rejecting them or being driven by them. They are the only ones that can bear the ʻdeath of Godʼ without falling prey of the so-called ʻshadows of Godʼ (see The Gay Science, §§ 208-209). These ideal men are brave enough to reject pre-established values and belief systems, and to experiment on theirselves until they find their own belief systems.
As Paul Bishop has recently observed, Nietzsche’s representation of the Übermensch can arguably be considered a form of ʻself-Sculptingʼ, belonging to a wide tradition that can be traced back to late Antiquity (Bishop 2017). The ideas of constant self-experimentation and self-sculpting are naturally predominant characteristics of bodybuilding too; so is the strive to return to a certain Greek ideal of perfection (as I’ve previously suggested; see Schwarzenegger 1985; Fair 2015).
Nietzsche’s Idea of the Athletes
On top of that, Nietzsche makes use of sport metaphors in his published texts. For example, in The Genealogy of Morals (1887), Nietzsche compares the ʻphilosophersʼ fighting ʻa war […] against [a] lack of enthusiasmʼ to ʻsportsmen of “holiness”ʼ [sportsmen der “Heiligkeit”], who have ʻin fact found a real release from what they were fighting against with such a rigorous training [training]ʼ. In the same section, references to the impact of a diet on ʻoneʼs physical well beingʼ –– and to physiology more broadly –– recur throughout. In fact, Nietzsche tries to address religious, psychological and moral categories as responses to ʻa feeling of physiological inhibitionʼ which cannot ʻenter peopleʼs explanations, due to their ʻlack of knowledge about physiologyʼ (GM III, § 17).
Conclusion
If Alphonso Lingis righteously guessed a little bit of Nietzsche in bodybuilding, his reducing such little bit of Nietzsche to the social implications of his representation ofʻpowerʼ does not suffice. So writes Lingis: ʻevery great epoch of culture, Nietzsche wrote, is not only an epoch of humankind’s cultivating of nature –– transforming of nature’s resources in accordance with its own idea –– it is also an epoch in the history of humankind’s cultivation of its own nature –– transforming its own nature in accordance with its ideal. Every great culture, marked by distinctive intellectual, artistic and moral productions, has also set up a distinctive icon of bodily perfectionʼ (Lingis 1988: 101).
As I’ve argued throughout this post, in my opinion, Nietzsche’s strive for self-overcoming, self-becoming, self-experimenting and self-sculpting are the real elements to be emphasised, when one wants to compare Nietzsche’s philosophy with bodybuilding. Moreover, Nietzsche’s stress on body and ʻphysiologyʼ over morals and metaphysics, as well as his emphasising the importance of rigour and discipline (not to be forgotten, Nietzsche was first of all a philologist), his comparing philosophers to ʻsportsmenʼ are all signs of his will to attribute a certain value to the body that goes beyond its separation from the mind. Lingis is right to point out Nietzsche’s idea of humankind’s ʻtransforming its own nature in accordance with its idealʼ, but he is wrong in identifying such an ideal with mere narcissism, forgetting the strive to self-becoming that underpins bodybuilding. It is not just about building a body; it is also about building a better version of oneself –– hence self-becoming ––, through constant self-experimentation and self-overcoming. The idea of self-sculpting is no merely an aesthetic one; it is the idea of working on oneself (getting rid of what does not suit one’s own nature and sticking with what really works for oneself), towards the full realisation of one’s ultimate self.
Bishop, Paul.2017. On The Blissful Island With Nietzsche And Jung: In The Shadow Of The Superman. Oxon and New York: Routledge.
Fair, John D. 2015. Mr. America: The Tragic History of a Bodybuilding Icon. Austin: University Of TexasPress.
Lingis, Alphonso. 1988. ʻOrchids and Musclesʼ.InDavid Farrell Krell, and David Wood (eds). Exceedingly Nietzsche: Aspects of Contemporary Nietzsche Interpretation.London and New York: Routledge: 97-115.
Müller, Farguell Roger W. 1995.Tanz-Figuren: zur metaphorischen Konstitution von Bewegung in Texten: Schiller, Kleist, Heine, Nietzsche. Munich: W. Fink.
Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. 1967 ––. Kritische Gesamtausgabe der Werke Nietzsches. Edited by Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari. Berlin / New York: De Gruyter.
––. [1888]. Ecce Homo. Translated by Anthony M. Ludovici. Edinburgh and London: T. N. Foulis, 1911.
––. 1887. On The Genealogy of Morals. A Polemical Tract. Translated by Ian Johnston. Arlington: Richer Resources Publications, 2009.
––. 2009 ––. Digital Critical Edition(edited by P. DʼIorio).
Portier, Sylvain. 2014. Zlatan Ibrahimovic ou comment retrouver le sérieux que l’on mettait dans ses jouets, étant enfant Friedrich Nietzsche. – [Vallet] : Éditions M-editer, 2014. – 44 S. : Ill. – (Livre’L).
Reschke, Renate. 2000.ʻDie andere Perspektive: Ein Gott, der zu tanzen verstündeʼ.In: Volker Gerhardt (ed.). Friedrich Nietzsche, Also sprach Zarathustra. Berlin: Akademie Verlag: 257-284
Röller, Gisela. 2001. Tanz als Form des Denkens: Friedrich Nietzsche, Denen jenseits von Schluß und Dialektik. Jansen, Lüneburg: Jansen.
Schwarzenegger, Arnold. 1985. The New Encyclopaedia of Modern Bodybuilding. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1998 (2nd edition).
If you want to be as ethical as possible, not only do you want to buy local and sustainable, you also want to maximise your food while minimising your waste. An excellent way to do so is making broth out of your leftovers. Whilst chicken bone broth has become increasingly popular over the past few years, not many people know you can make a delicious — and very healthy — broth out of fatty fish too. All animal products are indeed high in collagen, which is the most abundant protein in our body, and the most important one, as it’s responsible for connecting our organ tissues (including tendons, ligaments and skin). Vegetable collagen is unfortunately very hard to be absorbed and used by our bodies, but animal collagen is easily absorbed. Collagen is also held responsible for healing our guts, hair and damaged skin (it can also help with stretch marks and cellulite). When cooking broth, collagen is released from the animal’s bones and flesh, and loosed into the water in the form of gelatine. This is what makes broth so precious for your health.
It was around Easter time, and we found an incredible offer at Asda’s: a whole salmon (3Kg) worth £30 was reduced and on sale for only £13.99. Yes, 3Kg is too much for too people alone, unless you want to freeze the salmon, but the offer was too appealing not to take advantage of it — mostly because those poor salmons would otherwise have been fished in vain. So we bought one, cut it in 3 pieces, stuffed it with fresh ginger, rosemary, bay leaves, thymes, fresh parsley, Himalayan salt and lemon wedges, and baked it at 180°C for 30 minutes.
Whole salmon stuffed with fresh ginger, rosemary, bay leaves, thymes, fresh parsley, Himalayan salt and lemon wedges, and baked at 180°C for 30 minutes.
We ate nothing but salmon for 3 days straight, keeping all fishbones, head, tail, uneaten skin and flesh aside. At the end of the 3rd day, we decided to make some broth out of such leftovers.
We placed head, tail, fishbones, skin and flesh in a saucepan with: water, 1 carrot, 1 piece of ginger, some spring onions and regular onions (they’ll change their composition while cooking, losing some of their FODMAP contents in the process). We added some salt and simmered for 3-4 hours.
The broth was unbelievably good and satiating. We had it plain, after our dinner, but it would have been just as delicious with some prawns or shrimps, courgettes and maybe rice noodles.
What’s more important for us, however, is that that poor salmon hasn’t died in vain: we benefitted from its death for 3 days, not harming any other animals meanwhile, and used it in all the possible ways. This is what mindful eating really means!
As I said in my post on why I’m no longer vegan , one of my favourite meals is organ meats for 2 reasons: they’re extremely cheap, as they’re not typically popular among average meat eaters; they’re incredibly packed with nutrients and extremely absorbable by our bodies, because they’re what we, as a species, have evolved on.
Livers (from cows, lambs, pigs, geese, chickens and fish) are incredibly rich in B12, B2 (Riboflavin), B9 (Folate), Vitamin A, Iron, Copper, Choline, according to healthline.com. This is due to the liver’s functions of: processing the digested food from the animal’s gut and absorbing nutrients from it, while filtering and clearing the blood from toxins. Livers are also light in calories and high in proteins, making them fit for most diets. This is why everyone should be consuming livers on a regular basis.
If organs are cheap and highly nutritious, unfortunately, they’re not necessarily as tasty, especially when not cooked properly, or when overcooked. With a few adjustments, however, organs can become part of a very enjoyable meal. In this specific post, I’ll focus on livers exclusively. Just stay tuned for further posts on hearts and kidneys. 😉
My Tips to Enjoy Liver
Don’t overcook it. Liver is soft, tender and creamy, but tends to get a bit stiff when overcooked. The best thing you can do is chop or mince liver prior to cooking it, and not cook it for more than 1 minute on each side.
Use plenty of herbs (such as rosemary, thyme, chives and bay leaves), onions or spring onions, salt and pepper to stir fry your liver. These will enhance the liver’s flavour, while hiding its animal-like taste, which not everybody enjoys.
Squeeze some fresh lemon or lime juice on your liver, to enhance its flavour even more.
Don’t quit liver just because you didn’t like it the first time. Keep trying out different recipes until you find a way to enjoy it: you’ll sure get used to its taste and texture.
If you have any tips that would like to share with me, feel free to comment down below. 😉
Thanks for following me along my journey!
Lamb liver stir fry with: red pepper, mushrooms, ginger, spring onion and fresh parsley.
Thousands of lambs are slaughtered every year around Easter time, just because it’s a tradition to consume lamb on Easter Day. I’m not gonna lie, lamb is my favourite meat, taste-wise. However, I’ve always opposed this silly tradition, as this unfair massacre is just senseless. After all, I can still enjoy lamb any other day.
On the other hand, however, I’m well aware of the fact that nobody will stop slaughtering lambs for Easter just because I refuse to buy them, and the unsold meat (mostly organs) will be wasted, without reducing the numbers of lambs to be slaughtered the next year. How can this dilemma be solved in the most ethical way?
Our Ethical Choice
We decided not to order any meat from our local farmers market this Easter, but to go and see what was available, namely, to buy what no one else wanted to buy and would most likely end up in the trash. Most meat was obviously lamb, and that’s what we also bought. However, rather than buying legs, shoulders, chops or popular cuts in general, we went for hearts and necks, which are: cheap, delicious, nutritious and less popular (therefore more likely to be wasted).
Our Easter Table
As you might or might not know, I have Argentinian roots on my maternal side, and for my family, Easter is a serious tradition. In particular, something that can never miss from our Easter table are empanadas. Since I quit gluten, however, I also stopped making empanadas for many years. But this year I wanted to try something new, and decided to make tuna empanadas again, using only buckwheat, goat butter, salt, water and 1 duck egg for my dough. Although the overall consistency came out quite different from the empanadas my grandma used to make when I was a kid, the taste was awesome and both me and my husband really enjoyed them.
Alongside empanadas, we had a huge salad, halloumi, cheddar, mushrooms, lamb necks and hearts, all cooked on a raclette grill. It took me less than 5 minutes to prepare everything, and it turned out to be one of the tastiest and most enjoyable Easter lunches ever.
Lamb hearts, halloumi and mushrooms cooked on stone on top of our raclette grill (underneath, some cheddar is being melted meanwhile)
As a dessert, I just combined some eggs with raw cacao powder, protein powder, liquid stevia, bicarbonate of soda, Himalayan salt and vanilla extract, and made some muffins out of it. It could never be Easter without some chocolatey dessert. 😉
My gluten free, sugar free, high protein chocolate muffins. A perfect finisher for a mindful Easter lunch. 🙂
Me today, following a plant-based, low FODMAP, high-protein diet
As a vegan athlete, I get asked where I get my protein from all the time. I have to say, finding sustainable, plant-based protein sources has caused me to reflect a lot lately.
As a Nietzschean kind of person, I regard myself as a self-experimenter in the first place. Over the past 14 years, I’ve tried at least 5 different approaches to food.
My Dietary Evolution from 17 to 31
From omnivorous eater, I turned pescatarian at 17, meaning that I was on a 80%-lacto-ovo-vegeterian diet, allowing myself to consume around 20% of my food from fish and seafood more broadly. At that time, my workout routine consisted of: swimming 3 times a week, occasional running, occasional basketball with my friends, drama class and musical choreography once or twice a week, occasional crunches, push-ups and lateral leg raises in my bedroom. As my workouts became more resistance-oriented – which happened about 3 years later – I felt the need to increase my protein consumption. Between the age of 20 and 27, I turned into one of the major causes of the threatening fish extinction which the world is going through these days. My diet mostly consisted of canned tuna, fresh or canned mackerel and sardines, smoked salmon, eggs, yoghurt, cottage cheese and quark, oats, vegetables, fruits and rice cakes. I didn’t like that kind of approach, which made feel so guilty everyday. However, people kept telling me that “animal protein was the best source ever”, and I would “deplete my body”, if I stopped eating fish, dairy and eggs.
But that is not all. During those years, I decided to try various popular diets, to lose fat without giving up my performance. So I tried the 40-30-30 diet for a few years, then the Atkins diet, then I nearly starved myself and brought a lot of undesired medical conditions into my body, which I’m not very proud of and I’m not going to tell you about here.
In 2014, I randomly came across the bodies of amazing bikini competitors and bodybuilders online, who also happened to be vegan. How was that even possible? That seemed to be the answer to all of my ethical dilemmas at the time. I immediately did a lot of research and went vegan cold turkey. But because I can’t help being extreme, not only did I turn vegan out of the blue, I even signed up for a 3-day-raw-vegan detox plan online, which got me totally spellbound. I saw amazing effects on my body as soon as I started that program, and I was so happy, that I decided to stay on a mostly raw vegan diet for good. As I had moved to the UK only one year before, I didn’t have any good training equipment to work out, nor could I afford joining a gym. My workouts were still consistent, but they consisted of: bellydance, yoga, running and bodyweight HIIT-exercises. I shortly realised that a raw vegan diet couldn’t really sustain the intensity of my workout routine, but my obstinacy, as always, took over, until I finally could afford a gym membership and started lifting heavy. At the point, my diet had to undergo some significant changes, the pivotal one being getting back to a high-protein diet.
Me on a mostly raw vegan diet (Bangkok, 2015)
As I ignored the existence of high and low FODMAP foods, at that time, I was confusing some IBS symptoms with soy-intolerance, trying to not eat too much tofu or tempeh (was the latter even a food?). Also, there was this popular controversy about the possibility of soy being harmful to female hormones, which was scaring me a lot. I suddenly had no choice but to increase my consumption of legumes, mushrooms, and protein-packed vegetables such as broccoli, which in turn aggravated my IBS. Only in Summer 2018 did I finally come across the benefits of a low FODMAP diet, and found a good balance in my diet. I also did some extra research about soy phytoestrogens, and found out that their being harmful is not proven enough (this is an interesting up-to-date article on the issue). However, I still feel ethically guilty…
How Many Lives Does It Take To Meet Your Daily Protein Intake on a Plant-Based Diet?
If you’re omnivorous and base your daily meals on grass-fed beef, lamb and chicken, then you’re probably killing less animals than me, the plant-based insect murderer in disguise. Let’s leave the CO2 issue off this topic, as I’d like to solely focus on the actual amount of lives involved in soy production vs animal production.
Technically, when you eat a steak, you don’t eat the whole cow, calf or ox. In theory, one single life could feed you for one week, if not for longer (assuming you’re eating livers, kidneys, heart, brain, etc., and making bone broth on top of it). In a very hypothetical, ideal reality, when your meat is grass-fed, the animal – coming from a small, family-run farm – has been circulating freely and enjoyed its life till its very last seconds. No extra water has been needed to feed it, and no weird antibiotics. In this hypothetical world, when you eat a steak or a burger, only one life has been sacrificed for your meal, and that life will suffice for one week, or more. You might counter-argue by saying that that cow might have killed some insects or stepped on other smaller creatures along the way, but that would have occurred anyway, whether you would have eaten that animal or not – therefore, you’re not really responsible for their lives. You’re still responsible for you’re animal’s life only.
Let’s break down the process of soy production instead. Besides the deforestation and other environmental issues, which soy is seriously responsible for (to have an idea, see what WWF thinks about it), soy cultivation kills a lot of small animals (from insects to tiny rodents) because of the tractors used to plough and harvest. I’m aware that the main cause of deforestation is soy’s being used to feed animals – which wouldn’t happen, if nobody ate those animals in the first place. However, if everyone was vegan and on a high-protein diet, soy cultivation would increase even more, causing the second issue (i.e. the death of small animals) to grow accordingly (here’s an old, yet still insightful article by The Guardian on the issue; another, more recent post from Munchies on the debate is this one).
So, to put it in numbers, for every single soy bean you harvest, hundreds of insects have to die. Yo don’t need me to tell you you can’t make a block of tofu out of one soy bean…
Moreover, the same discourse applies to quinoa, buckwheat, lentils and avocados, popular “cruelty-free” superfoods, staples in many vegan kitchens. It seems like the most ethical choice to be vegan would be to thrive on a self-grown or locally-sourced fruit-based diet (I’m including nuts and seeds, as long as you’re able to grow them by yourself or find sustainable ones). Many people succeed on such a diet, even athletes and bodybuilders. Unfortunately, I’m not one of them. I tried many times, and I need my tofu and tempeh to fully recover in between workouts. Not to mention that, as an IBS-sufferer, my fruit choice would be quite restrictive…
Why Am I still Vegan, Then?
This is the question I’ve been asking myself a lot in recent times, especially since I’m married to a mindful omnivorous eater, who buys only locally-sourced-grass-fed beef, a lot of entrails (to not let any animal die in vain) and uses chicken carcasses to make his own bone broth every week. Is his approach more ethical than mine? Most definitely.
However, there is no scientific way to really address my dilemma, it’s just a matter of rather personal choices. In other words, it’s all about “compassion”. A few philosophers reflected upon animals’ suffering on the one hand, and the impossibility to stop that suffering in order to survive on the other hand (the most popular one being Arthur Schopenhauer, who drew many of his ideas on his knowledge of Hinduism and Buddhism, and who influenced later vegetarian thinkers). There is no escape: if you want to survive, one or more lives will have to be sacrificed. However, facing the suffering in your plate on a daily basis is not for everyone.
I just couldn’t take the idea of having a cow killed just to satisfy my selfish desire of eating – I know it’s my need to survive, but that’s how I can help regarding it, as “a selfish desire of eating”. Such a “selfish desire of eating” drives my choices everyday, leading me to consume lives, whether I want it or not. But there are different grades of murder, I believe, and eating a dead animal, absorbing the energy of a suffering-dead animal, has a more immediate impact on my ethical response, than eating some tofu or tempeh which accidentally caused the death of insects and small rodents. To u
se another popular word, it’s all about karma: meat is pure suffering, it brings the animal’s suffering into my plate and transmits it to me; tofu brings a lot of suffering too, but doesn’t expose me to the extreme, sudden death of what’s in my plate, and doesn’t really transmit such suffering to me directly.
Life is made of choices, and if I were to choose between having
an animal killed and eating it, or having a few lives died in the process of
creating something which doesn’t force me to eat a dead animal, well, call me a hypocrite, but I’ll go for the latter option.
But this is my very own personal perspective, which I’ll never impose on anyone else than myself.
