Why I Eat

A funny essay I wanted to write— detailing my philosophy behind why I eat what I eat, and towards what ends.

I eat to strengthen my body to the maximum

My basic thing:

I see food as a tool to maximally empower my bodily physiology to the maximum.

I see food as the source of power. Thus, I will eat only foods which give me power and strength. I shall not eat food which will weaken me.

The stomach as the source of wisdom

I consider my stomach the source of my wisdom, insights, ideas, and strength. Thus, why would I eat anything which would take that away from me?

What foods do I eat, and how do I eat?

I do the following:

Intermittent fasting: No breakfast or lunch. No eating food before working out. After working out, a massive feast (dinner) that is heavy on fatty meats (beef, pork, chicken, eggs) and with some bitter green or herb (kale, collard greens), and ideally something fermented (kimchi).

Meat-forward approach.

I eat meat: To me, the best use of money is meat. Even in Ancient Greek times, they used Oxen as a currency. Even the notion of “capital” in today’s world is little based on “caput” (heads of cattle). There’s a reason why sacrifice to the gods ain’t cheap — a “hectacomb” sacrifice to the gods was 100 oxen! Consider how much (delicious) meat that is!

Why meat?

For now, I will set ethics aside. The problem is when we talk about food and our personal bodily physiology, there is too much morality and ethics which meddles with us. Which means:

I’m not going to debate whether meat is bad for the planet, I’m not gonna talk about “sustainability”, nor will I talk about “animal rights”.

To me, these discussions are for someone else. What I’m purely interested in is what foods are optimal for my personal physical thriving, flourishing, and maximal thriving.

Is meat really the optimal food?

Let me start with the philosophical, then perhaps go to the practical.

First of all, if you didn’t have any morals and ethics, and you wanted the most delicious, empowering, nutritious food item — what would you choose? For me, it would be a nice fatty ribeye steak, top sirloin, tomahawk steak — something like that. For me, preferably beef, preferably fatty and nicely marbled.

For maximal macular gains

I consider the body the source of all wisdom. Thus if I desire to augment my bodily wisdom to the maximum, my first goal is maximal muscular strength, maximal muscular mass, and maximal muscular physique.

In order to feed my “gains” to the optimal level, of course meat is optimal. No sane bodybuilder or powerlifter would abstain from eating meat, if their goal was to maximize physical gains and power.

But isn’t there that vegan powerlifter — Patrik Baboumian from Germany? Yes. He is very strong. But the thing is this:

If he ate a meat-forward diet, he’d probably be stronger.

Patrik has proved you can become very strong on a vegan (no meat) diet. But maximally strong, and optimally strong? I don’t believe so. And once again, I don’t think anyone becomes a vegan powerlifter or vegan bodybuilder to maximize their potential epigenetics for strength — it is generally for moral, ethical, ecological, or virtue-signaling purposes. A good discussion I found was with Joe Rogan and Robert O:

As a vegan powerlifter, you can become very strong, but not the world’s strongest. And for our discussion, we are interested in the apex of your potential generic (or epigenetic) potential.

What do you consider your supreme life task?

For myself, I desire to have the best and optimal diet, nutrition, lifestyle, and exercise regimen for myself in order to maximize my human physiology, to maximize my courage, maximize my personal aesthetics, and to maximize my creative output.

My simple idea:

I believe a maximally meaty and minimally carby diet is optimal for muscular and strength growth while maintaining a lower bodyfat percentage.

Practical tips and ideas

First of all, I am a HUGE advocate for crockpots. You can buy them super cheap, I think I got mine at Walmart for only $20 USD on sale.

The insane convenience of a crockpot: it is sooooo easy, and you can eat a TON of meat and greens every meal. For example:

Toss in a huge piece of meat in the crockpot, add tomatoes, chili, pepper, spices, curry powder, and some collard greens or kale on top, push a button (in the morning) and by dinner, you have a beautiful feast awaiting you!

The prep is sooo easy. And you don’t gotta watch it! The crockpot is like your cooking slave, I love it!

Also also another cool hack — you can put the ceramic thing the crockpot comes with in the oven! Cindy’s special recipe — cooking bone marrow (with garlic, salt, pepper) alongside ground beef, and browning it first (to extract the delicious marrow fat) to later make a broth.

Eating out

When I go out to eat, I usually eat nothing but meat, greens, and kimchi.

Or simple tips:

1. Don’t eat bread.
2. Don’t eat fries, potatoes, or any other carb-fillers.
3. Order the highest “meat the dollar” bang for the buck value.
4. I prefer all you can eat Korean bbq, all you can eat Shabu Shabu, Brazilian bbq, Mexican taquerias, and in and out “protein style” burgers — or sometimes only the burger patty.

Conclusion: Eat to become more of you.

To think the notion “everything in moderation” is insane. Why? Would you take heroin or cocaine “in moderation”? Of course not. Then if your goal is to maximize yourself, why would you eat anything that doesn’t empower yourself to the maximum?

Of course, you don’t need to do as I do. You can and should live your life however you see fit. But for me, my supreme life task is so large and so grand, that it is quite easy for me to cut foods and stuff which I consider bad and weakening for me. For example, I don’t consume potatoes, starches, rice, I don’t drink alcohol, I don’t smoke weed, I don’t consume sugar, I don’t consume soda, I don’t consume sugary fruits, I don’t eat pastries, I don’t eat breads, and I don’t eat desserts. Not because there’s a moral evil to these things (there isn’t) — it is simply because I’m so vain that I prefer to maximize my physique above base sugary pleasures.

What’s your supreme life task? Optimize your food, diet, nutrition, lifestyle based on that!

ERIC