Overnight Chia Pudding Recipe for Liver and Gall Bladder Health

This overnight chia pudding is a nutrient-dense plant-based breakfast optimised for metabolic syndrome, MAFLD, and gallbladder health.

INGREDIENTS
• 3 tablespoons chia seeds
• 250 milliliters unsweetened almond milk
• 30 grams pea protein isolate
• 2 tablespoons hemp seeds
• 15 grams pumpkin seeds
• 7 walnuts (roughly chopped)
• 0.5 cups mixed berries (blueberries, raspberries or strawberries)
• 1 tablespoons fortified nutritional yeast

STEPS
1. Mix base: The night before, combine 3 tablespoons chia seeds and 250 milliliters unsweetened almond milk in a jar or bowl. Whisk in 30 grams pea protein isolate until smooth with no lumps. Stir in 1 tablespoons fortified nutritional yeast.

2. Refrigerate overnight: Cover and refrigerate overnight or for at least 4 hours. The chia seeds will absorb the liquid and form a thick pudding.

3. Add toppings and serve: In the morning, top with 2 tablespoons hemp seeds, 15 grams pumpkin seeds, 7 walnuts (roughly chopped), and 0.5 cups mixed berries (blueberries, raspberries or strawberries). Stir gently or leave as toppings based on preference.

NOTES
Benefits of each ingredient:
- Chia seeds: soluble fibre slows glucose absorption, omega-3 ALA, gallbladder stimulus
- Pea protein: ~20g protein
- Hemp seeds: complete protein, magnesium, omega-3
- Pumpkin seeds: highest magnesium of any common food, zinc, copper
- Walnuts: ALA omega-3, evidence-based for gallstone prevention, HDL support
- Berries: low glycaemic, polyphenols with strong evidence for insulin sensitivity
- Nutritional yeast: B12 (fortified), complete protein boost, adds savoury depth

Timing: 
Prepare every night before bed. Take your choline supplement and any fat-soluble supplements (D3, K2) with this breakfast as it contains sufficient fat from seeds and walnuts.

Protein target: 
This meal delivers approximately 25-30g protein — a strong start. 

Antinatalism and the Non-Vegan COVID-19 Vaccine

Many vegans (including myself) face a moral dilemma because the COVID-19 vaccine has both animal products and is tested on animals. Vegans are faced with a choice between using the non-vegan vaccine which causes harm on animals or not using the vaccine which would cause harm on humans e.g. it would cause the spread of COVID-19, which could cause an old lady in an aged care home to die.

In my opinion, this is a difficult situation, and it is hard to know how to reduce harm, but this is nothing unusual and, in my view, backs up the argument that antinatalists make that all humans cause harm.

Antinatalism is a philosophy that assigns a negative value to procreation. The reason why antinatalisms advocate against procreation is because life is suffering. When you have a child, that child is exposed to suffering. He or she may grow up and suffer from old age or from atrocities such as rape or even milder suffering such as depression. Furthermore, that child that is born will cause others to suffer. A great example of how many humans cause suffering is meat consumption. Human consumption of meat causes animals to suffer. However, even if someone is vegan, there are other ways that they cause harm. For example, if you buy a t-shirt, there is a good chance that there is slavery in the supply chain. As a result, more demand for the t-shirt causes more supply for slave labour, which increases suffering. 

Now we have another source of suffering, which is the vaccine. Life, in order to sustain itself, consumes and exploits other life. This is why, throughout evolution of life by natural selection, there has been a considerable amount of competition, aggression and suffering. Life is suffering, and so in order to reduce life we must reduce life. 

Testing medicine on animals works because many animals are similar to humans biologically. If medicine is tested on animals and if it doesn't work on animals and it is toxic for animals, there is a good chance it will be toxic for humans as well. However, even more effective than animal testing is human testing. If the COVID-19 vaccine were tested on a group of humans, many people who believe in the goodness of humanity would still take the vaccine even though it is tested on humans, but it doesn't necessarily mean they are racists. 

Is Urban Sprawl Vegan?

The documentary below is about urban sprawl. At the beginning of the show, it describes how a farming family is forced to sell their farm because of pressure for property development. However this farmer killed cows and chicken, so it made me wonder about the role of urban sprawl in reducing animal slaughter.

The argument is that urban sprawl is bad for the environment because it uses up more land. However, by using up more land would this increase the cost of raising animals or growing the crops needed to feed animals? This would increase the cost of meat and may lead to fewer animals being slaughtered.

Comparing Women to Animals

In animal rights, there are those who advocate humane slaughter and other measures to make slaughter of animals as painless as possible eg using a captive bolt gun to stun a cow before it is slaughtered. However, even when the cow is stunned, the cow still suffers, and when there is pressure by business to make money, there is pressure to slaughter as many cows as possible, which results in businesses not following regulations. The pressure of commerce ends up hurting the animals. Abbatoir workers take out their aggressions on the animal leading to atrocities.

This is why vegans believe that the problem starts with demand. Stop putting the cow in the supply chain as an economic commodity and it won't be exploited. To stop the cow being there, there must be reduced demand. If there is no demand for beef, it everyone went vegan, then cows would not be exploited. It would be unprofitable to start an abbatoir or CAFO business if no one will buy the meat. However this is difficult given so many people lust for eating meat. The problem is the demand of the end consumer.

The same can be seen in porn and sex work. There are those who argue for welfare of sex and porn workers. They argue for regulations on sex work eg in Australia sex work is legal but is regulated eg women must get regular STD checks. However, many times the pressure to serve clients as well as the demand from clients for rough sex, can take its toll on the women, which is why many believe a "vegan" approach is necessary ie stop consuming porn or visiting sex workers to reduce the demand. If there is no demand for porn or sex work, it would all disappear. Too often we focus on the supply (eg pornographers and brothels) without thinking of the demand. However, this faces the challenge that many people like to visit sex workers or watch porn, often violent porn. It is the male lust for female sexuality that drives the porn and sex work industry in the same way that human lust for meat keeps abbatoirs and CAFOs running, and in both cases, sentient beings are exploited to feed the desires of the end consumer.

The two are similar in that a group of beings are seen as lesser beings exploited through commerce to meet the desires of the end consumer who is completely addicted to the product.

There are multiple approaches for dealing with the problem, from mitigation of suffering to an abolitionist approach. The problem is made complex by the fact there there are many interest groups eg the businesses making huge profits from the exploitation and the end consumer who derives pleasure from consumption of the product. Both these groups conspire to keep the "lesser beings" continually exploited and oppressed.

Noting that animals are oppressed in abbatoirs and CAFOs and women are oppressed in brothels and in pornography, let's look at an example of abolition succeeding, which is the victory over human slavery. There is definitely slavery that exists today (so-called modern slavery) but the attitude and legislation is broadly against human slavery. While slavery has not been eradicated, I am confident the magnitude of slavery is much less than centuries ago.

Yet if we look at veganism and antipornography, the oppression of animals and women is very mainstream, which is why vegans and antiporn advocates are seen as extreme.

One of the problems is that the end consumer, as I mentioned, is addicted to the product. Many people like eating meat because it tastes good, and many people like consuming porn because it is stimulating. The self-interest of consumers is strong.

If human slavery back in the eighteenth century was normalised such that each household had a slave in their home whom they could use for slave labour, sexual exploitation, etc, I would imagine the abolitionist movement would not have succeeded. My understanding is that human slaves in the eighteenth century were mostly owned by wealthy slave owners, which meant consumers and households did not feel that freeing slaves hurt them, so they could easily support the abolitionist movement without feeling guilty they they themselves had done anything wrong. However, if meat or porn were banned or if environmentalists banned cars and made people ride bikes, these products strike into household demand.

This is why there is a knee-jerk reaction to banning cars, meat, dairy or porn. People don't want to admit to the truth that they are oppressive but want all the conveniences and stimulation that oppression provide them. Most consumers want the convenience of cars in spite of the environmental damage, the taste of meat in spite of the suffering to animals, and the sexual release of masturbating to porn in spite of the harm to women.

Had the household consumer had a personal slave, I fear there would be no way to eradicate human slavery. Once the masses are addicted and complicit in the oppression, it persists. The only solution it seems is gradually lowering demand either through boycott of the product or general human population decline.

Humanity Deserves Extinction and the Connection between Antinatalism and Financial Independence

Look around at everyone around you. They are mindless drones trying to do everything they can to keep their credit score healthy so that they can one day get a mortgage and car loan so that they can drown in debt.

My advice to everyone is to forget about your credit score. It should be called "slavery score" to reflect what it actually is. It is a signal to slave owners of how good of a debt slave you are. Debt is slavery.

What do you do instead of becoming a debt slave like everyone else? Don't succumb to consumerism, never have children, invest in shares and crypto, and live off dividends.

Of course, most people agree that too much debt is horrible and having children is wonderful. But the two are related. A child is a huge liability. Debt is characterised by an obligation to pay. Children are no different.

Living off passive income is great because you get an income and don't need to work. If you have debt, it is the opposite, that is, you have to work and someone else gets income for doing nothing.

Having children and living off passive income are related. How do you get the money in the first place to buy the financial assets to give you financial independence?

The answer is that you don't have children. Children are extremely expensive. The decision to never have children will save you approximately $1.1 million across your lifetime.

Of course, isn't living a childfree life for the sake of money selfish? Yes it is, but it is also highly selfless and altruistic. Breeding is the number one contributor to climate change. More people in the world means more pollution, more carbon emissions. Furthermore, as humanity grows in size, there are more meat eaters (assuming no vegans) contributing not only to climate change but also animal abuse as the need to feed more and more humans means slaughter of animals needs to occur much faster, which leads to industrial scale mass slaughter that currently kills one billion animals per week in a process so evil that it puts the holocaust to shame. This process will need to scale up much more to meet the demands of 10 billion people on the earth by 2050, and scaling up the factory farms will lead to unimaginable animal suffering.

As the apex predator, as the most dominant and intelligent and arguably most moral species, we humans have a moral obligation to impose a moral order on all animals below us, to protect the weak and vulnerable.

Instead we have completely failed. We exploit, oppress and torture the animals and destroy the earth. We have failed the world and we deserve nothing but extinction via antinatalism.

Linseed Meal or Ground Flaxseed for Omega 3

I bought some linseed meal from Chemist Warehouse. Linseed (also known as flaxseed) is a good vegan source of omega 3. It is best to eat ground linseed as crushing linseeds releases nutrients. One tablespoon of linseed meal contains about 1500 mg of ALA. ALA gets converted in the body into DHA and EPA. One to two tablespoons per day of linseed meal will provide you with enough omega 3. Even though the conversion of ALA to DHA and EPA is low, there is so much ALA in linseed that it doesn’t matter. The recommended amount of DHA per day is about 100 mg. Another vegan source of DHA and EPA is algae oil. Most DHA supplements are derived from microalgae. A non-vegan source of DHA and EPA is fish, but fish also contains industrial pollutants such as mercury, DDT, dieldrin, microplastics, and other industrial toxins. Better to stick with the vegan sources of omega 3, namely ground linseed/flaxseed or microalgae based supplements.

Deva Omega 3 DHA-EPA

In theory vegans do not need to take omega 3 supplements because there are many vegan foods with omega 3 in them, such as chia seeds or ground flaxseeds. Dr Michael Gregor recommends two tablespoons of ground flaxseeds per day to get your omega 3 requirements. However, the form of omega 3 in most plant food is ALA (alpha linoleic acid). DHA and EPA (which are important for brain function) can be made by the body using ALA, but the concern by some is that the conversion of ALA to DHA and EPA is not efficient.

The main sources of DHA and EPA are algae or fish. Fish get DHA and EPA from eating algae. The main concern with eating fish is the risk of industrial pollutants such as mercury. To avoid any concern about mercury, I take DHA and EPA supplements purchased off iHerb. These supplements contain DHA and EPA from algae grown on land in controlled conditions ensuring no industrial contaminants.

I am personally using the Deva Omega 3 DHA-EPA I have purchased off iHerb, but if there is one criticism I have it is that they have a very fishy taste and the capsules seem moist when you touch it. I have tried other omega 3 supplements that don't seem to have this issue, such as the Source Naturals vegan omega 3 brand.

Q&A: Is Veganism Unnatural and Unhealthy?

Question: 

If being vegan necessitates having to eat food that have been fortified with nutrients artificially just to maintain a healthy body, does that mean the vegan diet is unhealthy?

Answer:

No, the vegan diet is healthy. Vitamin B12 is a necessary nutrient that does not come from plants. However, vitamin B12 is also not an animal product. Rather, vitamin B12 is derived from bacteria. As the vegan diet does not forbid food derived from bacteria, vitamin B12 in fortified food or from pills can be taken as part of a vegan diet.

In terms of whether taking an unnatural food is unhealthy, the answer is no. Processed or unnatural food is not necessarily unhealthy. This is the "appeal to nature" fallacy. There are no toxicology reports that prove that vitamin B12 is toxic and there is no scientific evidence that food that is processed is necessarily more toxic than food that is unprocessed.

What is natural?

There is significant industrialization nowadays that it's very difficult to know what is natural or unnatural food.

The main problem with the term "natural" is that it is not scientific. There is no consistent definition.

Natural foods and all natural foods are widely used terms in food labeling and marketing with a variety of definitions, most of which are vague. The term is often assumed to imply foods that are minimally processed and all of whose ingredients are natural products (in the chemist's sense of that term), but the lack of standards in most jurisdictions means that the term assures nothing. In some countries, the term “natural” is defined and enforced. In others, such as the United States, it has no meaning.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_foods

Most people believe that a natural product is one that has not been chemically altered or processed. However, even cooking a product chemically alters it, and so do we classify the cooked beans we ate as natural or not?

Some go as far as to say that a natural product is not cooked and is completely raw (see raw foodism). Natural food is only natural if you can pick it from the ground or from a tree and there is no human intervention thereafter.

However, even with this raw food definition, there is a problem because raw and unprocessed food is not necessarily healthy.

Death cap mushrooms

Death cap mushroom are very natural. You pick it from the ground and do not process it in any way. However, if you eat a death cap mushroom, you will die.



Take another example. A multivitamin is highly processed yet it is healthy. The Harvard School of Public Health recommends you take a multivitamin every day.

Then there is water. Natural water is water from a pond. Pond water can provide us with nutrients. For example, pond water contains vitamin B12.

If vitamin B12 is found in pond water, why not drink pond water?

Pond water is likely to also contain dirt and feces. It is cleaner and healthier, rather than drinking natural pond water, to drink water from a tap, bottled water, or filtered water, all of which are processed and unnatural.

Of course, filtered water does not contain vitamin B12. However, vitamin B12 pills do contain vitamin B12.

Why not just take vitamin B12 pills?

Many will argue that vitamin B12 pills are not natural. But tap water or bottled water is not natural either. Pond water is natural. Do these people drink pond water rather than tap water?

Pond water may contain vitamin B12 but it also contains harmful germs. Likewise, meat contains vitamin B12 but also saturated fat and trans fat.

Supplements are not necessarily unhealthy

Some supplements are healthy and some supplements are unhealthy. Death cap mushrooms are natural but toxic. Aspirin is artificial, processed, but healthy.

As I said, tap water is unnatural and may even have flouride in it. Even salt is commonly fortified with iodine. Why is everything else in our lives unnatural (even non-vegan food) but we demand natural vegan food?

Is it just an excuse?

Conclusion

It is very hard to find food that is natural. Chances are, food is processed to some degree. Even if we grow a banana, we are taking seeds, sunlight, water, etc and then processing these in soil to grow a banana. If we did something chemically similar in a laboratory, would it be natural or not? Chemical reactions happen everywhere and humans intervene to start these chemical reactions. What really matters is not whether something is natural or not but whether it is toxic or not or if it is healthy.

Veganism is Easy

Many people say they cannot go vegan because it's too hard, but my experience has been the opposite. I actually find it is easy to be vegan, and it is easier than being an omnivore.

Going on a vegan diet doesn't require you to actually do anything. However, what it requires you to do is to not do something. For example, if someone serves you chicken, you don't eat it. Whereas previously you did something, now as a vegan you are not doing something.

The vegan diet is about not eating meat, not eating dairy, and not eating eggs.

What you do need to do, however, is learn how to say no.

I have always been a nice person. In fact, I am too nice. I am the type of person who has trouble saying no and would often try to please people too much, and over time I learned this was not healthy. Being nice is great, but if you're too nice, people take advantage and walk all over you.

Going on a vegan diet, it turns out, had helped me practice how to say no. When I stood up and defended what I ate, people seemed to take note that I didn't just accept whatever they put upon me, and over time they took advantage of me less.

So if you're too nice, if you're a people pleaser, then give the vegan diet a go. Not only will it help you practice being assertive, it will also help the environment and spare animals from torture and slaughter.

Supercharger Emporium

I was feeling hungry for lunch and so decided to try eating at Supercharger in the Emporium food court in Melbourne.

This was the first time I'd been to this place. The menu looked complicated. They presented two pieces of paper. One allowed you to make your own meal. Another piece of paper had four different set meals. However, the set menu was set up in a way that was very unclear. When it was all explained to me, I understood it. I actually thought that the menu was referring to many different meals when really they were just referring to different aspects of each meal (did that make sense?). Have a look at Supercharger's menu at Zomato to see for yourself.

Anyway, for newbies, I recommend you get a set meal. They have names like "immunity" or "strength" depending on what you want the food to do to you. I assume the "immunity" meal makes you immune to sickness.

You pay around $14 and you get a number. After waiting around a bit, you receive a tray usually with three bowls. There is usually a soup, some creamy mixture, and a big main bowl with salads, edamame, noodles, and all sorts of other things that I don't know the name of (luckily I took a photo).

All in all, it was very tasty and definitely very filling! I highly recommend it.

Using E10 and Commodity ETFs to Destroy Animal Farming

I've always been a meat eater. Meat tastes good. I also love milk and cheese. But I've always been guilty of the industrial slaughter of animals that occurs in order to produce these goods. When I speak to people about this topic, there is a tendency to rationalise. For example, people say it is natural to kill animals. Even animals themselves kill each other. When I respond by saying that it is also natural for humans to kill humans (as humans have done often during human history) people criticize me for thinking too much about it. In other words, there is a tendency to just stick with the status quo, and if something just doesn't seem right, rationalise it away.

Animal cruelty takes place in an animal farm. If you care about animal welfare, you must study the business model of the animal farm and do everything in your power to disrupt it.

How do you disrupt a business? There are three ways: (1) increase costs, (2) reduce revenue, and (3) increase volatility of costs and revenue.

If costs rise and revenue reduces, the animal farm becomes unprofitable and will shut down. If the volatility of costs and revenue is high, e.g. if the price of feed fluctuates too much, then animal farms are less likely to start up due to unacceptable risk.

Many vegans already try to increase costs and reduce the revenue of animal farms by switching from meat to plant-based food. For example, if instead of eating beef you eat vegetables, the revenue of the animal farm decreases and furthermore because the land that is set aside to make vegetables to sell to the consumer is used for this purpose rather than being used to sell feed to animal farms, then the price of feed will go up.

That is simple enough, but there are two more ways I think we can disrupt the animal farm. One is to use ethanol blend petrol in our cars (E10 for most cars or E85 or E100 if the car is compatible). Proof that this works can be found in American renewable policy that forced petrol to be blended with ethanol. This causes the demand for ethanol to rise significantly, which in turn meant that corn being grown on farms was being sent to cars rather than to animal farms. Animal farmers then had to pay higher prices for feed. This resulted in much higher meat prices (see Ethanol Helps Boost Meat Prices - NPR).

With regards to increasing volatility in agricultural prices, this is where I recommend buying agriculture ETFs as part of your investment portfolio. Not only can it save animals' lives, agriculture investments can make you rich. For example, in Australia, you can buy the Betashares Agriculture ETF. These investments don't actually buy agricultural products like corn and soy and store them. That would be far too difficult. Rather, when you buy these investments, a team of financial experts buy and sell futures contracts for corn, soy, wheat, and rice. Buy doing so, your investment will approximate the prices of the underlying crops. When fund managers buy and sell agricultural derivatives on the market on your behalf, you are contributing to more speculation in these markets, which has the potential to increases prices and, more importantly, to increase price volatility, which makes the business of animal farms much riskier.

The bottom line is that we should be switching from meat products to plant products. This applies not just to what we put in our bodies, e.g. switching from cows milk to almond milk. This should apply to what we put in our cars and our investment funds.