The Brown Rice Surprise

“My body is made of brown rice.”

Dirk Benedict

I’ve never really thought much of brown rice. No one ever ate it around me as a child, so in my experience, it was white rice or none at all.

But just because I haven’t tried something in the past doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t try it now. Times change, and it is always best if we change with them.

I’d heard that brown rice had some qualities that would make it a healthier, more effective rice to add to my diet. While the taste is reputed to be a bit different, brown rice contains all of the things that have been stripped out of white rice. Basically, brown rice is the equivalent of whole wheat, while white rice is the equivalent of white flour.

Brown rice, like whole wheat, is healthier, because it hasn’t had essential nutrients stripped from it before we ever get it.

With this in mind, I decided to try a small bag of brown rice. I cooked up a small batch with some egg for breakfast this weekend to try it.

Have you ever noticed that, when you eat white rice, you never stay full for very long? That no matter how much you pig out, you’re always starving a short time later?

That doesn’t happen with brown rice. I ate a small bowl this morning and I still feel full and satiated several hours later. The only other food I’ve had that has made me feel full for so long has been old-fashioned oatmeal.

I am pleasantly surprised.

The taste is a bit nuttier compared to white rice (which is actually rather bland). It’s a pleasant taste. I can tell that, for savory meals, that brown rice is definitely the way to go. Why cook multiple times when you can cook once and it leaves you full for longer?

Now that I know just how effective brown rice is at eliminating hunger, I will definitely be incorporating it into my diet. It is a healthy, economical way to fill your belly.

Right now, my favorite ways to eat it are by cracking an egg on it at the very end of cooking and mixing it in. The heat from cooking the rice cooks the egg quickly. I like adding the egg and small chunks of whatever pre-cooked meat I happen to have available. I’ll begin to add vegetables to it when I go to the store, and a bit of soy sauce at the end will add a bit of spark to the dish.

Have you ever cooked with brown rice? How do you eat it? Do you have any simple recipes to share? If so, please share your stories in the comments below.

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I’ve written a lot of books sharing my odd view of life in hopes of helping others. My most notorious book is titled The Shoestring Girl: How I Live on Practically Nothing and You Can Too, but The Minimalist Cleaning Method is pretty popular as well. You can find them at the following places:

Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Apple iBooks
Smashwords (non-DRM)

Thank you for your support!

State of the World Today

I’ve been called paranoid more than once for my belief that we are on the verge of a major problem. I’ve even received a bit of hate due to the fact that I believe that we need to take steps to prevent the rich from getting richer. I’ve even been called crazy for stating my belief that a large number of people will lose their jobs to robots over the next few years.

So today I am going to show you a few articles that I have encountered recently. I didn’t search these articles out; they either appeared on my feed or were shared with me by others.

What would you do if you suddenly lost your job? There is a factory in my old home of Paducah, Kentucky that has laid off 100 people so far. You can read about it here

https://www.wpsdlocal6.com/news/indefinite-layoffs-affecting-genova-products-nationwide-as-paducah-plant-awaits/article_ae81e19e-1adf-11ea-bc5e-a3cb3f280ce1.html?utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook_WPSD-TV.

While you’re reading this, ask yourself how you would survive if you were one of the ones affected?

Over the past two decades people have mocked me for my decision to work in an assortment of fast food restaurants. No “normal” adult would ever sink themselves so low as to work a job designed for kids, I’ve been told. Even when I told them that I didn’t have a choice, they continued to mock me.

To those people, read this. It very well might be your future if you don’t wake up.

https://theheartysoul.com/senior-citizens-are-replacing-teenagers-as-fast-food-workers/?utm_source=PPV

Another thing I’ve been mocked about is my opinions on medical insurance. I don’t have medical insurance and neither does my daughter. Many of my friends and family cannot afford medical insurance. Like me, they only go to the doctor when they are in desperate need because it is so expensive. Due to the expensive nature of American health care, poorer people are dying. Here are the numbers:

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/09/09/poverty-america-literal-death-sentence-says-sanders-following-devastating-gao-report?utm_campaign=shareaholic&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=facebook

Last but not least, I’ve been told to remove my tinfoil hat because I have stated that over the next several years cashiers, truck drivers, and factory workers will be replaced by machines. After stumbling upon this article, I think I’ll keep my hat in place.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/end-of-the-world-this-futurist-has-some-grim-news-for-the-middle-class-2019-12-09?mod=mw_latestnews&link=sfmw_fb

This is why we need to stand up and take steps now to protect ourselves. We need to learn how to generate an income that isn’t dependent upon a public job, and we need to STOP making the rich richer!

Wake up, people!

The Power of Priorities

We don’t think much about priorities. We’re usually too busy putting out fires in our day-to-day existence that we shove them aside.

This is a serious mistake. When we don’t set priorities, we set ourselves up for failure.

My personal goal is to achieve complete financial freedom. In order to achieve that goal I set a series of smaller goals like researching various avenues of passive income and targeting them one at a time. I’ve been working on them but I forgot about something that is very important:

It won’t do me a bit of good to become financially free if I’m not around to enjoy it.

I focused my time and energies on studying and working instead. I created a plan to develop a second source of passive income (my first source is my book royalties) through investing in the stock market. I spent every moment I could spare working towards this goal.

When my energy began to wane I rationalized that I was pushing myself too hard. I just needed to slow down a bit in order to recharge. That didn’t work. Despite taking extra time to rest I was growing more and more exhausted, to the point that it was a chore just to make it through my shifts at my public job.

I assumed it was because I’m getting older and kept slogging forward.

That was when my tooth shattered. Within days the remnants of that tooth turned black and began to hurt. The pain began to keep me up at night so I used the time to continue my studies. Might as well do something productive, I reasoned. When the pain became too much to bear I finally worked up my courage and went to the dentist.

He promptly pulled five of my teeth.

Within days my energy level began to increase. It wasn’t up to normal levels but it was enough to get my attention. I was sabotaging my own success because I didn’t set my personal health as a priority.

It is time to correct that. By the time you read this I will be back in the dentist’s chair getting the stitches removed and having a serious discussion about correcting the issue. If I am going to achieve financial freedom in my lifetime I need to have the energy to do what needs to be done–and the health to enjoy it in the end.

It won’t be fun to go through my day looking like an Internet Meme while I sort this and save for a pair of dentures. To be honest, that’s one of the main reasons I’ve allowed myself to procrastinate for so long. It won’t be fun acknowledging my physical limitations even as I take steps to deal with it. It definitely will be frustrating to slow down, if not temporarily stop the physical pursuit of financial freedom during the process but that’s just how things go.

I know that I will be much better off in the end. I’ll have more energy and focus once the process is complete. Hopefully that will allow me to make up for the lost time.

There is a lesson in this for everyone. You must take care of yourself first. That means not only getting proper rest, but taking care of health issues before they become a major problem. It also means giving your goals precedence in your life. You’ll never achieve financial freedom if you spend your time watching television or playing video games, or run a marathon if you spend most of your time sitting on the couch.

You have to take definitive action and set priorities.

Do you have any priorities that you’ve shoved aside? Please share your stories in the comments below.