The Stickman Chronicles: Protein Supplements

I hate the idea of protein powders, weight-gain formulas, and any of a number of other corn-syrup laden products that are just as likely to make my pancreas explode.

When I was 20, I had a roommate who was trying to lose weight, so I went to the gym with him a few times, thinking I might finally add some muscle to the body that made single girls wonder if I had hit puberty.  I bought some crap called “Super Gainer 3000” for more money than I could afford.  It didn’t taste bad, but after a few days of it, I stopped eating other things, had headaches and nausea, and eventually suffered from a Mexican vacation that I never got a chance to take.

A few years ago I tried again. I bought some protein bars at Wal-Mart (yeah, yeah, I know) because they were on clearance.  I wasn’t working out with enough regularity to even say that I did, but these brightly wrapped candy-bar doppelgangers promised 30g of protein, so I bought some.  Turns out they tasted like sawdust soaked in olive oil and covered with low grade chocolate.  Bleh.

Recently I have been forced to look at this again, since my body has started crying out for more calories, more protein.  I’ve thus far resisted because I believe in real food.  Not organic – cyanide is organic – but just real old fashioned food – nothing from a box, and nothing containing that toxic high-fructose corn syrup stuff which I’m pretty sure is also used to make bio-diesel.  Most of the garbage we eat nowadays explains why the girls from the senior class of 10 years ago all look like Honey-boo-boo’s mom.

Fortunately, I am currently residing in South America near the coast, so fresh seafood is available daily, and I can still buy a whole chicken.  Things are sweetened with real cane sugar, and starches aren’t any more hostile than just potatoes or rice.  Cooking things in real fat is possible, there’s no reason to substitute anything that is chemically similar to tub-and-tile caulk.  Real food is incredibly cheap, and fortunately, so are maids who know how to cook.

So enter quinoa, this grainy tasting stuff that has the same amount of protein per ounce as eggs, yet none of the cholesterol.  It’s supposed to be like tofu in that you can flavor it with just about anything, to suit your personal tastes.

I still haven’t discovered a way to make it taste like anything other than paste.  This incredibly perfect food is supposed to bring balance to the Force, since it has 14g of protein per ounce, low carbs, and desperately needed fiber, and I can buy a 10 pound bag of it here for a couple of bucks.

I tried it with fresh strawberries, and it tasted like strawberry paste.  I am using the paste references because it is something I know - I ate a lot of paste as a child.

I even tried mixing it with egg and bacon and frying it, and it still tasted bad.  If I can deep fry something with bacon and it still doesn’t taste good, then humans weren’t meant to eat it.

The only thing left is trying to ferment it and turn it into beer.  If I could invent a high-protein beer, I would be richer than Zuckerburg.  They could sell it at Wal-Mart.

The Stickman Chronicles continue.