#now i make my own alcohol from pure ethanol

[ghostcarnagee]

In 2025 so far ive quit alcohol for a few days, realized why i started to abuse it in the first place, and then immediately realised why i quit in the first place the day after. Quit again. Immediately craved it enough to buy more a day after. All in 7 days. Now all i can manage is drink less in a week than i did before. Which isnt even THAT hard at this point. I need legalized weed, fuck this shitty poison from hell

[frangipanilove]

This is not a drill; the kissy episode is the most Bethyl episode ever😱😱😱

And Greenland = Green(e)land CONFIRMED

(Massive spoilers for TBOC 2X2 below, proceed with caution)

Guys! As we all know by now, Paramount+ France accidentally released all the episodes at once, and naturally the internet did what it does best, meaning it preserved them for eternity. They’re floating around out there, and I’ve watched 2x2. That’s the dreaded episode with the D@rabelle kiss, and guys! It’s literally the most Bethyl episode I’ve ever seen. I’ve written in other posts how I expect season 2 to be full of Beth callbacks and dialogue parallels, and boy howdy did 2x2 ever deliver!

First, for some context, I wrote a speculation-post a few days ago about Carol and Ash making a stopover in Greenland, or Green(e)land as I’ll demand it be called from now on. Read that for full context, because I can’t be bothered repeating myself. Let's just say my speculation was rather precise on this particular occasion.

I expected to hear Beth dialogue parallels and see Beth callbacks, and that’s exactly what we got. The Greenland stopover was nothing but a long series of dialogue callbacks to 4x12 Still and 4x13 Alone! In one of the reviews that came out before the premiere, it was described as "bizarre", and that caught my attention, because that normally means it does nothing to drive the narrative forward, which usually means it is included purely for symbolism purposes. And that's exactly what we got. A truly bizarre story, with crazy amounts of symbolism.

So, in episode 1, we saw Carol and Ash plan on making a stopover in Greenland, to switch out the ethanol tanks.

Ethanol/alcohol is a metaphor for a cure/resurrection in TWDU, and I’ve written countless posts on it, here's my latest. One of the reasons I refuse to leave it alone is because Beth is right in the center of this symbolism due to episode 4x12 Still, in which “Still” is a reference to “distillery” a place for the production of ethanol/alcohol.

Also, Beth is known to enjoy a drink or two, and she made getting drunk her entire purpose for living in Still. The girl is pretty much the queen of alcohol/ethanol at this point, and remember in TWDU, that’s a good thing, as it is directly tied to a cure/resurrection. It represents surviving.

Ok, back to Carol and Ash. They land on Greenland/Green(e)land, having some issues with a fuel leak. It needs to be fixed. They immediately run into two survivors, climate scientists, who have been stuck there since the fall of civilization, and one can safely say the isolation hasn’t done them any good. A bit on the crazy side, both of them.

Ash and Carol return with them to their research station, and from there on out it’s absolutely MAYHEM in terms of Beth callbacks and dialogue parallels. The French subtitles are in white, the red is my English translation as the dialogue was spoken in the episode:

Right off the bat; "home sweet home".

In 4x12 Still, which is a reference to a "distillery", meaning a place for the production of alcohol/ethanol, Daryl explained that his father used to have his own moonshine distillery. And interestingly, so did the crazy scientists on Green(e)land:

The Greenland scientist explain that they distill their own Aquavite (and for anyone who is still undecided on the hypothesis that alcohol represents a cure/resurrection, "Aquavite" is a Norwegian/Scandinavian liqueur, the name translates to "water of life"):

Then we immediately turn to drinking, as you do:

...they pour drinks...

Carol likes Aquavite about as much as Beth likes moonshine, meaning not at all...

They start off amicable, and say "skål" which means "cheers" in Norwegian...

There are references to games...

...then things start to go slightly sideways...

Meanwhile, Ash is on his way back to the plane with Crazy Scientist #2. There's a reference to something or someone "nuts"...

...and something or someone beautiful:

In the beginning of the episode we see Laurent gift Daryl a hand carved dog he has made. Dogs are Sirius symbolism and represent resurrection/return/coming back (I've written tons of posts on why it is so, but long story short; it refers to Sirius the Dog Star that disappears from the nightsky only to return some time later):

Later, we hear this:

Carol insists on going looking for Sophia (meaning Daryl) alone, and demands Ash stay in place to watch the plane. If she's not back in two weeks he should leave without her, she says. Ash's response:

Guys! I know we aren’t thrilled about the kiss. I’ll briefly give you my interpretation of it, perhaps it can be of help, although of course this is just my subjective meaning.

The kiss makes a little more sense in its full context of the episode actually, at least to me. My interpretation is that this is very much also about Laurent. Daryl is shown to be seriously bonding with Laurent, and I’m not saying he doesn’t also like Isabelle, but it’s definitely a package deal for him. Daryl is drawn to the three of them as a family unit, more than just to Isabelle as an individual, in my opinion.

I think he’s just desperate for companionship and a healthy relationship with a decent kind adult. And I’m not saying that to minimize Isabelle in any way, but that’s the vibe I’m getting. They’re not star crossed lovers, they’re two lonely adults who desperately seek some kind of meaningful connection. And I don’t want to ridicule or minimize that, that’s a perfectly valid motivation for a relationship, and I believe it can work out wonderfully. But yeah, it’s not primarily about love and lust, imho.

And think about it! This is Daryl’s first onscreen kiss! TPTB absolutely knew it was going to break the internet as well as people’s hearts. They knew this episode would be scrutinized under a microscope! Why in gods name would they throw in all these super specific Beth callbacks and dialogue parallels in such a massively important episode for Daryl, the episode they knew EVERYONE was always going to absolutely ruthlessly dissect?

It’s because Beth’s the real story here. And I keep saying, that whatever happens between Daryl and Isabelle, it is always on some level commentary on Bethyl. I wrote about it here, and we see it more than ever in this episode. I wrote that I expect the Beth-proxyness (which I maintain is totally a word) of Isabelle is going to be turned up a couple of notches this season, and that is truly what we're seeing.

I’ve only talked about Green(e)land and the Carol/Ash storyline in this post, but I could easily do a similar one where I point out all of Daryl and Isabelle’s Beth callbacks and dialogue parallels, because there were tons of them.

Cheer up, friends, I think this season is going to be fun for us!

[ahtsumu]

the mystery of love ; kuroo tetsurou

pairing: kuroo tetsurou x f!reader

synopsis: kuroo tetsurou does not believe in soulmates. he believes in science, himself, and sometimes other people. but that doesn’t mean he can’t believe in love.

tag(s): sweet summer lovin’, friends to lovers, inspired by call my by your name, university student!kuroo tetsurou, lab intern!kuroo tetsurou, so much pining lol, fluff, angst, slow burn ; warning(s): profanity, mentions of alcohol ingestion (it’s legal bc they’re in italy!), suggestive themes ; wc: 4.8k

a/n: happy birthday tetsu!! i hope you guys like this. i really enjoyed writing it ♡

Kuroo Tetsurou does not believe in soulmates. He believes in science, himself, and sometimes other people. At least, that’s what he tells you. Sometimes you treat this information as a source of hope; other times, you’re not sure what to make of it.

This, you realise with his shoulder pressed against yours and both your bodies sprawled across his wrinkled bed sheets, is one of those other times. You turn your face to look at his.

“What?” he asks, one side of his mouth curling up in a smile.

For a moment, you wonder what would happen if you just said it. You could blame the alcohol. Get away with it scot-free. While you mull the option over in the dead silence of his room, your brain suddenly registers the music still playing from the living room. The low bass reverberating through the walls. How close your lips are. The sound of his breaths.

“Earth to Y/N?”

And like that, the little what-if that rose in your mind falls back with its tail between its legs. You bite your lip, look around his room like the walls have a script printed on them. Unfortunately, they do not.

“I was just thinking about my shirt.” It’s not great, but it’s the best you can do while still feeling the vodka and orange juice burn in your stomach. And smelling it on yourself.

Kuroo’s laugh booms through the room and you can’t help but giggle along with him. “I said I was sorry!” he says, hazel eyes twinkling with mirth. He pauses and glances at his closet, then nods his head in its direction. “Take a hoodie. Your pick.”

A smile–– one you try to downplay but fail miserably to–– creeps up your face. “Really?”

“Yeah,” Kuroo replies. “You can also shower here if you want. It's the least I can do after spilling my drink all over you.”

When you emerge from Kuroo’s bathroom in one of his thinner hoodies, a lot soberer and drying your hair, he’s not on the bed anymore. Quietly, you step out of his room and look for him through the house. People are crashed everywhere–– on the sofa, over the kitchen counter, even propped up against walls. The floor is covered with plastic cups and mysterious pools of liquid. Wrinkling your nose, you try your best to step around the messes, looking in every corner in the house for the raven-haired boy.

You find him back in his room, actually. He’s back on his bed scrolling through his phone, the light illuminating his sharp features. When he hears you close the door behind you, he looks up, eyes immediately zeroing in on the black hoodie over your torso. The corner of his mouth twitches up.

“Where’d you go?” you both ask at the same time. He chuckles; you grin. Crawling back onto the bed, you tell him to go first.

“I went around to make sure nothing’s broken,” he explains. “Perks of being the only sober intern in the house, I guess.”

A beat passes.

This house is rented. You forgot about that. All his expenses are paid for by your mother’s lab. You forgot about that. He fits in your world so well, like maybe he’s always had a spot there, that you forgot that Kuroo Tetsurou is only here for the summer.

“Right.”

Kuroo raises a brow. “And you?”

“I went to look for you.”

He smiles and holds his hands out like a magician at the end of a trick. “Well, you found me.”

“Yeah,” you muse. “I guess I did.” Aren’t you lucky.

With that, something shifts in the air. A contemplative expression crosses Kuroo’s face. Maybe he’s realised how his words come out sometimes. Kuroo often says things that sound like they have more than one meaning and it used to throw you off, but now you just go with it. You’ve even picked up that habit yourself. “Do you ever wish that you’d met someone earlier? Maybe under different circumstances?” he asks.

Sighing, you fall back against his mattress and stare up at the ceiling. Telling the truth feels easier when you can’t see him. “Yeah. All the time.” A few seconds pass. “Do you think we would’ve been friends if we went to the same college?”

He also lies down. You’re both back in the same positions you were in an hour ago, but something’s changed. “No,” he admits. You’re not surprised–– that’s what you’d expected. “I’d be a junior and you’d be a freshman. We probably would’ve never met. And even if we had, I wouldn’t be caught dead hanging out with a… freshie.” He chuckles softly at the end. “And look at me now,” he adds softly, more to himself than you. You look over at his face. A contemplative smile rests on his lips.

That urge to just say it returns.

“Kuroo, I think––”

“You’re my favourite p–– oh, my bad. You first.”

And it goes away again.

“Um, uh,” you stutter, “how long do you have left here?”

Kuroo raises his brows. “On this planet? Hopefully a while, Y/N.” He sees your unamused expression and drops the front. “Three more weeks.”

Your eyes widen. Eight weeks have already passed. Blood rushes to your ears. Eight entire weeks have already passed, meaning that in three weeks, Kuroo Tetsurou will leave forever. And in four, you will, too. Except you’ll come back. You’ve done so every summer since you were born, probably will do until you die.

But this place will never be the same as it used to. Not after him.

“Y/N?” Once everything comes back into focus, you see the concern riddling his features. “Everything okay?”

“Hmm? Yeah.”

Say it.

“You didn’t have too much to drink, right?”

Say it.

“I just got buzzed. What about you?”

“The only drink I was planning on having all went to your shirt.”

Say it.

“Kuroo.”

“Yeah?”

Not yet.

“Let’s go on an adventure.”

At two AM, everything is different. The streets feel different, the villas look different, and you–– you can’t put your finger on it but Kuroo Tetsurou has changed, too. He sits behind the wheel of your father’s white 1953 Cadillac with the convertible roof down, unruly hair blown back by the breeze, a euphoric grin stretched over his face. In the passenger’s seat, you sit with an equally large beam and your hands raised into the dark sky.

“Where to, Miss?” he shouts over the wind.

“The stars,” you shout back with a laugh. Kuroo’s cat-like eyes briefly flit over to your side profile, lips curving to form a smaller, more tender smile. But you miss that–– your gaze falls on him just a second after his return to the road.

“I heard you say Jack’s,” he says, smirking.

The 24/7 diner sticks out like a sore thumb in the row of sun-baked stucco and stone buildings with its bold neon lights and shiny exterior. During the day, it seems gaudy, way too American for a small town in northern Italy. But at night, this place feels like home. You’ve been stumbling into Jack’s completely shit-faced since you were sixteen. Of course, all those other times had been with the kids of your mother’s coworkers. All those other times, you could hardly remember what you even ordered when you woke up hours later.

But this time, you walk in with Kuroo Tetsurou at half-past-two in the morning, the chemicals running through your bloodstream epinephrine and dopamine, not ethanol; if you’re drunk then it’s on a feeling and your only poison is the boy next to you. You study his face and consider that thought. No, he’s not poison. He’s the antidote.

“Y/N!” the server exclaims, rushing over with two menus. “And Kuroo! My two favourite customers, but together this time!” Giovanni ushers you two to a booth by the window and takes your orders, purely for show, of course. He knows your orders by heart: the Lorenzo for Kuroo and the Quentin for you.

“With fries on both, please,” Kuroo adds, throwing you a wink. “Aren’t I a gentleman?”

“You only did that to have more for yourself,” you reply drily. Having him over at your house for dinner every night made picking up his idiosyncrasies so unbelievably easy. You know them like they’re your own. You know him like he’s your own.

Kuroo clutches his chest and pretends to be offended, then changes the conversation to what happened at the lab today, or rather, yesterday. That your mother and the other researchers are so close to finding a cure for the strain of virus that’s recently hit crickets in southern Italy.

“You should drop by again sometime,” he says. “Last time you came around was, what, two weeks ago?”

Your face breaks in a grin. “Are you saying you’ve missed me? Chemistry getting boring?” you tease, drawing a loud laugh from him.

“Sodium hydrogen, you little shit.” Your mother’s used this one on you before, but hearing it from him makes you giggle anyway.

Giovanni comes back with two plates, each loaded with fries. You both say your thanks and he retreats to the kitchen again, but not before wiggling his eyebrows at your reddening faces. Wordlessly, you grab your fork and knife and transfer at least half of your fries onto Kuroo’s plate. Kuroo stares at you with the slightest smile. That look sends your stomach into flips.

“What?” you question nonchalantly, cutting into your burger.

“Nothing,” he says, mirroring your actions. “Nothing at all.”

It’s hard to imagine that after spending almost every day together for eight weeks straight that there’s still more to learn about each other, but there is. You tell him more about your real home. Your best friend who called you at 3 AM last night because of timezones. Stories from every summer before this one, when you were a different person in the same place you are now.

He tells you more about Kenma, his best friend from high school. How they played on one of the best volleyball teams in Japan. Stories from training camp, literature class, the metro ride home after school–– you listen to every single one in rapt attention. There’s not enough time in the world for all the things you want to know about Kuroo Tetsurou, so you take what you can get. If only you’d known him before you’d known him.

“If we’d met earlier here, do you think we would’ve been friends?” you ask after paging Giovanni for the check.

“No,” he replies, picking up a few remaining fries with his fork instead of his fingers. The corners of your mouth turn up. That’s your thing. He considers the scenario seriously. “I think we met right when we should have.”

“What about the future?” you press, leaning into the conversation. “Let’s say we meet in two years here, instead of now. Would we be friends?”

Kuroo sets his fork down, eyes you steadily. “What’s this about?”

You blink. “What?”

“What’s with all these hypotheticals today?” Perhaps worried that he came off too harshly, Kuroo adds, “I thought I was the scientist.”

“I just… it feels like I’ve known you since forever.” This feels like it was meant to be, you don’t say. And I want to know you forever.

A sigh–– fond, but still a sigh–– blows through his lips. “Don’t tell me you believe in soulmates,” he says with a wicked grin.

“Are you calling me your soulmate?” The question, shamelessly genuine, painfully hopeful, leaves your mouth without you intending it to and you regret it instantly. Because Kuroo Tetsurou has told you many times that he does not believe in soulmates.

Is it so bad to dream, though?

You watch him carefully but he doesn’t say anything, just continues smiling wryly like you’d intended to tease him. Like he knows that you know better. But you don’t.

“Are you?” he suddenly replies. Sharp eyes hold yours, daring you to respond. Do you dare?

At that moment, Giovanni returns with the check. “Who’s paying?” he asks, unaware of the tense exchange that just occurred across the table. Inaudibly, you sigh in relief. Kuroo is about to say that it’s on him when he catches himself in the middle of his sentence, looks your way, then back to Giovanni. He says you’ll go Dutch. You nod in approval.

“So,” Kuroo drawls once you’ve both paid for your meals. “Where do we go from here?”

Good question.

Kuroo Tetsurou has never been to an outdoor club period. And though he’s been clubbing, he has never once gone dancing in his lifetime. You tell him that’s about to change as he parks the car in a lot near the venue. Before him, all your summer nights were spent here.

“You’ve been here for two months and you haven’t been to an outdoor club yet?” you ask while unbuckling your seatbelt. That can’t be possible. If you’d been in his shoes… an attractive college student in a foreign country for the summer, you would have gone wild.

“Nope. I’ve been a little busy, y’know, spending my days in a lab, handling chemicals, studying viruses, washing lab equipment, writing up reports for your mother and her colleagues, working on my own research on the side… the usual.” He flashes you a bright, sarcastic smile.

“Poor baby,” you coo, ruffling his hair. Kuroo laughs while you continue messing with the dark locks. “Was your first full day here the only tourist-day you’ve had so far?” His weekends, you already know, are spent either lounging around cafés, pools, or the great outdoors with you or the interns. But you’d assumed he’d had time to do some exploring on his own.

Kuroo nods. “And my guide wasn’t even that great,” he mutters, shooting you a dark look. “She sped through every attraction and hardly spoke a word outside of the tour to me. I think she hated me.”

You giggle and open the door, letting the music from the outdoor speakers infiltrate the bubble inside your car. “Maybe she was just nervous!” you say as you get out. That’s a lie.

“About what?” Kuroo follows suit, the gravel crunching beneath his feet. “I was so friendly to you and you just brushed me off each time.” He pouts.

But you don’t reply. Instead, you just grab his hands and pull him towards the venue. As you step into the boundaries marked by fairy lights and rustic wooden fences, Kuroo stops in his tracks and tugs on your intertwined hands. You glance down before up, trying to memorise how his hand looks around yours in the few seconds you can steal.

“Y/N,” Kuroo says. The strobe lights paint his skin pink, blue, purple like it’s a canvas. “Tell me why you were nervous.” Grammatically, it’s a command. And yet it sounds like he’s begging.

“What’s it mean to you?” you ask, feeling your heartbeat speed up in your chest. So what if you just… said it? What would happen?

“Everything?” he replies with a cheeky smile. The odds that he seriously means that are slim. But… they’re there. You shake that possibility out of your mind. That’s just the hope talking.

“Depends how convincingly you say it.” You tug on his arm. “C’mon. Let’s dance.” But he doesn’t budge–– he just continues to stand by the entrance of the club with an expectant look on his face. People are starting to stare.

“Fine,” you say with an eye roll. “I’ll tell you." Kuroo smirks, something self-congratulatory ready to leave his mouth, but then you let go of his hand and dance backwards into the throng of moving bodies. “But first, you’re gonna have to dance with me!” 

You allow yourself to be swallowed by the lively music, the people, the moment. Seconds later you’re deep enough into the crowd that you lose sight of Kuroo. Something in you says that he’ll show up soon, though. For now, you let yourself breathe. Forget about the heaviness of what-if’s, the itch to confess, the dread of the aftermath. Feelings are a lot like gravity. Sometimes they keep you grounded, other times, they weigh you down. This is one of those other times.

You dance up to a friendly-looking group of teens your age. Three guys and two girls. You shout your name and follow up with how it’s nice to meet them, hoping one of them finds you nice enough to keep around. Dancing alone in a club is one of the worst things that can ever happen to someone. Luckily, one of the girls–– the one wearing a purple wig–– pulls you in for a hug, drunkenly shouting back, “Bianca!” Bianca pushes you into their circle next to one of the guys and, just like that, you two start moving to the beat, feeling it in your feet, shoulders, hips. At one point, you turn around and take a good look at his face. The guy’s cute enough, but he’s not Kuroo. Still, you say nothing as he moves closer to you and grabs your hand, lifting it up and motioning for you to twirl.

Suddenly, a pair of hands grip firmly onto your waist and pull you out of the circle. “Hey!” You look down, suddenly realising they’re Kuroo’s. A shiver runs down your spine. He spins you around to face him. His lips are set in a firm line, eyes completely devoid of humour, nostrils slightly flared.

“Hi,” you say quietly, testing the waters.

“Hi,” he replies curtly. His hands are still on your waist. Selfishly, you choose not to point that out. Instead, you try to defuse the situation with a light question. Playful tone.

“Where were you this whole time?”

“Looking for you.”

“Well… you found me.” You flash him a sheepish grin. A peace offering of some sort.

“I did.” He doesn’t take it.

“Lucky you.”

Irritation finally seeps through his features. “You just left me on the dance floor!” he snaps. “And then when I find you after searching the entire venue, you’re dancing up on some random guy!”

“It was in good fun!” you retort, wriggling out of his grip. “And I wasn’t dancing up on him.” You want to ask if he’s jealous so badly, but you take a good look at his face and decide against that.

“Fun?” he asks incredulously. “Worrying about losing you, worrying about myself getting lost, then having to worry about that guy after finding you isn’t very fucking fun to me, Y/N!” The words fly out of his mouth like daggers without pause. Once finished, he looks at you with a disappointed gaze, shaking his head lightly, chest rising and falling with each heavy breath.

“I’m sorry,” you say, looking down at your shoes. It doesn’t matter if you disagree with him–– a sort of shame drills itself so deeply into your conscience that all you can think about is making things right again. “I didn’t think my actions through.”

A second passes. You wonder what he’s thinking.

“Hey, look at me.” Kuroo lifts your chin up with an index finger. Your wide eyes meet his narrow ones. Just as a pink beam glides over his face, his gaze softens, falls down to your lips. And then you feel his thumb on your chin, barely grazing the skin of your bottom lip. His Adam’s apple bobs up and down. The revelry in the background fades to dull beats against your eardrums. Suddenly, you register that he smells of, as usual, blackcurrant and amber.

But now you also smell of blackcurrant and amber.

You’re wearing his clothes. You smell of him.

Kuroo’s eyes crawl back up to yours, wide like he’s just been caught in the middle of a crime. You blink expectantly, ignoring the furious way your heart pounds in your chest. Shallow breaths puff through your slightly parted mouth.

“I am.” It comes out barely a whisper. C’mon. Kiss me. Kiss me. Kiss me kiss me kiss me kiss me kiss me kiss me––

You gently touch the hand he has on your chin. Kuroo jolts back like he’s been burned. “I’ll, uhm, I’ll be in the car,” he stutters, looking away from your face. He pushes through the sea of people, leaving you all alone on the dance floor, body doused in blue light, fingers touching the area his thumb had been as if preserving its print.

Kuroo hardly notices you slip into the passenger’s seat minutes later. He’s got his forearms hanging over the steering wheel and gaze fixed ahead into the darkness, mind probably running off to a place he wishes his body was, too.

As soon as you’ve buckled yourself in, Kuroo starts the car.

The entire drive home is silent.

Once Kuroo pulls into your courtyard and parks, he turns off the engine, unbuckles his seatbelt, and steps out of the car. Wordlessly, you follow his actions and meet him by the stairs to your door.

“Hi,” you say quietly. He doesn’t look at you.

“Hey.”

The two of you stand outside your front door in silence as you both consider what to say next. This can’t be the way it ends.

“I shouldn’t have… done that,” Kuroo says first.

“Done what?” You choose to play dumb. Call it selfish, but you want to hear him say it. Maybe then it’ll feel as real as it had been. Kuroo sighs and leans his shoulder against the stone wall, crossing his arms over his chest. There’s no way he can dance around what happened. Perhaps the past two months can be summed up as the development of a strong friendship with skilled doublespeak and metaphors and just enough artistic licence, but this can’t. And Kuroo knows that. He can’t feed you an alternative truth like he’s done so many times before. What’s more, he can’t lie to himself anymore. So maybe it’s better just to not speak at all.

Your eyes burn holes into the side of his face. Fine. You’ll concede first. “I was never nervous.”

Kuroo blinks, turns his head around to look at you. “What?”

“I was never nervous. I was playing it cool because I didn’t want to risk befriending you and getting attached.” I’m still playing it cool, you don’t say. And I’m already attached. “Guess I just came off as a bitch instead.” You laugh. “But can you blame me? You were this cute, older guy. Smart, too, since you were interning with my mom. You were my dream guy.”

An amused breath blows out of his nose. “Were?” he questions, grinning, only remembering the fragility of your platonic relationship a second later. “Um––”

“Are.” It slips out of your mouth without you realising. Fuck. Kuroo stills. It’s too late to take back your words now, so you might as well just keep going. “You still are my dream guy.”

Seconds pass and neither of you says anything. Sweat gathers in the palms of your hands. You start to feel your heartbeat through your neck. The buzz of the cicadas grows louder. Oppressive. Behind Kuroo, the sky is starting to turn pale blue and pink in the horizon. That means it’s almost sunrise. The night is almost over, and, hopefully, so is this awful conversation.

“And… you don’t feel the same.” Funnily, you feel like you’re lying. You’re telling Kuroo how he feels and you think you’re lying. Does that make sense? None of this night even feels real. God, you hope this has all just been a dream. Mustering a soft smile, you say, “That’s okay. Thank you for the party. And the adventure.” It was fun while it lasted. You feel the house key in your pocket and turn to unlock the door. “I hope this doesn’t change anything between us, Kuroo. Can we still be friends?” The words leave your mouth feeling like barbed wire. You know damn well you can’t still be friends.

And suddenly, you feel his calloused hands around your cheeks. Suddenly, his hot breath fans over your face.

“Can I kiss you?” he murmurs.

Your eyes close instantly. “Yes, please.”

And suddenly, his soft lips are on yours.

Kuroo breaks the kiss seconds later. “Fuck,” he whispers, resting his forehead against yours, touching the tips of your noses together. “Y/N, I don’t want to be friends. Fuck.” A dry chuckle leaves his mouth. He pauses to collect his thoughts but decides that that can wait. Instead, he presses another kiss to your lips so fervently that he backs you up against the wall with no space between your bodies. You wonder if he can feel your heartbeat like this, chest to chest. Kuroo’s hands travel down your waist and rest on your hips. His tongue runs across your tongue, your teeth, the insides of your mouth. You gently suck on it, drawing a satisfied moan from him. When the kiss ends, you see that his lips are red and cheeks are swollen. A warm feeling spreads through your chest. “I thought I could be happy just being friends with you but I can’t. I want you so bad it hurts. Not to mention, when I saw you in my hoodie?” His fingers pinch the material. “I thought God was testing me or some shit.”

“Sure didn’t feel like you wanted me that way,” you retort, still breathless.

“In my defence,” Kuroo says, thumbs tracing your cheekbones, “I was very scared.”

“Of what?”

It looks like he’s about to tell you, but he changes his mind and doesn’t answer. He grabs your hand and pulls you back to the car with a cheeky grin. “I’ll tell you only if you tell me where we can watch the sunrise.”

Kuroo holds your hand, stroking your thumb the entire drive there.

After a short hike, you plop down on the grassy hillside, supporting your body with outstretched arms in the back. Kuroo sits down beside you with one of his hands covering yours, fingers intertwined like a honeysuckle vine around a hazel tree. You tell him that you grew up running along this hill with your parents. It used to be your playground. Maybe, you think, it’s time to make new memories here.

“Beautiful,” Kuroo breathes, a wonderstruck look in his eyes. The sun’s just risen halfway above the pink and blue horizon, the saturated orange casting the entire city below gold. It’s not just the city, though. He’s also gold. He’s just as beautiful. You watch him with a soft smile on your lips, noting how his wide eyes and slack jaw return to normal as he stares off into the distance. After resting your head on his shoulder, you fix your eyes on the sunrise ahead. You wonder what he’s thinking so quietly about.

“Penny for your thoughts?” you finally ask once the sun has finished revealing itself.

Kuroo blinks, returning to reality, but continues to stare straight ahead. “I was just thinking about… soulmates.”

You lift your head off his shoulder. “Don’t tell me you believe in soulmates now,” you tease.

“Hmm.” He turns to look at you, the sun turning his hazel eyes the colour of honey. That same wry smirk from Jack’s returns to his face.

“You wanna know why I was so scared?”

“Pray tell.”

“Because I’ve never felt this way towards anyone.”

“That’s bullshit.”

“No,” Kuroo laughs, laying his head down in your lap, looking up into your eyes. “I’m serious. I used to purposely stay away from girls in high school. Same in college. Same all the way until you somehow wormed your way into my life. That’s why we wouldn’t have been friends.” You cock your head to the side.

“Why?” you ask, running your fingers through his hair.

Kuroo’s eyelids flutter shut. He inhales deeply before talking. “My parents are divorced. The years before the divorce were… very ugly.” 

(He spares you the details of the midnight arguments, the smashed plates, the holes in the walls. He spares you the details of how he only ever knew how to fall asleep with his head sandwiched between two pillows, how he hasn’t seen his sister in a decade, how he’ll curse and snap but never yell because he always feels like a child again around the noise. That’s for another time, if you’ll have any.) 

“I still remember all the fighting and yelling. For the longest time, that’s all I knew about marriage and relationships.”

“Did you think all relationships were like that? Fighting and yelling?” you ask.

“For a while, yeah. I’m still a little scared of that, to be honest. Ending up in a relationship where all you do is fight.” Kuroo sighs. “But that’s not the only thing. I thought I wouldn’t know how to love someone, growing up like that.” At that, your fingers pause in his hair.

“Wait,” you say, furrowing your brows. A wave of immense sadness (not for yourself, for him) washes over you. “You think you wouldn’t know how to love someone else?”

“Thought.” Kuroo cracks open his eyes and smiles up at you. “I’m in the process of changing my mind.”

[reverseopossum]

Drunk Histories

(A decontextualized chapter from something I’m writing)

Nina’s forgotten that I don’t drink, and offered to get drunk with me. I appreciate the spirit of the offer enough that I don’t reject it. She and Ava and I sit at their kitchen table, an overturned ultralight shipping crate, and Nina steadfastly holds up her end of the offer.

Martian alcohol is pretty much straight distilled ethanol. You have to mix it, otherwise there’s a solid chance that your body will refuse to swallow it and you’ll aspirate pure alcohol, which is Double Plus Ungood. Ava brings out some powdered orange juice she’s been saving and mixes it in what I assume to be a sensible proportion. A variant on a screwdriver, we decide. A new, truly Martian drink, the Screw You Driver. I sip mine, which makes Nina laugh whenever she notices. I’m still on my first when she’s on her fourth. She catches me counting and Ava inching the pitcher further away, and says that watching me watch my country slide into fascism is stressing her out.

“It’s not just my country,” I say. “Haven’t you heard? They’re claiming ownership of Mars now. Citing the American people’s financial contribution under the old government. They’re demanding sole access to our data, control over our media and mail, and that we stop criticizing them. Apparently you’re all Americans now.”

“Should we be worried about that?” Ava asks. She does sound genuinely concerned, even appalled, but it’s the kind of concern you would have on hearing that a friend’s druggie uncle was arrested for peeing on the mailman. The claim is ridiculous, and probably impossible to enforce.

“What are they going to do?” I ask. “Bully the space nerds? Steal our lunch money?”

“It’s not like they’re going to send an invading force,” Nina says. “But they could stop us from getting supplies, couldn’t they? They own the space elevator.”

“I thought China was almost done building one,” I say. 

“They were,” Nina says. “But then it took damage from some stray debris, and the war distracted them from fixing it.” 

Well, shit.

“Good thing we grow food here,” Ava says, shrugging. In the pause that follows, I can feel her calculating what she would have to do to sustain all of us. Tear out the new trees and plant lots of potatoes instead, replace some of the air purifying plants with edible varieties, maybe task us with keeping some plants alive in our living quarters. Keep the tilapia tanks more crowded. Send a surface party for ice to supply the extra water. Do all that and ration calories to a bare minimum, and we might get by until the new dome is ready, if we abandon most of our research to free up labor for construction. We may or may not have to eat the lab mice.

Otherwise, our only real hope is that some other country will go to the unthinkable expense of a massive supply launch sans space elevator. That’s to say nothing of all the sides of Martian life I know nothing about: replacement parts for air recyclers, radiation shielding, and climate control. Without supplies, we can only survive if nothing breaks. It’s optimistic at best, laughable at worst. But it’s improbable that the new American regime would actually cut us off from using the elevator. Not when it would anger every country in the world simultaneously, and when we’re such a valuable symbol. 

“We should have a Martian Congressional Congress and declare independence,” Nina says with drunken conviction.

“Congressional Congress, Doctor?” Ava asks. (As a rule, Martians call each other Doctor or Professor only in dire sarcasm.)

“As an act of rebellion,” Nina says. “That’s what the old Americans did. Right, Jonah? Back when they had powdered wigs and shit?”

“Continental Congress,” I say, laughing in spite of myself. “For us, it would be a Planetary Congress. And if we’re going to declare independence, we should do it right. Who has really pretty handwriting?”

“Hang on,” Ava says. “This is my moment to shine.”

She darts into her bedroom and brings back, of all things, an expensive-looking calligraphy pen, a brand new ink cartridge, and a pad of thick creamy paper. “I told you I have the randomest hobbies,” she says, loading the pen. Nina and I stare in rapt attention as she writes the biggest, fanciest F and underlines it with an elaborate flourish.

Fuck you, she writes in enormous flowery script. She thinks a moment, and adds beneath it, Love, Mars.

“Well, folks, there it is,” I say. “We’re a country now. And the national anthem is Space Oddity.”

“Can I design the flag, too?” Ava asks, taking out her personal screen.

“Knock yourself out.”

The result is a tiny white rocket launching against a field of dusky blue. The plume beneath the rocket is vivid orange-red, and shaped like an enormous fist with an upturned middle finger.

“The blue represents wisdom, rationality, and an eye turned toward the infinite,” Ava deadpans.

“Red is for lust,” Nina announces. “With which, we assume, humanity will procreate among the stars.”

“Red is for Mars, dumbass.”

“How far can you zoom in?” I ask. “I’m thinking since it’s a digital drawing, you could add a little person in the rocket flipping the bird. Then people find it if they zoom in.”

“Or what about mooning them?” Nina asks.

“Dude,” Ava says. “And then if you zoom in further…”

“Um…”

“Not on the ass! I’m thinking he’s kind of looking over his shoulder, and if you zoom in on the face, you can see the other new flag everyone’s talking about reflected in his eyes. So they know who it’s meant for.”

“That’s too heavy-handed with the symbolism,” I say.

“Then why did your old government put the Illuminati on money?”

“That’s… you know what, that’s a fair point.”

“No pledge of ‘llegiance, though, ‘cause it’s creepy,” Nina says, slurring slightly. The drinks are catching up with her.

“We need a national bird,” Ava says. “Everyone has an eagle or some shit.”

“Ben Franklin thought it should be a turkey,” I say.

Nina blows a raspberry and points both thumbs down. “No turkeys on Mars,” she says.

“A lab mouse with mechanical wings?” Ava suggests.

“Guys,” I say. “I’ve got it. A spherical bird in a vacuum.”

“Beautiful,” Ava says. “Majestic. I’ll start drawing it. What about a national motto to put underneath it?”

“I’m not that kind of doctor,” Nina says.

“You don’t need a doctorate to come up with this shit,” I say.

“No,” Nina says, “that’s the motto.”

We hang the Declaration of Independence on the sample fridge in the neuro lab, and Nina makes the seal with the spherical bird her home screen. Someday we’ll be independent, but for now it’s impossible. For now, it’s a joke. 

[kineticpenguin]

I enter the command center. MP40 calls the room to attention and is universally ignored. I mutter "as you were" just so her feelings aren't hurt. I sit down in my chair, lean back, and close my eyes. IDW jumps on to the table to stare at me. Christ, she never lets up with the cat schtick. M3 indulges her by blasting her with a spray bottle. IDW runs out of the room at full tilt, almost knocking over WA2000 as she walks in.

“Commander, you’re setting a terrible example!” WA2000 yells. My eyes snap open. At first I think she’s angrily pointing at me, but on second glance she’s pointing to Kalina’s seat at the table, where G11 has appeared, already conked out.

“Oh. Yeah, that’s just her thing, don’t worry about it. She just does that. And I’m just resting my eyes, which are tired from working a second job to pay for this one.”

She had clearly been about to retort, but now just looked confused. "You what?”

I let my head roll over to the side to look at her. “We’re a PMC. Mercenaries. We do the job for money. At least, I think. But you know what I get instead of a paycheck? Some extremely hyper woman -who isn’t fooling anyone by the way- hitting me up to spend my money, out of pocket, on company resources. I’m talking even the most basic shit like ammunition and rations. I even have to generate the contracts for new construction out of my very own ass. Every time I submit an expense report, the only response I get is a jpeg of a grinning ancapball. So you know what I’ve had to resort to, just to ‘defend humanity’ from Sangvis?”

I straightened up, a bit wobbly, and pulled a bag of gems out of my cargo pocket. I tossed it on the table. Some of the stones inside spilled out.

“Yep! Guess what, Wah! I’m forced to trade in African blood diamonds! On a related note: you’re welcome for the dorm room. So you don’t have to sleep on some cinderblocks out in the rain like a stolen Volkswagen.”

WA2000 seems stymied. M3 interrupts by clearing her throat. Or simulates it. Wait, these girls eat, so maybe they build up excess mucus too. Weird. Can never tell what’s going on with these robots. “Uh-um, sir? You have a conference call with Mr. Kruger and Miss Helian in five minutes.”

“Fuck. Shit. I hope I have enough time.” I poke the intercom button. “Thompson and AK-47 report to the briefing... war... CiC... whatever the fuck this is. The room with the big holotable I spend all day in.”

Thompson shows up immediately. She knows who the boss is. Surprisingly, AK-47 shows up soon after. She looks somewhere between buzzed and hung over, which is probably as close as she gets to sober. She is a robot. I am beyond questioning it.

“You. Smokes. You. Vodka. Now.”

AK-47 makes a pouty face before turning over a fifth of unlabeled, clear alcohol. I open it up and give it a sniff. No, this isn’t vodka. She’s been pilfering pure ethanol from the air transports’ maintenance bays. Good enough. Thompson proffers a pack of cigarillos with deference. I select one and light it.

“Boss, when can I get assigned to a combat echelon?” she asks. It’s too bad that’s just not going to happen. She’s a good, if heavily mafia movie-inspired, egg. I tell her the truth. “Get yourself a real ability, Tommy. Then you’ll belong.”

Everyone knows Force Shield is bullshit. Thompson’s eyes widen almost imperceptibly, for just a split second, then she’s back to herself. Yeah, I hit a nerve. Good. Maybe she’ll find a shield that doesn’t take so long to activate that most fights are over before she can pop it.

Kalina darts into the room. “Sorry I’m late, Commander! I was just finishing up those combat reports and- HEY! You’re in my chair!”

G11 opens an eye. “You’re 35″ she says, and turns over on her side in Kalina’s chair. There is an awkward silence. I take a drag. G11 starts snoring.

“Anyway, like, totes whatevs!” Kalina says. I am pretty sure people stopped saying any of that before anyone in the room was born. If they’d ever said it at all. “Let’s get started, shall we?”

“Press,” I say, taking my seat, and then take a swig of the “vodka.” It punches me square in the brain. My brain’s had worse. At this point I need it to wake up. I feel less tired when I can’t feel my body screaming in agony for sleep. I take another swig to help the first one help me.

The holograms of Kruger and Helian appear over the table. I greet them warmly.

“Hey, it’s my two favorite bosses, Mr. Neckbeard and Miss Fetishgear. What can I do ya for?”

“We have reports that Sangvis forces- wait, what?” “This is wildly inappropriate, Commander! Don’t think you’re irreplaceable just because you keep delivering one miraculous success after another! We can easily replace you with any other implausibly lucky idiot!”

I’ve always wanted to do this. I hold up a finger to the holograms to tell them to wait a sec and just chug alcohol. Saw it in an old cartoon. Loved it. oh christ this is a mistake

I choke and splutter a little bit. So does the room. What was I going to say? Oh yeah. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t hear you over the sound of not getting paid. You know, it’s not just me. I looked into the paystubs of all the T-Dolls under my command. You’ve booked the cooks! You’re charging expenses incurr- incalc-, charged to us, always adjusted so that our paychecks equal exactly zero. You’ve got a whole lot of pissed off employees with military weapons, man. I was going somewhere with this, but anyway, fuck you.”

I blink. My eyes almost stay shut. Dammit, not now. I stand up and lean on the table. “So the least you can do is not bullshit us. Don’t bullshit us, man. Tell us where we’re going to fight and why.”

“Sangvis forces are converging on some seemingly random point that’s probably inconvenient for some people. It’s coincidentally important that we stop them from doing this for reasons I cannot explain right now, but you will understand later.”

I hang up on them. They had their chance.

I grab the blood diamonds. I stab the intercom button.

“Who wants to go out for some fucking ice cream?”

[edmund-valks]

Ilandreline - Fun in the Sun

(( The Call - A Compound Beginning - Just One Cookie - Soul Food ))

Her limbs felt too heavy, her tongue too large for her mouth.  There was a mild sensation of having been sunburnt over her entire body -- kind of weird, that, given how she never went outside remotely close to naked -- but it probably wasn't life-threatening.  She was very, very thirsty, though.  "Water?"  Even croaking a single word was painful.  Hopefully there was someone around to hear.

For the moment, the only sounds Ila experienced were the dull roar of nothing, like the aftermath of being too close to an explosion.  Again, probably not life-threatening; she knew that sort of thing happened when you were certain kinds of unhealthy.  There was no doubt in her mind that she was in a state of dubious health after her long trip.  She was still piecing memories back together, but the muscle aches suggested she'd been overworking herself for days, possibly weeks.  "Fuhhnnng taimlayshn."  The words weren't quite as intended.  Close enough.

Something was in her mouth then.  Maybe a finger?  Hopefully not a dirty one.  Then a little liquid happened instead.  Water?  Water!  Or near-water; whatever it was felt like a cool drink but also burned all the way down.  Not like alcohol, either, like… cinnamon syrup?  Was that a thing?  She flinched as she swallowed, but the expression was hidden behind her goggles.

"-s that?"  Sound returned suddenly, crystallizing from the static.  "Are you still with us, mortal?  Can you hear me?"

Ilandreline forced her eyes open to slits.  The sky was overhead, viciously bright.  "Fuhhh," she growled, more by reflex than intention.  Her throat hurt, but speech was easier.  Whatever they'd given her was apparently helping.  "I… hear you.  Not dead.  Yet."  Was that a sigh of relief?  And was that some kind of whistling hoot?  Maybe her hearing wasn't totally back.

"Very good.  You did not arrive as expected.  We were very worried, especially as the darkness you emerged from continues to cling to your soul in… unusual ways."  The speaker had a lovely voice, rich and resonant and crystal-delicate.  "You were very lucky to arrive here at all.  How you even survived your journey… that is a tale I would be most interested to hear."

While her eyes slowly adjusted to the constant pain of ambient light, Ila made them focus on the speaker.  They -- she? -- was surprisingly blue, though otherwise humanoid if one ignored the bird wings.  She was wearing white and gold, both too bright to look directly at, in what appeared to be something she'd once heard described as a chiton.  Maybe.  Her knowledge of history was very good for a Glimmerbow child, but they were on the whole not great with the subject since most of their books were centuries out of date or first translations from other tongues.

"Luck," she forced out as her answer.  It wasn't even a lie.  "Nearly… didn't."  Something about all this brilliance made her suspect she shouldn't mention how much blood had been involved.  Or how much hadn't been her own.

She could see the drink now, tilted her head a bit to make it easier on her caretaker.  Whatever it was smelled… antiseptic.  Like viciously unforgiving essence of pine shoved into pure ethanol.  That explained the burning, at least.  Didn't clarify how or why she might actually feel better for having consumed it, but she'd settle for any answers.

After choking down the molten-gold elixir and weathering the unpleasantness of its effects, Ilandreline exhaled slowly.  Time to ask questions.  Almost time, rather; first she had to sit up.  Spots flared through her vision as she raised her head, even more when she propped herself up on her forearms.

"Don't-!"

She ignored the alarm, forcing her body increasingly upright until she was more or less sitting.  It still took both arms to stay there, but she could feel sensation returning to her fingertips.  Good enough.  "Thank you for… helping me."  That was a polite way to start, wasn't it?  "Would you mind telling me where I am, though?"

Shock registered on the azure face.  "You… you're in Bastion.  Home of the sworn and dedicated.  Realm of the Kyrian."  Something about Ila's expression must have shown her lack of understanding, because the winged woman rushed on.  "This is where souls go who will defend the Way and the Purpose, and shepherd others along their path to ascension."

"Uh.  Okay then."  Whatever that meant, it sounded very important to this blue person.  It also sounded like the opposite of a fun way to spend an afterlife.  "What if I don't know what any of that means?  Is that going to be a problem with my… being here?"

"Of course not."  She passed Ilandreline a fist-sized orange-skinned fruit.  "Here, if you can sit, you can eat.  Purian will restore what ambroria dew does not."

The spheroid looked good, but it tickled her nostrils with the faint scents of something left too long.  Slightly rotten, perhaps.  It wouldn't do to offend her host, though, especially when she'd arrived unannounced and mostly dead.  "Maybe… tell me about you and this, uh, Bastion stuff while I eat?"

"Oh, of course.  I am Trenasophe, a forgelite of the Kyrian."  She paused.  "Right, you don't know what that means.  I forget what it was like to be newly arrived here, for I've spent so long emptying myself of all that kept me bound.  Please, though, help yourself to food and drink while I explain."

Ilandreline has little interest in the goods on offer, though she forced herself to consume them.  Starving to death was not going to help anyone, even if having her insides lightly seared and filled with rotten fruit wasn't very fun.  Hopefully there were other dishes somewhere.  Meat would be good, even better if it wasn’t spoiled.

“The Kyrian are souls who serve the order of the Shadowlands and preserve it against those that would disrupt it.  This realm, Bastion, is where we live.  It is here we guide new aspirants on their journey to become what they were meant to be.  The way is rarely easy or swift, but little of value ever is.

“As a forgelite, my purpose is to build and maintain.  The things that surround, shelter, and guard us are not eternal, but with our efforts they will appear so for eternity.  We create and preserve, and what has been broken we seek to repair.  All things have their place in the Purpose, and it is the forgelites who guide them into shape.”

In an effort to ignore the protestations of her stomach, the elf gave these philosophical ramblings more attention than she normally would.  It didn’t make sense in the slightest, but again -- she was a guest.  Saying the whole system sounded like a load of post-processing guano would be the pinnacle of rudeness; she restrained herself to merely thinking it very loudly.  Perhaps the subject could be changed to something more interesting?  “I know some things about building, too.  What kind of stuff do you make?  Any fun machines?”

If she’d been worried there was no emotion among these creatures, that question put her concerns to rest.  Trenasophe’s lips turned up, parting into a grin.   The brightness of her teeth was only matched by the gleam in her eyes.  “I make everything,” she said with a breathlessness Ila could appreciate.  “I have learned what I did not already know and shed the bad habits learned in life.  From the most massive work of stone to clockwork so delicate I cannot hold the components in my own hands, I do it all.  Which is not to say that I have mastered them yet -- there is none among us who can match the Forgelite Prime -- but perhaps someday I will, if that is how I am allowed to serve.  Is that then why you are here?  You have come to trade your knowledge for ours?”

It was a very convenient answer.  She probably should have gone for it.  “Actually, no, I’m here because this is where the road I was on threw me out.  But that sure sounds like fun.  Maybe you can teach me anyway?”

“You… did not know where you would arrive?”

Ila laughed, immediately regretting it as the rawness of her throat flared up.  “I didn’t even know if I would arrive, much less where.  All I knew was I had a pretty good idea I could get to the Shadowlands if I traveled a certain way.  Pretty glad it worked, honestly, because otherwise I’d probably be dead.”

The Kyrian blinked twice.  “If you did not know that you would make it, nor did you know your likely destination, why did you come at all?  How does this fit in with your… purpose?”

“Oh, you know, normal mortal reasons.  My grandmother was concerned about the hole in the sky on our home plane, wanted to make sure the multiverse wasn’t unraveling.  She can’t really travel these days, so she sent me.”  She smugly bit into a new purian without thinking.  Not shrieking as she swallowed took all the effort she could muster.  Doing her best to ignore the sandpaper in her throat, Ilandreline forced a smile.  “We knew there was a thinness in one of the near-planes that had contact with the Shadowlands, so it was just a matter of getting to the right part and, you know, poking a little hole through.”

Trenasophe’s brow furrowed.  “You arrived through the remnants of a planar tear from one of the most devastating assaults Bastion has ever witnessed.  Some of our greatest still bear scars from that time.  How did you survive passing through such a place?”

Shit.  Okay, time to… not lie without being too honest, right?  “It… was pretty much empty when I went through.  Didn’t see a single living thing other than myself the whole time, unless you count the blood-plants.”

“Blood-plants?”

“Yeah, red spiky things, like an aloe, but they’re full of some kind of blood jelly.  They’re not good for much except hurting yourself.”

“I… see.”  She clearly did not, and Ila had no interest in pressing her about the fib.  “How long did your journey take?  You seemed close to death when you emerged.”

She shrugged.  “No idea.  Time doesn’t work right in that place.  I thought I had enough food and water for, like, a week?  Ran out of food real fast, then water a little later, and am not exactly sure I slept other than that one time with the cookie.”

Again the Kyrian made a noise of acknowledgement without understanding.  Ilandreline hurried on before too much thinking happened.  “Anyway, thanks for helping me out.  Really appreciate it, you know, and I’d love to talk about building things just as soon as I pass out for, I don’t know, a month.”

That much Trenasophe did understand.  She smiled, rested a large hand on the elf’s shoulder.  “Yes, rest seems quite reasonable, even if your estimate of the duration is clear hyperbole.  My steward and I shall watch over you, ensure your needs are met.  All I ask in return at this moment is a name to call you by.”

“Vondariel,” she said with a smile.  Nobody outside her family knew her sister’s name -- well, maybe Miss Winford did, but good luck getting anything from her -- so it seemed a safe one to steal.  “But you can call me Von if that’s easier.”

A nod.  “Very well, Von.  Sleep in peace, knowing you are safe at last.  I look forward to helping you achieve your purpose.”

Nothing ominous about that…  Ilandreline’s eyes closed against the awful brilliance, her recuperating body descending into unconsciousness as soon as it was horizontal.

[perksofwifi]

Recycling Combustion: Creating Fuel From Carbon Dioxide

I admit that writing about this month’s subject makes me feel a bit like Charlie Brown running toward Lucy and her football. This particular football, as a general concept, is just so alluring: Take a problem (excessive atmospheric CO2) and turn it directly into a solution that lets us keep driving the vehicles we love—via carbon-neutral gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel. This latest scheme solves many of the problems that have yanked the ball on my previous runs, giving me the courage to barrel toward it one more time.

My three prior columns explaining ways of converting atmospheric CO2 into liquid fuels ran in July 2008, June 2012, and Oct 2018. The early ideas started by scrubbing CO2 from the air with an absorbent compound such as sodium hydroxide in water, isolating the CO2, cracking it into carbon monoxide, and then hydrogenating it via various catalytic reactions such as Fischer-Tropsch. Capital and energy input costs doomed these ideas.

Ionic salts and formic-acid fuel cells running in reverse helped bring the projected energy input cost down to around $5–$8/gallon when I wrote my second column. Then Carbon Engineering (with backing from Bill Gates) leveraged pulp/paper mill tech to drop the CO2-scrubbing cost to about the price established for carbon-offset credits by the California Low Carbon Fuel Standard. Combined with anticipated drops in the cost of the proton-exchange membranes that were to provide the clean hydrogen, Carbon Engineering reckoned the per-gallon fuel price would fall to within 50 percent of higher 2018 pump prices.

Now Prometheus Fuels is aiming three new silver bullets at this problem:

Aqueous CO2 electrolysis using base-metal catalysts to turn CO2 directly into ethanol;

Separating the ethanol from the water without an energy-intensive distilling process; and

Upgrading the ethanol to gasoline, diesel, or jet fuels using exothermic catalytic reactions, which give off heat rather than absorbing it.

The CO2 collection step still requires a large air-to-water contact area like a cooling tower. But rather than trying to chemically isolate pure CO2, the electrolysis step can happen with just 2 percent CO2 in water.

The electrolysis step employs sheets of graphene covered in carbon nanospikes doped with copper nanoparticles. This anode’s intense folds and spikes help reduce the CO2 to CO and then grab hydrogen from the water to form ethanol at a 63 percent Faradaic efficiency (the number of electrons that end up in the ethanol) with 84 percent of the CO2 becoming ethanol.

Ethanol then gets separated from the water via carbon nanotube membranes that are highly selective for alcohols while rejecting water (I have friends like that). Minimal energy is consumed in this step.

Upgrading from ethanol to complex hydrocarbons involves novel but inexpensive zeolite catalysts involving indium and vanadium (InV-ZSM-5). The reaction takes place at atmospheric pressure without added hydrogen, and the process can tolerate water in the intake stream. It occurs at elevated temperature, but the overall net reaction produces its own heat.

The resulting CO2-based crude stock contains no sulfur, benzene, heavy metals, or other impurities that petrochemical refiners must contend with. A third of the resulting liquid hydrocarbon mix includes chains of five carbons or more, and the calculated research and motor octane numbers are 105.7 and 90.6, respectively. The entire process can be operated with (clean) electrical input only and can be turned on and off quickly to match intermittent renewable energy supplies.

Los Angeles just contracted a long-term purchase of solar energy at 1.997 cents/kWh. Presuming 60 percent electrochemical efficiency, the 36.3 kWh of energy in a gallon of Prometheus gasoline may require 61 kWh of input energy, or $1.22 worth of sunshine. This price doesn’t include the CO2 scrubbing or final refining and other costs, but neither does it presume carbon offset credits that may apply.

Water usage in the CO2 scrubbing could be where Lucy yanks my football again, but BMW i Ventures just invested $12.5 million in June, and Prometheus has announced plans to start selling its gasoline in California at the end of 2020. Might I finally make contact with my football and split the uprights?

Read More Technologue columns from From Frank Markus Here:

Curing Car COVID: Tech Solutions to Disinfecting Shared Cars

Rolling in the Deep: Metals for Future EV Batteries Could Come From the Ocean Floor

So Long, Spark Plugs: Low-Temp Plasma Ignition Might Be the Future

Science Will Find a Way to Zero-Carbon Transportation

Fertilizing Fuel Cells: One Solution to the Hydrogen Infrastructure Issue

The post Recycling Combustion: Creating Fuel From Carbon Dioxide appeared first on MotorTrend.

https://www.motortrend.com/news/direct-co2-to-fuel-conversion-technologue/ visto antes em https://www.motortrend.com

[lostinthisheaven]

After swiping on tinder and analyzing my love life, I came to realization that I do not know what I want and what I expected from the relationships.

Just wanting to have a good time and “see where it is going” what actually is a mistake. Fun one tbh. What do I want?

I don’t need a pretty face, I do need a cute one.

Okee I take it back, I do want a pretty face. It is just that everyone has another definition of beauty. I do want to look to someone and think “daaamn, you really worked on yourself”. Worked on your body, worked on your lifestyle, worked on your meals, worked on your skin, worked on your mind. I like to see an effort that someone is putting in itself. Not the prettiness given by birth, prettiness that is developed by time, mindset and effort. I really love strength, not only of body but strength of the mind.

I used to drink, still is it a “habit” for a party or having a good time with friends. But I want to quit, completely. I don’t see enjoyment of ethanol mixed with sweetness. The society sees, and a old habit is difficult to pressure till 0. I do drink less now, that’s a plus. So someone who is not drinking or also drinks a little bit/only on occasion - is the perfect match.

No sigaretts, only when alcohol passes by. One more reason to stop drinking and learn how to process stress differently.

I search for a feeling. That I can’t describe. Not “falling in love”, but kind of sexiness and tenderness. Passion combined by pure honesty/trust/comfortable level and softness of mind.

That’s why I hate tinder - you can’t feel a person through the picture. Feel it vibe.

I do need a strong sexual energy, I do miss it in my daily life and relationships at the moment. Or I miss it in myself because of the troubles in my family.

I do think too hard, because everything I search is a meaning. Meaningful relationship. Meaningful life. But meaningful for who? For me or for this world? Am I my own world that I create? See, my thought are going too far and I make my own life really difficult. Yay.

[ebenpink]

Dear Mark: What Breaks a Fast Followup http://bit.ly/2IC2i6y

For today’s edition of Dear Mark, I’m answering a round of questions drawn from the comment section of the “What Breaks a Fast” post. You folks had tons of follow-up questions about whether other types of foods or compounds break a fast. Does a teaspoon of honey? Does elevated insulin from BCAAs? Does coconut milk? Does pure prebiotic fiber? What about longer fasts—are they recommended? And how about unsweetened cocoa powder? What explains my ability to predict your questions? Do sausages break a fast? Does liquor? How should you exercise?

Let’s dig right in:

Hey, what about honey? 1 tsp in morning tea?

A teaspoon or less of honey is fine and won’t negate the benefits of fasting. I alternate between doing collagen coffee and coffee with cream and teaspoon of sugar (which was my typical morning coffee for over a decade). No reasonable person should fear a teaspoon of sugar or honey.

For what it’s worth, honey isn’t “just” sugar. It elicits a more beneficial (or less negative) metabolic response than other forms of sugar.

I’m shocked about the BCAA. I used to fast and take BCAA’s (yes, to continue dynamic exercise). I used to find it extremely difficult to fast compared to now when I fast without taking them. Does that mean that the insulin response made fastic more difficult?

It’s possible. Insulin impairs lipolysis—the release of stored body fat into circulation for energy usage—and the success of fasting depends on lipolysis. Without lipolysis, you can’t access all that stored energy.

Thank you very much for this info!! I am a butter-coffee-for-breakfast drinker, and I always worry about the ingredients breaking a fast. Could you please comment on coconut milk (in the can)? I love putting that in my coffee/breakfast. Thanks.

Coconut milk is a less concentrated source of medium chain triglycerides, or MCTs (as in MCT oil). MCTs convert directly to ketones, making MCT oil and to a lesser extent coconut oil or coconut milk a potential “boost” for fasting. Still, energy is energy, and any energy you take in is energy you won’t be pulling from your body.

I find MCTs and coconut to be more useful when someone is just getting the hang of fasting or ketosis—as a nice boost to get things moving in the right direction.

Keep your coconut milk under a tablespoon and you’ll be fine.

Does prebiotic (resistant starch) fiber break a fast? Acacia senegal or potato starch? Thanks!

No. If you’re worried, test your postprandial blood sugar after eating the fiber.

Great input Mark as someone 3days into a 7day water fast with electrolytes of course what’s your view on longer fasts.

Check out the post I wrote on long fasts. Potentially beneficial but the risks accumulate the longer you go. You just have to be even more careful and methodical.

How about unsweetened cocoa?

A tablespoon runs just over 12 calories (depending on the brand; some cocoa powders contain more fat and thus more calories), with around a gram of net carbs and a gram of fat. Also a nice source of potassium and magnesium, along with a ton of polyphenols which can have fasting-mimicking effects on their own.

Eating enough unsweetened cocoa powder to knock you out of your fast would be incredibly repulsive. Probably impossible.

Cocoa is definitely a nice addition.

Okay it’s almost creepy the way Sisson answers my questions before I even ask them! I was wondering about this yesterday and then this post popped up in my inbox.

How does he do that…? 

Kraft-Heinz has a strong relationship with Google and Amazon, and the Kraft acquisition gave me access to Alexa/Google Home datasets and the ability to predict what my readers are wondering about.

Just kidding, though it’s scarily not out of the realm of possibility anymore.

What about a small snack of paleo sausages, smoked or dried? So meat and fat (beef, pork or lamb), and some spices. Maybe 100g worth.

Well, that’s a legit snack bordering on a small meal. That will break the fast, but it’s not all for naught. There is the whole “fasting-mimicking diet,” where you eating very few calories for several days out of the week and retain many if not most of the benefits of full-on fasting.

Let’s just say if you ate a small snack of paleo sausages on your “fasting” days, you’d still be way ahead of 99% of people.

But do try a full-on fast at least once. You might surprise yourself.

Great post! What about alcohol? Specifically, a shot or 2 of liquor. I would assume beer and wine would break a fast, but what about whiskey or tequila?

When alcohol enters the system, utilization of all other energy sources is suspended until the alcohol is burned. Back in 1999, researchers did a study where they gave fasting adult men the equivalent of a couple shots of liquor. They stopped releasing stored body fat, stopped burning body fat, and began burning way more acetate (a product of ethanol metabolism). They didn’t exactly “break” the fast, but all the metabolic trajectories we love about fasting took a big pause.

Good morning Mark, How does one exercise in the morning while fasting? When to eat?

You can exercise any way you like, but I change how I train based on when I’m going to break the fast with food.

If I’m going to break the fast with a meal right after, I train any way I like. I’ll do sprints, HIIT, weights, anything.

If I’m going to keep fasting after the workout, I like to stick to strength training and low-intensity movement (walking, hiking, standup paddling). The strength training is essential during a fast because it’s an anabolic signal to your muscles—move it or lose it. Simply lifting heavy things during a fast can stave off muscle loss.

That’s it for today, folks. Stay tuned later this week for “What Breaks a Fast: Supplements Edition.”

//

//

The post Dear Mark: What Breaks a Fast Followup appeared first on Mark's Daily Apple.

from Mark's Daily Apple http://bit.ly/2GrMamw via IFTTT http://bit.ly/2EXgy8I

[lauramalchowblog]

Why You Need to Be Taking L-Theanine

People often ask me why I use supplements. After all, our hunter-gatherer ancestors didn’t take them. Our ancient ancestors didn’t take them, nor did our medieval ones or our pre-industrial ones. In fact, nutritional supplementation is one of the most modern inputs you can imagine and, in a perfect world while eating a perfect diet, it should be unnecessary.

But the world is not perfect. We don’t have the same foods available to us that our ancestors ate during the formative years of our evolution, and even if we did, modern farming practices altered mineral levels in the soil. Supplementation can restore some semblance of a “natural” food environment.

Overcoming the stressors of modernity, however, is harder, because it’s not a matter of avoiding the wrong foods and eating the right ones then smoothing out the rough patches with smart supplements. Modern stressors are mostly unavoidable. You have to deal with them. Endure them. And that’s where supplements can really help. Like L-theanine.

What is L-Theanine?

One of my favorite anti-stress supplements is L-theanine. It’s an amino acid found in green and white tea that is structurally similar to glutamine, GABA, and glutamate. It crosses the blood-brain barrier after oral dosing, appearing in the hippocampus and increasing alpha-waves in the brain in less than an hour. It’s clearly “doing stuff” up there. But what are the benefits?

L-Theanine Benefits

The majority of L-theanine’s benefits revolve around our response to stress and anxiety. L-theanine takes the edge of things. More specifically and in addition, L-theanine:

Reduces stress

Lowers anxiety

Improves performance

Smoothes out the effect of caffeine

Improves sleep

Restores immune function

Protects against alcoholic liver damage

L-Theanine as a Stress Reducer

When you meditate, your brain is pumping alpha waves. When you’re having a restful morning with . not much to do but hang around and quietly enjoy your time, you’re alpha wave-dominant. When you’re sitting on the beach listening to the waves lap the shore, a brain scan would reveal a ton of alpha wave activity. And when you take 50 mg of L-theanine, your alpha brainwaves kick in after about an hour.1

L-Theanine as an Anxiety Buster

L-theanine isn’t a benzodiazepine. It won’t brute force your brain into an overwhelming state of supreme chill. For L-theanine to reduce your anxiety, you must actually be anxious. Now, much anxiety is hidden, even to ourselves. We may not know that we’re anxious about something. We may not recognize it. So theanine can really help, as long as there’s something for it to help against.

The downside is that it’s subtler than taking a pharmaceutical anti-anxiety med; you don’t “feel it” as much as taking something like xanax. The upside is that it doesn’t make you drowsy and it’s non-addictive. In fact, most people tolerate theanine so well that researchers have been unable to identify a toxic dose. I’m not suggesting you take an entire bottle, of course. There may be a toxic dose, somewhere, somehow. But subjects have taken 400 mg of L-theanine every day for 8 weeks straight without apparent ill effect.

L-Theanine as a Performance Enhancer

L-theanine is most effective at improving the cognitive performance of people undergoing stress. In studies, this takes the form of artificially stressful environments—loud noises, oppressive rules, that sort of thing. In real life, stress is more unpredictable, and I’d argue that most of us are in stressful environments, even if we’re not consciously aware of it. If you’re lucky enough to live a totally stress-free life, L-theanine may not help your performance.

Here’s what I mean: In subjects doing mental tasks in a stressful environment, taking theanine improved performance, reduced blood pressure, and lowered subjective stress-anxiety levels.2

L-Theanine and Caffeine

If you get the jitters or anxiety from caffeine, have 100-200 mg of L-theanine with it. The combination has been shown to smooth out the effects of caffeine and reduce anxiety while retaining performance. That’s why you feel awake and alert after a cup of tea, but without the jittery feeling that coffee gives you.

L-Theanine: Sleep Enhancer

Much like its relationship with mental performance, the ability of L-theanine to enhance sleep depends on the psychological status of the individual.

If you suffer from anxiety or stress, L-theanine has been shown to improve sleep quality and efficiency and reduce sleep latency and usage of sleeping meds.3

If you’re a kid with ADHD, 400 mg of L-theanine can help with sleep quality.4

If you’re being treated for clinical depression, 250 mg of theanine per day should help reduce sleep disturbances at night.5

If you’re being treated for schizophrenia, 250 mg of daily L-theanine should improve sleep quality.6

But if you have good sleep and good mental health, L-theanine won’t be a big boost to your sleep quality—unless you have significant stress in your life (which most do).

L-Theanine for Immune System Restoration

Back about 20 years ago, I developed an anti-stress supplement meant to combat the overreach and overtraining so many endurance athletes experience. Like me. See, I would get dozens of colds each year. Even though I looked healthy and fit, my immune system was constantly playing catch up. All my running and training didn’t leave any resources for the rest of my physiology. Everything was devoted to recovery.

That supplement, originally called Proloftin but now called Adaptogenic Calm, included L-theanine in addition to four other key anti-stress ingredients. I developed it to fix my own issues, and sure enough, it worked (and as it turned out, many others had the same problem).

As we can see from recent research, it wasn’t just placebo. In one study, endurance athletes supplemented with a cysteine and L-theanine product starting ten days prior to training. They ran immune tests before and after training, and the group who got the cysteine and L-theanine supplement had lower C-reactive protein, lower neutrophil count, and higher lymphocyte levels, indicatives of a lower inflammatory and immune load.7

L-Theanine and Liver Health

We don’t have direct evidence of isolated L-theanine improving a person’s liver’s resistance to things like alcohol, but we do have two other lines of evidence.

First, the animal studies that show supplemental L-theanine protects the liver against alcohol-induced injury and increases liver glutathione content (the antioxidant we use to detoxify ethanol).89

Second, the many observational studies linking green tea consumption to improved liver health and  robustness, like the one where green tea consumption seemed to protect against fatty liver.10

L-Theanine: Dosage You Should Take

Oral doses as low as 50 mg have been shown to induce alpha brain waves in healthy humans and doses up to 600 mg per day have been safely tested. Generally, people can tolerate an awful lot of L-theanine without any problems. In fact, you’d have to eat hundreds of grams of pure L-theanine powder to even approach the LD50.

How I Use L-Theanine

The most common way I take L-theanine is by popping a few caps of Adaptogenic Calm, the anti-stress supplement I’ve been making and using for over a decade. You don’t have to take Adaptogenic Calm to get L-theanine, but I’m pretty happy with the synergistic effects of the ingredients.

On the rare occasion I feel acutely stressed out, I’ll take some L-theanine powder under my tongue and let it sit there. L-theanine is water-soluble, so in theory it should absorb sublingually. It certainly feels like it does—I get an almost immediate effect. The taste is subtly sweet. Not something you seek out, not something you avoid either.

You can also get it from green tea, but it will be difficult to hit the 100/200 mg mark found to be most effective in clinical trials through tea alone. Average theanine doses in a cup of green tea range between 25-60 mg. It’s doable, especially if you luck out with a theanine-rich source of tea—you just have to drink a good amount.

That’s it for my take on L-theanine. All in all, it’s a great compound to keep on hand and, perhaps, take on a regular basis. Very little downside, almost all upside.

Have you ever tried L-theanine? Notice anything? How do you use it yourself?

Thanks for reading, everyone.

(function($) { $("#dfrsj1o").load("https://www.marksdailyapple.com/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php?action=dfads_ajax_load_ads&groups=674&limit=1&orderby=random&order=ASC&container_id=&container_html=none&container_class=&ad_html=div&ad_class=&callback_function=&return_javascript=0&_block_id=dfrsj1o" ); })( jQuery );

References

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18296328/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23107346/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31623400/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22214254/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27396868/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25896423/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19352043/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16141543/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22019691/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24065295/

The post Why You Need to Be Taking L-Theanine appeared first on Mark's Daily Apple.

Why You Need to Be Taking L-Theanine published first on https://venabeahan.tumblr.com

[jesseneufeld]

Why You Need to Be Taking L-Theanine

People often ask me why I use supplements. After all, our hunter-gatherer ancestors didn’t take them. Our ancient ancestors didn’t take them, nor did our medieval ones or our pre-industrial ones. In fact, nutritional supplementation is one of the most modern inputs you can imagine and, in a perfect world while eating a perfect diet, it should be unnecessary.

But the world is not perfect. We don’t have the same foods available to us that our ancestors ate during the formative years of our evolution, and even if we did, modern farming practices altered mineral levels in the soil. Supplementation can restore some semblance of a “natural” food environment.

Overcoming the stressors of modernity, however, is harder, because it’s not a matter of avoiding the wrong foods and eating the right ones then smoothing out the rough patches with smart supplements. Modern stressors are mostly unavoidable. You have to deal with them. Endure them. And that’s where supplements can really help. Like L-theanine.

What is L-Theanine?

One of my favorite anti-stress supplements is L-theanine. It’s an amino acid found in green and white tea that is structurally similar to glutamine, GABA, and glutamate. It crosses the blood-brain barrier after oral dosing, appearing in the hippocampus and increasing alpha-waves in the brain in less than an hour. It’s clearly “doing stuff” up there. But what are the benefits?

L-Theanine Benefits

The majority of L-theanine’s benefits revolve around our response to stress and anxiety. L-theanine takes the edge of things. More specifically and in addition, L-theanine:

Reduces stress

Lowers anxiety

Improves performance

Smoothes out the effect of caffeine

Improves sleep

Restores immune function

Protects against alcoholic liver damage

L-Theanine as a Stress Reducer

When you meditate, your brain is pumping alpha waves. When you’re having a restful morning with . not much to do but hang around and quietly enjoy your time, you’re alpha wave-dominant. When you’re sitting on the beach listening to the waves lap the shore, a brain scan would reveal a ton of alpha wave activity. And when you take 50 mg of L-theanine, your alpha brainwaves kick in after about an hour.1

L-Theanine as an Anxiety Buster

L-theanine isn’t a benzodiazepine. It won’t brute force your brain into an overwhelming state of supreme chill. For L-theanine to reduce your anxiety, you must actually be anxious. Now, much anxiety is hidden, even to ourselves. We may not know that we’re anxious about something. We may not recognize it. So theanine can really help, as long as there’s something for it to help against.

The downside is that it’s subtler than taking a pharmaceutical anti-anxiety med; you don’t “feel it” as much as taking something like xanax. The upside is that it doesn’t make you drowsy and it’s non-addictive. In fact, most people tolerate theanine so well that researchers have been unable to identify a toxic dose. I’m not suggesting you take an entire bottle, of course. There may be a toxic dose, somewhere, somehow. But subjects have taken 400 mg of L-theanine every day for 8 weeks straight without apparent ill effect.

L-Theanine as a Performance Enhancer

L-theanine is most effective at improving the cognitive performance of people undergoing stress. In studies, this takes the form of artificially stressful environments—loud noises, oppressive rules, that sort of thing. In real life, stress is more unpredictable, and I’d argue that most of us are in stressful environments, even if we’re not consciously aware of it. If you’re lucky enough to live a totally stress-free life, L-theanine may not help your performance.

Here’s what I mean: In subjects doing mental tasks in a stressful environment, taking theanine improved performance, reduced blood pressure, and lowered subjective stress-anxiety levels.2

L-Theanine and Caffeine

If you get the jitters or anxiety from caffeine, have 100-200 mg of L-theanine with it. The combination has been shown to smooth out the effects of caffeine and reduce anxiety while retaining performance. That’s why you feel awake and alert after a cup of tea, but without the jittery feeling that coffee gives you.

L-Theanine: Sleep Enhancer

Much like its relationship with mental performance, the ability of L-theanine to enhance sleep depends on the psychological status of the individual.

If you suffer from anxiety or stress, L-theanine has been shown to improve sleep quality and efficiency and reduce sleep latency and usage of sleeping meds.3

If you’re a kid with ADHD, 400 mg of L-theanine can help with sleep quality.4

If you’re being treated for clinical depression, 250 mg of theanine per day should help reduce sleep disturbances at night.5

If you’re being treated for schizophrenia, 250 mg of daily L-theanine should improve sleep quality.6

But if you have good sleep and good mental health, L-theanine won’t be a big boost to your sleep quality—unless you have significant stress in your life (which most do).

L-Theanine for Immune System Restoration

Back about 20 years ago, I developed an anti-stress supplement meant to combat the overreach and overtraining so many endurance athletes experience. Like me. See, I would get dozens of colds each year. Even though I looked healthy and fit, my immune system was constantly playing catch up. All my running and training didn’t leave any resources for the rest of my physiology. Everything was devoted to recovery.

That supplement, originally called Proloftin but now called Adaptogenic Calm, included L-theanine in addition to four other key anti-stress ingredients. I developed it to fix my own issues, and sure enough, it worked (and as it turned out, many others had the same problem).

As we can see from recent research, it wasn’t just placebo. In one study, endurance athletes supplemented with a cysteine and L-theanine product starting ten days prior to training. They ran immune tests before and after training, and the group who got the cysteine and L-theanine supplement had lower C-reactive protein, lower neutrophil count, and higher lymphocyte levels, indicatives of a lower inflammatory and immune load.7

L-Theanine and Liver Health

We don’t have direct evidence of isolated L-theanine improving a person’s liver’s resistance to things like alcohol, but we do have two other lines of evidence.

First, the animal studies that show supplemental L-theanine protects the liver against alcohol-induced injury and increases liver glutathione content (the antioxidant we use to detoxify ethanol).89

Second, the many observational studies linking green tea consumption to improved liver health and  robustness, like the one where green tea consumption seemed to protect against fatty liver.10

L-Theanine: Dosage You Should Take

Oral doses as low as 50 mg have been shown to induce alpha brain waves in healthy humans and doses up to 600 mg per day have been safely tested. Generally, people can tolerate an awful lot of L-theanine without any problems. In fact, you’d have to eat hundreds of grams of pure L-theanine powder to even approach the LD50.

How I Use L-Theanine

The most common way I take L-theanine is by popping a few caps of Adaptogenic Calm, the anti-stress supplement I’ve been making and using for over a decade. You don’t have to take Adaptogenic Calm to get L-theanine, but I’m pretty happy with the synergistic effects of the ingredients.

On the rare occasion I feel acutely stressed out, I’ll take some L-theanine powder under my tongue and let it sit there. L-theanine is water-soluble, so in theory it should absorb sublingually. It certainly feels like it does—I get an almost immediate effect. The taste is subtly sweet. Not something you seek out, not something you avoid either.

You can also get it from green tea, but it will be difficult to hit the 100/200 mg mark found to be most effective in clinical trials through tea alone. Average theanine doses in a cup of green tea range between 25-60 mg. It’s doable, especially if you luck out with a theanine-rich source of tea—you just have to drink a good amount.

That’s it for my take on L-theanine. All in all, it’s a great compound to keep on hand and, perhaps, take on a regular basis. Very little downside, almost all upside.

Have you ever tried L-theanine? Notice anything? How do you use it yourself?

Thanks for reading, everyone.

(function($) { $("#dfhMhsc").load("https://www.marksdailyapple.com/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php?action=dfads_ajax_load_ads&groups=674&limit=1&orderby=random&order=ASC&container_id=&container_html=none&container_class=&ad_html=div&ad_class=&callback_function=&return_javascript=0&_block_id=dfhMhsc" ); })( jQuery );

References

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18296328/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23107346/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31623400/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22214254/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27396868/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25896423/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19352043/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16141543/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22019691/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24065295/

The post Why You Need to Be Taking L-Theanine appeared first on Mark's Daily Apple.

Why You Need to Be Taking L-Theanine published first on https://drugaddictionsrehab.tumblr.com/

[cynthiamwashington]

Dear Mark: What Breaks a Fast Followup

For today’s edition of Dear Mark, I’m answering a round of questions drawn from the comment section of the “What Breaks a Fast” post. You folks had tons of follow-up questions about whether other types of foods or compounds break a fast. Does a teaspoon of honey? Does elevated insulin from BCAAs? Does coconut milk? Does pure prebiotic fiber? What about longer fasts—are they recommended? And how about unsweetened cocoa powder? What explains my ability to predict your questions? Do sausages break a fast? Does liquor? How should you exercise?

Let’s dig right in:

Hey, what about honey? 1 tsp in morning tea?

A teaspoon or less of honey is fine and won’t negate the benefits of fasting. I alternate between doing collagen coffee and coffee with cream and teaspoon of sugar (which was my typical morning coffee for over a decade). No reasonable person should fear a teaspoon of sugar or honey.

For what it’s worth, honey isn’t “just” sugar. It elicits a more beneficial (or less negative) metabolic response than other forms of sugar.

I’m shocked about the BCAA. I used to fast and take BCAA’s (yes, to continue dynamic exercise). I used to find it extremely difficult to fast compared to now when I fast without taking them. Does that mean that the insulin response made fastic more difficult?

It’s possible. Insulin impairs lipolysis—the release of stored body fat into circulation for energy usage—and the success of fasting depends on lipolysis. Without lipolysis, you can’t access all that stored energy.

Thank you very much for this info!! I am a butter-coffee-for-breakfast drinker, and I always worry about the ingredients breaking a fast. Could you please comment on coconut milk (in the can)? I love putting that in my coffee/breakfast. Thanks.

Coconut milk is a less concentrated source of medium chain triglycerides, or MCTs (as in MCT oil). MCTs convert directly to ketones, making MCT oil and to a lesser extent coconut oil or coconut milk a potential “boost” for fasting. Still, energy is energy, and any energy you take in is energy you won’t be pulling from your body.

I find MCTs and coconut to be more useful when someone is just getting the hang of fasting or ketosis—as a nice boost to get things moving in the right direction.

Keep your coconut milk under a tablespoon and you’ll be fine.

Does prebiotic (resistant starch) fiber break a fast? Acacia senegal or potato starch? Thanks!

No. If you’re worried, test your postprandial blood sugar after eating the fiber.

Great input Mark as someone 3days into a 7day water fast with electrolytes of course what’s your view on longer fasts.

Check out the post I wrote on long fasts. Potentially beneficial but the risks accumulate the longer you go. You just have to be even more careful and methodical.

How about unsweetened cocoa?

A tablespoon runs just over 12 calories (depending on the brand; some cocoa powders contain more fat and thus more calories), with around a gram of net carbs and a gram of fat. Also a nice source of potassium and magnesium, along with a ton of polyphenols which can have fasting-mimicking effects on their own.

Eating enough unsweetened cocoa powder to knock you out of your fast would be incredibly repulsive. Probably impossible.

Cocoa is definitely a nice addition.

Okay it’s almost creepy the way Sisson answers my questions before I even ask them! I was wondering about this yesterday and then this post popped up in my inbox.

How does he do that…? 

Kraft-Heinz has a strong relationship with Google and Amazon, and the Kraft acquisition gave me access to Alexa/Google Home datasets and the ability to predict what my readers are wondering about.

Just kidding, though it’s scarily not out of the realm of possibility anymore.

What about a small snack of paleo sausages, smoked or dried? So meat and fat (beef, pork or lamb), and some spices. Maybe 100g worth.

Well, that’s a legit snack bordering on a small meal. That will break the fast, but it’s not all for naught. There is the whole “fasting-mimicking diet,” where you eating very few calories for several days out of the week and retain many if not most of the benefits of full-on fasting.

Let’s just say if you ate a small snack of paleo sausages on your “fasting” days, you’d still be way ahead of 99% of people.

But do try a full-on fast at least once. You might surprise yourself.

Great post! What about alcohol? Specifically, a shot or 2 of liquor. I would assume beer and wine would break a fast, but what about whiskey or tequila?

When alcohol enters the system, utilization of all other energy sources is suspended until the alcohol is burned. Back in 1999, researchers did a study where they gave fasting adult men the equivalent of a couple shots of liquor. They stopped releasing stored body fat, stopped burning body fat, and began burning way more acetate (a product of ethanol metabolism). They didn’t exactly “break” the fast, but all the metabolic trajectories we love about fasting took a big pause.

Good morning Mark, How does one exercise in the morning while fasting? When to eat?

You can exercise any way you like, but I change how I train based on when I’m going to break the fast with food.

If I’m going to break the fast with a meal right after, I train any way I like. I’ll do sprints, HIIT, weights, anything.

If I’m going to keep fasting after the workout, I like to stick to strength training and low-intensity movement (walking, hiking, standup paddling). The strength training is essential during a fast because it’s an anabolic signal to your muscles—move it or lose it. Simply lifting heavy things during a fast can stave off muscle loss.

That’s it for today, folks. Stay tuned later this week for “What Breaks a Fast: Supplements Edition.”

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[roxysbeachlife]

AVOID! The Toxic Truth About Stevia

A Recipe for Every Body | All Health Tips | AVOID! | Biggest Culprits | Natural Sweeteners | Obesity | Optimizing Health | Sweeteners

By Jane Barthelemy.

Stevia is marketed as a healthy sweetener. But surprising new evidence indicates all stevia sold in grocery stores is highly processed with methyl alcohol or other toxic chemicals. Healthy Solution: Look for natural zero-sugar sweeteners. Is your stevia pure? Or is it mixed with other sweeteners and chemicals? Do you wonder how your stevia is refined? What does “natural” mean, if anything? You deserve to know what’s hidden in your stevia. It is essential for your health to learn how stevia is processed, and decide for yourself. This article strips away the marketing hype, with clear evidence that’s very surprising.

Executive Summary: Yes, Stevia’s green leaves are naturally sweet. However those white powders and clear drops we find in groceries have very little to do with stevia leaves. They aren’t really stevia at all. They’re an extract that’s been super-refined using toxic chemicals, bleach, and marketed as “healthy”. When you look at the chemical refinement process, stevia is no more natural than Aspartame, Splenda, NutraSweet, Equal, Sweet N Low, etc. Everybody is looking for a non-addictive, healthy sweetener. But beware of any sugar-free sweetener that gives you the illusion of a “free ride”, because you may just be deepening your addiction.

Grow Your Own Stevia! The best stevia is the kind you can grow yourself. When it’s alive you know it’s REAL! Stevia plants grow beautifully in a pot, a garden, a window box, or on your kitchen window sill.  Just pull off a leaf when you need to sweeten something. This way you can be sure it’s organic, and the soil is healthy.

What is Stevia Really?  How can I Know if it is Pure? Stevia, or “stevia rebaudiana” is a plant that originates in Brazil with naturally sweet leaves. The leaves can be dried and powdered into a pure sweetener about 40 times sweeter than sugar. These raw, unprocessed stevia leaves have a strong aftertaste akin to licorice, and taste artificial. Pure unprocessed stevia leaves and green powder are not widely available due to their strong aftertaste. If you live in Santa Fe like I do, buy them bulk at the Coop on Alameda near the almond butter grinder. (Or you can order a pound here from Frontier on Amazon).

In grocery stores, we find an entire shelf of “stevia” in the form of processed liquid drops and white powders – all highly refined chemical extractions from the leaves, in the hopes of reducing the aftertaste. The resulting processed sweeteners are called myriad confusing names such as stevia, stevia extract, pure stevia, Rebaudioside A, Reb A, steviol glycosides, etc, and are anywhere from 2X to 350X sweeter than sugar, depending on the blend with other fillers. As a high-intensity sweetener, a little goes a long way, therefore it is often pre-measured in packets or mixed with other fillers such as GMO Maltodextrin, GMO corn Erythritol, inulin fiber, or even cane sugar. Processing is done with a variety of chemicals, such as, methanol, arsenic, ethanol, acetone, and others.

The resulting artificial sweetener called “Stevia” is toxic and unhealthy. Don’t be fooled by the name, that seemingly innocent stevia we find in grocery stores is a chemical concoction just like Splenda and Aspartame. In fact, it’s highly probable that you’re buying a blend that’s 99.8% Erythritol, a fermented sweetener made from genetically modified corn, with a pinch of refined stevioside powder. Your “Stevia” can be processed, mixed with chemicals, blended in a hundred ways, and still legally be called simply “stevia”. Refined stevioside is sold under countless brand names such as Sun Crystals, SweetLeaf, Truvia, PureVia, Stevia in the Raw, Pyure, and NuStevia to name a few.

Commercial Stevia is bad news. Stay away from it. That includes Stevioside and Rebaudioside and all the names. All “stevia” in grocery stores is processed with toxic chemicals. If you’re still going for the story that stevia is natural and comes from Peru, know that 85% of all stevia comes from China. Even the world’s top stevia marketer, international sugar giant Cargill, top food manufacturer in the world with over $102.7 billion in 2016 sales, manufacturer of Truvia and PureVia with Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, has all of its stevia produced in China. It’s a small world when you control the sweeteners every body is addicted to.

Take-Home Message: If you truly want to be free of sugar addiction, then processed stevia and other artificial sweeteners won’t help you. It’s better to skip all forms of Stevia, Truvia, and the blends listed below. The best solution is to use small doses of sugar-free sweeteners, to slowly detox your system from regular sugars. Check out my two preferred sugar-free sweeteners: Just Like Sugar Table Top, and PureLo LoHan by Swanson.

Quiz: Which sweetener is “Natural”? 1) Sugar cubes, 2) Processed stevioside powder, or 3) Stevia leaves from your garden?

———————————————————————————————–

(Most people don’t want too much information. However if YOU are one of those folks that desire the whole truth, read on. To learn how Stevia leaves are processed into a toxic sweetener, it required a bit of digging. As usual, the devil is in the details. To learn the whole Stevia story, continue reading…)

How is Stevia Processed? Processed stevia is made with a dangerous chemical refining process hidden from the public and deceptively marketed as “natural”. Manufacturers run into the problem that stevia leaves are extraordinarily resilient. The stevia cell walls are so tough that they resist the usual methods of boiling or centrifuging. Producers aim to to extract the active sweet compound, stevioside, and remove the funny aftertaste. In order to concentrate stevia to 300X concentration, toxic chemicals and artificial chemical enzymes are used, such as methanol, kerosene, alcohol, chlorine, ash, acids, titanium dioxide, arsenic, preservatives, chemical stabilizers, and emulsifiers.

The world’s largest producers of stevia hold patents for undisclosed, proprietary extraction methods. These patents belong to industry giants such as Coca Cola, PureCircle in Malaysia and USA, Cargill – maker of Truvia and PureVia, JustBio – A Canadian Biotech firm, McNeil Nuritionals LLC- maker of Splenda, and Chengdu Waggott Pharmaceutical Company in Sichuan China. That’s quite a line-up! Here are 5 common stevia extraction methods I located in public patent records. They all indicate the use of toxic chemicals, which are difficult or impossible to remove.

One of the more popular methods of producing stevia extract was developed by D. Payzant, U.S. Pat. No. 5,962,678. In summary, sweet stevia glycosides are extracted using methanol, a toxic, colorless, volatile flammable liquid alcohol. This method has been used for decades. The major drawback is that a toxic solvent like methanol is difficult to remove. Trace amounts are harmful to health and not ideal for human consumption.

Another common production method comes from Uenishi Hideaki, Japan Patent 54030199. To extract the sweetness and discard a bitter aftertaste, this method also requires the use of various toxic solvents. The removal of solvents requires energy and time, which are not considered cost-effective.

A third production method developed by R. H. Dobberstein, U.S. Pat. No. 4,361,697, uses several toxic solvents including methanol in a complex multi-step process. The major drawback is still the presence of toxic solvents, and their complete removal is not possible and not considered commercially viable.

Sato Toru, Japan Patent JP57005663 uses a new and improved process to extract sweetness from stevia hydrated in water containing alcohol, with the addition of calcium, iron, or aluminum. These compounds are then removed, passed through an acid-ication exchange resin using toxic solvents such as ethanol, acetone, etc. The major drawbacks here are the removal of water from aqueous extract, and removal of toxic solvents, which is not economical.

US. Pat. No. 4,599,403 by Sampath Kumar uses an improved method that is said to be less dependent on toxic chemicals. The major drawbacks are that the aqueous extract is treated first with an acid and then with base and then treated with toxic solvents like n-butanol, which lower the final yield and must ultimately be removed. Again, removal of solvents is not commercially viable, therefore most stevioside products generally contain these toxins.

What’s Really in Your Stevia Bottle? Well, you can start with the knowledge that there’s almost NO pure stevia out there, except for that rare green powder with a funny aftertaste. (I don’t mind the aftertaste, but many people don’t care for it.) If you want to know what’s really in your stevia, you can try reading the label. However that’s a problem since labels don’t have to disclose all ingredients. Your next hint is serving size. A low serving size of one gram or less is a good indication that the manufacturer is taking full advantage of the legal loophole, and omitting certain chemicals or ingredients. Here’s the loophole: By law, any item under 0.5 grams per serving is not required to be disclosed. So there’s no way you can know for sure what’s really in there. If your Stevia is any of the popular products below, I’ve done some of your homework for you, by reading the labels. However what’s undisclosed we’ll never know.

Popular Stevia Products and their Surprising Ingredients!

1 Better Stevia liquid This is a NOW Foods blend of refined Stevioside with Vegetable Glycerin, a non-glycemic fermented sweetener. 1 tsp liquid = 1 cup sugar sweetness. See Stevia Glycerite. 2 Better Stevia packets NOW Foods makes this product of powdered refined stevioside blended with Non-GMO Rice Maltodextrin. 3 Generic Stevioside Drops See Stevioside Liquid Extract. Generic refined stevioside drops are sold in every grocery chain under their private label, such as Trader Joe’s, Kroger’s, Safeway, Albertson’s, and many other store labels. 3 Generic Stevioside Powder See Stevioside Powder, refined. Refined stevioside powders are sold in grocery chains under their private label, such as Trader Joe’s, Kroger’s, Safeway, Albertson’s, and many other store labels. 4 Generic Stevioside, Industrial See Stevioside Powder, refined. This is a generic powder made of refined stevioside, that is sold on the industrial level as a food additive for the food industry. It is used in a wide variety of food products, such as Good Earth Teas, Celestial Seasonings Tea, Energy Drinks, Sodas, Chocolates, Ice Creams, and Energy Bars. It often contains toxic chemicals, however the amounts are usually under the 0.5 grams per serving, therefore disclosure is not required. 5 Green Leaf Stevia This is a proprietary blend by Swanson made of refined Stevioside powder and high-glycemic non-GMO rice Maltodextrin. 6 Green Stevia Powder This is the pure stuff, and the only healthy stevia. Pure dried stevia leaf is available in a fine green powder that is 30 – 40 times sweeter than sugar. It is raw, and has a peculiar aftertaste. I buy it here. 7 NuNaturals MoreFiber Stevia Baking Blend This is a sugar substitute blend of high glycemic GMO Corn Maltodextrin with refined stevioside. Prepare for a spike in your blood sugar. 8 NuStevia This sugar substitute blends high glycemic GMO Corn Maltodextrin with refined stevioside. Another blood-sugar spike here. 9 PureVia Made by Cargill, this sweetener blends genetically modified corn Erythritol with refined Stevioside or Rebaudioside. The Stevia is extracted by proprietary methods we can’t know. There’s nothing natural here. 10 Pyure Organic Stevia A sweetener made from refined stevioside sold in sachets or liquid. It contains agave inulin, refined Stevioside extract, and other unknown ingredients. 11 Rebiana Rebiana is a zero-calorie sweetener produced by proprietary methods by extracting sweetness from the stevia leaf with chemicals and heat, and refining into a high intensity powder that is 200 – 300 times as sweet as sugar. See Stevioside. 12 Rebaudioside Refined Rebaudioside is made from the stevia leaf, where its sweetness is isolated and concentrated using heat and chemicals into a powder about 300X sweeter than table sugar, with somewhat reduced aftertaste. It can be purchased as a white powder or liquid drops. China is the world’s primary producer of rebaudioside. Nothing natural here. 13 Slimstevia A Chinese sweetener similar to Truvia made from genetically modified corn Erythritol with refined Stevioside and/or Rebaudioside. Not natural. 14 Slimtevia This high-intensity sweetener is 3 times sweeter than sugar. It is said to contain high-sugar Fructose, Inulin fiber, FOS (Fructo-oligosaccharides), stevia, and Magnesium Carbonate. This won’t help anyone end the sugar habit. 15 Stevia by Xymogen A sweeter blend of high-glycemic Maltodextrin and refined Stevioside Extract (Rebiana). Prepare for a blood sugar jolt. 16 Stevia dried leaf This is the pure stuff. Unrefined, dried leaves of the South American plant Stevia Rebaudiana are 30–45 times as sweet as table sugar. You can keep this as a potted plant, in bulk dried leaves, or as a green powder. This is a 100% safe sweetener, truly natural (and Paleo). However many people find it has a strong aftertaste. Find it as leaf particles or green powder in food coops and online. 17 Stevia in the raw This is a high-glycemic combination of GMO corn Maltodextrin or Dextrose plus refined stevioside. It’s an attractive name, but neither natural nor healthy. Prepare for blood sugar blues. 18 Stevia FOS Blend This is a brand of refined stevioside powder blended with Inulin Fructo-oligosaccharides. It is a zero-calorie, zero carb, sweetener. 19 Stevia Glycerate Proprietary liquid drops produced by NOW Foods, made from refined stevioside and non-glycemic Vegetable Glycerin, a fermented liquid sweetener from oils. 1 tsp Stevia Glycerate = 1 cup sugar sweetness. 20 Steviacane This is a blend of refined stevioside with high-glycemic cane sugar by Imperial Sugar Company. Expect a blood sugar jolt here. 21 SteviaClear Drops This is refined stevioside powder in a liquid alcohol solution. The drops are 250 – 300 times as sweet as sugar. Nothing natural here. I suggest first having it tested for methanol and other toxins. 22 Stevioside Liquid Extract These stevioside drops are made from stevia leaves that are refined using methanol and then dissolved in a liquid alcohol solution. There are many sources for stevioside drops, and countless private labels. Most refined Stevioside drops are mixed with other ingredients. The pure stevioside drops are 250 – 300 times as sweet as sugar. 23 Stevioside Powder, refined Refined Stevioside and Rebaudioside are made from the stevia leaf. Its sweetness is isolated and concentrated using heat and chemicals into a powder c. 300 times sweeter than sugar, with reduced aftertaste. China is the world’s primary producer of stevioside. Refined Stevioside and Rebaudioside are often sold in proprietary blends with cane sugar, artificial sweeteners, or other chemicals and rebranded under the generic name of ”Stevia”. 24 Stevita Spoonables A blend of Erythritol and refined Stevioside. Don’t know if it is GMO or NON-GMO corn Erythritol. 25 Steviva Blend A blend of high quality Non-GMO Erythritol with refined Stevioside powder. Steviva Blend is twice as sweet as sugar. There’s nothing natural here. 26 Sun Crystals® A blend of cane sugar mixed with refined stevioside. Prepare for sugar shock. 27 Sweet Serum A low-carb, low-glycemic liquid sweetener that contains organic raw agave inulin, Yacon root and Stevioside. Sweet Serum has a concentrated sweet honey taste. 1 teaspoon Sweet Serum is equal in sweetness to about 5 teaspoons sugar. Nothing natural here. 28 Sweet Simplicity® A Sugar Substitute made from genetically modified corn Erythritol, Fructose sugars and Natural Flavors by Whole Earth Sweetener Company, the makers of PureVia. Prepare for insulin shock. 29 Sweet’nVit stevia A high intensity sweetener developed by the European firm Vitiva containing refined Stevioside, genetically modified Corn Erythritol and Maltitol, a fermented sweetener. 30 SweetLeaf Stevia Shaker A blend of refined stevioside powder and inulin. Nothing natural here. 31 Truvia A blend of GMO corn Erythritol, refined Rebaudioside, and other ingredients by Cargill. 32 ZSweet® A sweetener that can be used cup for cup like sugar, made from Non-GMO Erythritol and highly refined Stevioside or Rebaudioside.

 Conclusion:

Stevia was once a simple plant used by the Guarani Indians in South America for healing. But our world-wide craving for sweetness, along with modern food processing methods have changed all that. Now stevia is refined with toxic chemicals in private proprietary procedures deeply linked to the largest international corporations and the sugar industry. Most of our stevia is produced in China, and then marketed as our most beloved natural sweetener. If you still believe your stevia to be healthy, check out the links below for a journey of deception and international intrigue that will make your hair stand up on end.

Resources:

Patent – Manufacturing method of pure natural high-purity stevioside – CN 102199177 (Translated from Chinese) http://ift.tt/2DU5yp1

Patent – High-purity rebaudioside A and method of extracting same http://ift.tt/2pFpyss

Patent – Process For Extraction And Debitterizing Sweet Compounds From Stevia Plants http://ift.tt/2DXmRVZ

Patent – Process for production of steviosides from stevia rebaudiana bertoni – US 20060142555 A1 http://ift.tt/2pC7wY6

Method for extracting active ingredient of natural product (stevia) and uses thereof CN 101138686 (Translated from Chinese) A http://ift.tt/2DUnQ9D

The Aspartame / NutraSweet Fiasco http://ift.tt/1n1fXOI

How the Feds Set Frankenstein Free on the Farm, by Dr. Al Sears, M.D. http://ift.tt/2jA7HzH

Is Stevia Paleo? http://ift.tt/2jA9xQQ

Cargill to Settle Deceptive Marketing Lawsuit alleging Truvia, Stevia Based Sweetener is Not Natural. http://ift.tt/1pQoZEo

Don’t confuse consumers with stevia messages, by Russ Bianchi http://ift.tt/2jA3Nqw

A Tale of Two Sweeteners – Stevia and Aspartame http://ift.tt/2kWRMIL

Stevia Leaf – Too Good To Be Legal? http://ift.tt/2kWLSXR

Stevia – A Natural Choice, by Dr. Betty Martini http://ift.tt/2kWCN1k

Filed under: Health Tagged: #coverups, beware, bigmoney, chemicals, china, corporategreed, deadly, deception, Feds, frankenstein, GMO, madeinchina, poison, stevia, Toxic from WordPress http://ift.tt/2ldxr2M via IFTTT

[healthranks]

The Top 5 Chaga Mushroom Supplements of 2017

Known as the “best of the best” when it comes to medicinal mushrooms, chaga is quickly gaining popularity on the internet for its multiple health benefits.

While we are just now learning about the miraculous uses for chaga, the fungus has long been used for hundreds of years in countries such as Russia, Siberia, and parts of Asia.

What makes the chaga mushroom so special and does it have any side effects? We’ll cover all of this later in the article when we break down how it works, the benefits and side effects, and how to take chaga mushroom supplements.

But before we get there, we’ve ranked the top 5 chaga mushroom supplements on the market according to price, quality, and customer reviews.

So what’s the best chaga mushroom supplement on the market?

1- Primal Herb Chaga Mushroom

Lowest price on Amazon

Primal Herb offers one of the purest and authentic chaga mushroom supplements the market has ever seen.

Their wild harvested chaga mushroom extract powder contains 40% polysaccarides and is extracted at a 30:1 ratio, making it one of the most potent chaga mushroom supplements on Amazon.

According to Primal Herb, they harvest their wild, fully matured chaga mushrooms straight from the birch trees of Siberia. They also use a unique, two-step extraction process. Here’s what they have to say about it:

“We use a Dual Extraction Process: both water and alcohol extraction. This process allows for the extraction of some of the most active and bioavailable compounds. In the extraction process, we use purified water and Non-GMO ethanol.”

Absolutely no fillers, no binders, and no artificial ingredients.

Serving size: 1/2 teaspoon – 120 servings total in the bag.

Buy Primal Herb Chaga on Amazon

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2- Activa Naturals Chaga

Lowest price on Amazon

Each capsule contains 500 mg of chaga mycelium but you take two capsules for a whopping 1 gram serving of chaga extract. One of the strongest dosage of chaga compared to other leading chaga products.

According to the manufacturer:

“Chaga Mushroom may support the immune system with its unique ingredients such as polysaccharides, Beta-D-Glucans, phytosterols, Betulin and betulinic.”

This product is manufactured in the USA and contains absolutely no fillers, no chemicals, no additives, and no artificial colors.

Take 2 capsules per serving – 60 servings total in the bottle.

Buy Activa Naturals Chaga on Amazon

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3- Sayan Health Chaga Extract

Lowest price on Amazon

Sayan Health offers a premium Siberian chaga mushroom water extract produced by using a freeze drying process to ensure the product is optimized with the most essential nutrients.

Here’s what the Sayan company has to say about what separates their chaga supplement from their competition:

“Sayan offers Chaga extract produced by a low-temperature water extraction with freeze dry process to ensure maximum potency. Other manufacturers use an infrared drying process that can scorch the herb and destroy its precious nutrients.

In order to get just 1 pound of Chaga extract powder, we process 6.25 pounds of raw Chaga. Our nutritional supplement is 100% pure and unadulterated. We never mix in other herbs to cut corners and always keep our prices competitive for our customers.”

Serving size: 1/2 tsp. – about 56 servings total in the bag.

Buy Sayan Health Chaga on Amazon

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4- Host Defense Chaga

Lowest price on Amazon

With one of the best selling mycelium-sourced chaga supplements on Amazon, it’s hard to go wrong with Host Defense.

They use a chaga mushroom mycelium grown on brown rice, which is kind of like the mushroom’s root system. It is important to note that this product is from cultivated chaga mushrooms grown on the manufacturer’s own farm, not the wild ones found in Siberia.

According to the manufacturer:

“Host Defense® Chaga uses activated, freeze-dried, Certified Organic mycelium, with a full spectrum of constituents: polysaccharides (beta glucans, arabinoxylane, glucose, xylose, galactose and mannose), glycoproteins, ergosterols, triterpenoids, mycoflavonoids, and other myco-nutrients, which are essential for supporting natural immunity.”

Recommended dosage instructions: Take 2 capsules once per day, with or without food.

Serving size: 2 capsules – 30 servings total in the container.

Buy Host Defense Chaga on Amazon

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5- My Berry Organics Maine Chaga

Lowest price on Amazon

Just plain chaga roots, slow dried and ready to be made into tea. That’s exactly what you get with My Berry Organics Maine Chaga Tea Chunks.

These chaga mushrooms are harvested in the wild birch forests of Maine and have been conveniently sawed and hammered into small chunks ideal for making chaga tea. No strainers or tea bags needed.

Here’s what My Berry Organics says about how to prepare their chaga tea chunks for consumption:

“Directions: Bring water to a simmer, remove from heat, drop in one chunk and steep up to 15 min. Water must be quite hot to infuse. Water color will range from very light to dark depending upon which chunk is used. Both colors offer all the nutritional benefits of chaga.”

About 17-20 chunks in the bag – makes about 35-50 servings (depending on how you re-use chaga chunks).

Buy MBO Maine Chaga on Amazon

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What are chaga mushrooms?

Chaga mushrooms are part of the hymenochaetaceae family. This fungus grows on various trees, and is most often found on the birch species.

It features an irregular form that resembles the look of burnt charcoal. The black appearance is due to the large amount of melanin found inside.

Widely found in birch forests, chaga is native to Russia, Japan, Eastern and Northern Europe and Canada. In the United States, it can be found in Alaska, parts of the northernmost states, and in the North Carolina mountains.

Chaga has been used in folk medicine in various North European countries for generations. Today’s medical research on the fungus has centered around its traditional medical use as a form a cancer treating therapy [1].

A study using extracts from chaga on immunosuppressed mice found that it increased IL-6 levels, which could make it useful as an immune system enhancer while a cancer patient undergoes chemotherapy.

The study also showed that the fungus could suppress the growth of TNF-a, a cell that signals protein involved in inflammation.

How Chaga Mushrooms Have Changed Cancer Treatment Research

This could be helpful for individuals who live with autoimmune diseases such as psoriasis.

Recent studies have shown that chaga can activate the immune cells that are responsible for fighting off cancer growth. While these studies are still ongoing, the powerful fungus has shown to be effective in supporting various cancer treatment approaches such as chemotherapy.

It works by combating the negative side effects of the treatment. While it may not be the key to ending cancer overall, the current evidence we have now shows that there could be significant compounds inside the mushroom that make further investigation potentially beneficial [2]. 

When experts want to prove that an herb, fungus, or other natural ingredient can help fight cancer, there are several events that must take place. First, the researchers must show that the extract can successfully reduce cancer cells by performing a cell culture experiment.

If the experiment has positive results, they will then perform tests to see if the extract can reduce the size of a cancerous tumor. If that proves to be effective, and it is non-toxic to the test subject, the test can then be performed on humans in clinical studies.

At this time, there have not been any clinical experiments performed using chaga extract. However, there are numerous published reports that show chagas’s effect during cell culture experiments. Two groups have performed studies on chaga extract.

One showed that the Neurogliocytoma cells in the experiment were inhibited when treated with chaga extract. These cells are neurons or brain cells that have become cancerous.

The other group performed tests that showed related results using human colon cancer cells It found that Chaga water extract could limit the growth of these cells by as much as 56% [3].

How do chaga mushrooms work?

There are six key ingredients that give chaga mushrooms their incredible medical benefits. They are Polysaccharides, Beta-D-Glucans, Phytosterols, Betulin and Betulinic Acid, Antioxidants, and SODs.

Polysaccharides

This ingredient provides users with a powerful boost of energy, promotes heart health, improve liver health and intestinal function, and can also improve blood sugar levels. Polysaccharides are also believed to be excellent mood enhancers. This ingredient is found inside of the chitin walls of chaga.

Beta-D-Glucans

This essential ingredient is known for helping improve the immune system. Beta-D-Glucans can help with balancing cholesterol levels and keeping your blood sugar in check.

Phytosterols

There are several types of phytosterols present in chaga such as Lanosterol, Inotodiols, Ergosterol, and Fecosterol. Various testing has shown that lanosterol and Inotodiols have a direct effect on cancer cells.

Betulin and Betulinic Acid

Betulin and Betulinic acid are highly powerful therapeutic agents currently being studied for their positive effects on cholesterol levels. Along with helping to diminish bad cholesterol, these agents are also being researched on their effect against viruses and cancers.

Antioxidants

Chaga contains prominent levels of natural melanin which is known for its antioxidant content. Chaga mushrooms actually have the highest ORAC score for antioxidant potency of any other superfood out there.

SODs

This is another important antioxidant that can be found inside chaga. SOD is a group of enzymes known as Super Oxide Dismutase. They help protect our bodies from the harmful effects of uncontrolled oxidation as well as free radicals.

What are the benefits of chaga mushrooms?

There are several great health benefits to taking chaga mushrooms. They contain ingredients that can help boost the immune system and powerful antioxidants for overall well-being.

Here are a few of the key benefits that you can receive by taking a chaga supplement:

A Healthy Immune System

Chaga can help to give our immune systems a boost, only as needed. Because of the mushroom’s high Beta-D-Glucan content, it can help to balance the body’s response to the immune system. That means it can slow down the activity of our immune system if it becomes overactive.

This makes chaga an excellent Biological Response Modifier.

Soothing Pain Relief

Chaga can provide pain relief and soothing properties in times of irritation. It supports the function of our blood vessels which can be useful for those suffering from pain or neuropathy.

Healthy Cholesterol and Blood Pressure Levels

Recent studies have shown that the amount of betulnic acid found in chaga mushrooms can help to regulate cholesterol levels and promote healthy blood pressure levels [4].

Promotes Antimicrobial Activities

The chemical makeup and the biological activity of chaga mushroom extracts were examined in a study and showed that the cells have a high antioxidant and antimicrobial content.

Prevents Damage to DNA

Additional studies have shown that cells pretreated with chaga extract and then later treated with H202 to promote oxidative stress had less damage than those that didn’t receive the chaga extract.

Advanced Antiviral Properties

In limited studies, chaga mushrooms showed to provide benefits and protection to irritated skin and prevent blemishes.

Helps with Ulcers and Gastritis

Because it can give our immune system a boost, chaga has been used over the years to promote good gastrointestinal health.

Ulcers are usually caused by bacteria such as Hellcobacter pylori. Having a healthy immune system can help fight off this and other harmful pathogens. Current ulcers can also be soothed by taking chaga.

What are the side effects of chaga mushrooms?

Chaga is a natural medicine that can safely be taken every day in reasonable amounts. Taking too much chaga at once can cause potential side effects.

The fungus is a natural blood thinner, therefore taking excessive amounts along with prescription blood thinners such as Plavix, or over the counter medications like Aspirin can have an adverse effect.

Chaga is also high in magnesium and potassium. While that is good news for those who need more of these nutrients in their diet, overconsumption of chaga could put a burden on your kidneys and lead to kidney damage.

Do not take additional magnesium or potassium supplements while you are taking chaga [5].

Diabetics should limit their chaga intake to maintain healthy blood sugars since the fungus is known to lower blood glucose levels. If you are already taking medication for diabetes, taking chaga could lead to hypoglycemia.

How do you take chaga mushrooms?

Chaga is a tonic and should be taken daily for best results. It is recommended that users consume one to two cups of chaga tea their overall health and well-being.

To help speed up healing or assist with other serious health conditions, it is recommended to take three to five cups of chaga tea for the initial dosage.

Make sure to pay close attention to the label on your chaga supplement and follow the recommended dosage instructions provided by the manufacturer.

Recap

While there are still multiple studies being performed on the effectiveness of chaga mushrooms when it comes to cancer treatment, so far, the outcome looks very good.

Even though we are still unsure if the mushroom itself can halt the disease, we do know that it can help to ease the pain and discomfort associated with chemotherapy, and that could be a huge relief for cancer patients receiving the treatment.

Along with that potential benefit, chaga can also help with various other health issues such as high blood pressure, bad cholesterol levels, pain management and diabetes.

Be sure to take chaga as directed since an overdose could lead to serious health issues. Chaga can be consumed as a tea and safely taken daily.

—

More Health Products

Best Greens

Best Sleeping Aids

Best Calcium

Best Beef Protein

Best Colon Cleanse

Best Raspberry Ketones

Best Garcinia Cambogia

Best Nitric Oxide

Best Taurine

Best Pre-Workout

Best Creatine

Best Joint Support

Best Multivitamins for Women

Best Multivitamins for Men

Best Meal Replacement Shake

Best Nootropics

Best Probiotic

Best Prenatal Vitamins

Best Testosterone Boosters

Best Fish Oil

Best Maca Root Powder

Best Matcha Green Tea

Best Green Coffee Bean Extract

Best Shiitake Mushroom

The post The Top 5 Chaga Mushroom Supplements of 2017 appeared first on HealthRanks.org.

from HealthRanks.org https://healthranks.org/chaga-mushroom/

[georgepaul32]

The Top 5 Chaga Mushroom Supplements of 2017

Known as the “best of the best” when it comes to medicinal mushrooms, chaga is quickly gaining popularity on the internet for its multiple health benefits.

While we are just now learning about the miraculous uses for chaga, the fungus has long been used for hundreds of years in countries such as Russia, Siberia, and parts of Asia.

What makes the chaga mushroom so special and does it have any side effects? We’ll cover all of this later in the article when we break down how it works, the benefits and side effects, and how to take chaga mushroom supplements.

But before we get there, we’ve ranked the top 5 chaga mushroom supplements on the market according to price, quality, and customer reviews.

So what’s the best chaga mushroom supplement on the market?

1- Primal Herb Chaga Mushroom

Lowest price on Amazon

Primal Herb offers one of the purest and authentic chaga mushroom supplements the market has ever seen.

Their wild harvested chaga mushroom extract powder contains 40% polysaccarides and is extracted at a 30:1 ratio, making it one of the most potent chaga mushroom supplements on Amazon.

According to Primal Herb, they harvest their wild, fully matured chaga mushrooms straight from the birch trees of Siberia. They also use a unique, two-step extraction process. Here’s what they have to say about it:

“We use a Dual Extraction Process: both water and alcohol extraction. This process allows for the extraction of some of the most active and bioavailable compounds. In the extraction process, we use purified water and Non-GMO ethanol.”

Absolutely no fillers, no binders, and no artificial ingredients.

Serving size: 1/2 teaspoon – 120 servings total in the bag.

Buy Primal Herb Chaga on Amazon

—

2- Activa Naturals Chaga

Lowest price on Amazon

Each capsule contains 500 mg of chaga mycelium but you take two capsules for a whopping 1 gram serving of chaga extract. One of the strongest dosage of chaga compared to other leading chaga products.

According to the manufacturer:

“Chaga Mushroom may support the immune system with its unique ingredients such as polysaccharides, Beta-D-Glucans, phytosterols, Betulin and betulinic.”

This product is manufactured in the USA and contains absolutely no fillers, no chemicals, no additives, and no artificial colors.

Take 2 capsules per serving – 60 servings total in the bottle.

Buy Activa Naturals Chaga on Amazon

—

3- Sayan Health Chaga Extract

Lowest price on Amazon

Sayan Health offers a premium Siberian chaga mushroom water extract produced by using a freeze drying process to ensure the product is optimized with the most essential nutrients.

Here’s what the Sayan company has to say about what separates their chaga supplement from their competition:

“Sayan offers Chaga extract produced by a low-temperature water extraction with freeze dry process to ensure maximum potency. Other manufacturers use an infrared drying process that can scorch the herb and destroy its precious nutrients.

In order to get just 1 pound of Chaga extract powder, we process 6.25 pounds of raw Chaga. Our nutritional supplement is 100% pure and unadulterated. We never mix in other herbs to cut corners and always keep our prices competitive for our customers.”

Serving size: 1/2 tsp. – about 56 servings total in the bag.

Buy Sayan Health Chaga on Amazon

—

4- Host Defense Chaga

Lowest price on Amazon

With one of the best selling mycelium-sourced chaga supplements on Amazon, it’s hard to go wrong with Host Defense.

They use a chaga mushroom mycelium grown on brown rice, which is kind of like the mushroom’s root system. It is important to note that this product is from cultivated chaga mushrooms grown on the manufacturer’s own farm, not the wild ones found in Siberia.

According to the manufacturer:

“Host Defense® Chaga uses activated, freeze-dried, Certified Organic mycelium, with a full spectrum of constituents: polysaccharides (beta glucans, arabinoxylane, glucose, xylose, galactose and mannose), glycoproteins, ergosterols, triterpenoids, mycoflavonoids, and other myco-nutrients, which are essential for supporting natural immunity.”

Recommended dosage instructions: Take 2 capsules once per day, with or without food.

Serving size: 2 capsules – 30 servings total in the container.

Buy Host Defense Chaga on Amazon

—

5- My Berry Organics Maine Chaga

Lowest price on Amazon

Just plain chaga roots, slow dried and ready to be made into tea. That’s exactly what you get with My Berry Organics Maine Chaga Tea Chunks.

These chaga mushrooms are harvested in the wild birch forests of Maine and have been conveniently sawed and hammered into small chunks ideal for making chaga tea. No strainers or tea bags needed.

Here’s what My Berry Organics says about how to prepare their chaga tea chunks for consumption:

“Directions: Bring water to a simmer, remove from heat, drop in one chunk and steep up to 15 min. Water must be quite hot to infuse. Water color will range from very light to dark depending upon which chunk is used. Both colors offer all the nutritional benefits of chaga.”

About 17-20 chunks in the bag – makes about 35-50 servings (depending on how you re-use chaga chunks).

Buy MBO Maine Chaga on Amazon

—

What are chaga mushrooms?

Chaga mushrooms are part of the hymenochaetaceae family. This fungus grows on various trees, and is most often found on the birch species.

It features an irregular form that resembles the look of burnt charcoal. The black appearance is due to the large amount of melanin found inside.

Widely found in birch forests, chaga is native to Russia, Japan, Eastern and Northern Europe and Canada. In the United States, it can be found in Alaska, parts of the northernmost states, and in the North Carolina mountains.

Chaga has been used in folk medicine in various North European countries for generations. Today’s medical research on the fungus has centered around its traditional medical use as a form a cancer treating therapy [1].

A study using extracts from chaga on immunosuppressed mice found that it increased IL-6 levels, which could make it useful as an immune system enhancer while a cancer patient undergoes chemotherapy.

The study also showed that the fungus could suppress the growth of TNF-a, a cell that signals protein involved in inflammation.

How Chaga Mushrooms Have Changed Cancer Treatment Research

This could be helpful for individuals who live with autoimmune diseases such as psoriasis.

Recent studies have shown that chaga can activate the immune cells that are responsible for fighting off cancer growth. While these studies are still ongoing, the powerful fungus has shown to be effective in supporting various cancer treatment approaches such as chemotherapy.

It works by combating the negative side effects of the treatment. While it may not be the key to ending cancer overall, the current evidence we have now shows that there could be significant compounds inside the mushroom that make further investigation potentially beneficial [2]. 

When experts want to prove that an herb, fungus, or other natural ingredient can help fight cancer, there are several events that must take place. First, the researchers must show that the extract can successfully reduce cancer cells by performing a cell culture experiment.

If the experiment has positive results, they will then perform tests to see if the extract can reduce the size of a cancerous tumor. If that proves to be effective, and it is non-toxic to the test subject, the test can then be performed on humans in clinical studies.

At this time, there have not been any clinical experiments performed using chaga extract. However, there are numerous published reports that show chagas’s effect during cell culture experiments. Two groups have performed studies on chaga extract.

One showed that the Neurogliocytoma cells in the experiment were inhibited when treated with chaga extract. These cells are neurons or brain cells that have become cancerous.

The other group performed tests that showed related results using human colon cancer cells It found that Chaga water extract could limit the growth of these cells by as much as 56% [3].

How do chaga mushrooms work?

There are six key ingredients that give chaga mushrooms their incredible medical benefits. They are Polysaccharides, Beta-D-Glucans, Phytosterols, Betulin and Betulinic Acid, Antioxidants, and SODs.

Polysaccharides

This ingredient provides users with a powerful boost of energy, promotes heart health, improve liver health and intestinal function, and can also improve blood sugar levels. Polysaccharides are also believed to be excellent mood enhancers. This ingredient is found inside of the chitin walls of chaga.

Beta-D-Glucans

This essential ingredient is known for helping improve the immune system. Beta-D-Glucans can help with balancing cholesterol levels and keeping your blood sugar in check.

Phytosterols

There are several types of phytosterols present in chaga such as Lanosterol, Inotodiols, Ergosterol, and Fecosterol. Various testing has shown that lanosterol and Inotodiols have a direct effect on cancer cells.

Betulin and Betulinic Acid

Betulin and Betulinic acid are highly powerful therapeutic agents currently being studied for their positive effects on cholesterol levels. Along with helping to diminish bad cholesterol, these agents are also being researched on their effect against viruses and cancers.

Antioxidants

Chaga contains prominent levels of natural melanin which is known for its antioxidant content. Chaga mushrooms actually have the highest ORAC score for antioxidant potency of any other superfood out there.

SODs

This is another important antioxidant that can be found inside chaga. SOD is a group of enzymes known as Super Oxide Dismutase. They help protect our bodies from the harmful effects of uncontrolled oxidation as well as free radicals.

What are the benefits of chaga mushrooms?

There are several great health benefits to taking chaga mushrooms. They contain ingredients that can help boost the immune system and powerful antioxidants for overall well-being.

Here are a few of the key benefits that you can receive by taking a chaga supplement:

A Healthy Immune System

Chaga can help to give our immune systems a boost, only as needed. Because of the mushroom’s high Beta-D-Glucan content, it can help to balance the body’s response to the immune system. That means it can slow down the activity of our immune system if it becomes overactive.

This makes chaga an excellent Biological Response Modifier.

Soothing Pain Relief

Chaga can provide pain relief and soothing properties in times of irritation. It supports the function of our blood vessels which can be useful for those suffering from pain or neuropathy.

Healthy Cholesterol and Blood Pressure Levels

Recent studies have shown that the amount of betulnic acid found in chaga mushrooms can help to regulate cholesterol levels and promote healthy blood pressure levels [4].

Promotes Antimicrobial Activities

The chemical makeup and the biological activity of chaga mushroom extracts were examined in a study and showed that the cells have a high antioxidant and antimicrobial content.

Prevents Damage to DNA

Additional studies have shown that cells pretreated with chaga extract and then later treated with H202 to promote oxidative stress had less damage than those that didn’t receive the chaga extract.

Advanced Antiviral Properties

In limited studies, chaga mushrooms showed to provide benefits and protection to irritated skin and prevent blemishes.

Helps with Ulcers and Gastritis

Because it can give our immune system a boost, chaga has been used over the years to promote good gastrointestinal health.

Ulcers are usually caused by bacteria such as Hellcobacter pylori. Having a healthy immune system can help fight off this and other harmful pathogens. Current ulcers can also be soothed by taking chaga.

What are the side effects of chaga mushrooms?

Chaga is a natural medicine that can safely be taken every day in reasonable amounts. Taking too much chaga at once can cause potential side effects.

The fungus is a natural blood thinner, therefore taking excessive amounts along with prescription blood thinners such as Plavix, or over the counter medications like Aspirin can have an adverse effect.

Chaga is also high in magnesium and potassium. While that is good news for those who need more of these nutrients in their diet, overconsumption of chaga could put a burden on your kidneys and lead to kidney damage.

Do not take additional magnesium or potassium supplements while you are taking chaga [5].

Diabetics should limit their chaga intake to maintain healthy blood sugars since the fungus is known to lower blood glucose levels. If you are already taking medication for diabetes, taking chaga could lead to hypoglycemia.

How do you take chaga mushrooms?

Chaga is a tonic and should be taken daily for best results. It is recommended that users consume one to two cups of chaga tea their overall health and well-being.

To help speed up healing or assist with other serious health conditions, it is recommended to take three to five cups of chaga tea for the initial dosage.

Make sure to pay close attention to the label on your chaga supplement and follow the recommended dosage instructions provided by the manufacturer.

Recap

While there are still multiple studies being performed on the effectiveness of chaga mushrooms when it comes to cancer treatment, so far, the outcome looks very good.

Even though we are still unsure if the mushroom itself can halt the disease, we do know that it can help to ease the pain and discomfort associated with chemotherapy, and that could be a huge relief for cancer patients receiving the treatment.

Along with that potential benefit, chaga can also help with various other health issues such as high blood pressure, bad cholesterol levels, pain management and diabetes.

Be sure to take chaga as directed since an overdose could lead to serious health issues. Chaga can be consumed as a tea and safely taken daily.

—

More Health Products

Best Greens

Best Sleeping Aids

Best Calcium

Best Beef Protein

Best Colon Cleanse

Best Raspberry Ketones

Best Garcinia Cambogia

Best Nitric Oxide

Best Taurine

Best Pre-Workout

Best Creatine

Best Joint Support

Best Multivitamins for Women

Best Multivitamins for Men

Best Meal Replacement Shake

Best Nootropics

Best Probiotic

Best Prenatal Vitamins

Best Testosterone Boosters

Best Fish Oil

Best Maca Root Powder

Best Matcha Green Tea

Best Green Coffee Bean Extract

Best Shiitake Mushroom

The post The Top 5 Chaga Mushroom Supplements of 2017 appeared first on HealthRanks.org.

from HealthRanks.org https://healthranks.org/chaga-mushroom/

[crystalgordontx]

The Top 5 Chaga Mushroom Supplements of 2017

Known as the “best of the best” when it comes to medicinal mushrooms, chaga is quickly gaining popularity on the internet for its multiple health benefits.

While we are just now learning about the miraculous uses for chaga, the fungus has long been used for hundreds of years in countries such as Russia, Siberia, and parts of Asia.

What makes the chaga mushroom so special and does it have any side effects? We’ll cover all of this later in the article when we break down how it works, the benefits and side effects, and how to take chaga mushroom supplements.

But before we get there, we’ve ranked the top 5 chaga mushroom supplements on the market according to price, quality, and customer reviews.

So what’s the best chaga mushroom supplement on the market?

1- Primal Herb Chaga Mushroom

Lowest price on Amazon

Primal Herb offers one of the purest and authentic chaga mushroom supplements the market has ever seen.

Their wild harvested chaga mushroom extract powder contains 40% polysaccarides and is extracted at a 30:1 ratio, making it one of the most potent chaga mushroom supplements on Amazon.

According to Primal Herb, they harvest their wild, fully matured chaga mushrooms straight from the birch trees of Siberia. They also use a unique, two-step extraction process. Here’s what they have to say about it:

“We use a Dual Extraction Process: both water and alcohol extraction. This process allows for the extraction of some of the most active and bioavailable compounds. In the extraction process, we use purified water and Non-GMO ethanol.”

Absolutely no fillers, no binders, and no artificial ingredients.

Serving size: 1/2 teaspoon – 120 servings total in the bag.

Buy Primal Herb Chaga on Amazon

—

2- Activa Naturals Chaga

Lowest price on Amazon

Each capsule contains 500 mg of chaga mycelium but you take two capsules for a whopping 1 gram serving of chaga extract. One of the strongest dosage of chaga compared to other leading chaga products.

According to the manufacturer:

“Chaga Mushroom may support the immune system with its unique ingredients such as polysaccharides, Beta-D-Glucans, phytosterols, Betulin and betulinic.”

This product is manufactured in the USA and contains absolutely no fillers, no chemicals, no additives, and no artificial colors.

Take 2 capsules per serving – 60 servings total in the bottle.

Buy Activa Naturals Chaga on Amazon

—

3- Sayan Health Chaga Extract

Lowest price on Amazon

Sayan Health offers a premium Siberian chaga mushroom water extract produced by using a freeze drying process to ensure the product is optimized with the most essential nutrients.

Here’s what the Sayan company has to say about what separates their chaga supplement from their competition:

“Sayan offers Chaga extract produced by a low-temperature water extraction with freeze dry process to ensure maximum potency. Other manufacturers use an infrared drying process that can scorch the herb and destroy its precious nutrients.

In order to get just 1 pound of Chaga extract powder, we process 6.25 pounds of raw Chaga. Our nutritional supplement is 100% pure and unadulterated. We never mix in other herbs to cut corners and always keep our prices competitive for our customers.”

Serving size: 1/2 tsp. – about 56 servings total in the bag.

Buy Sayan Health Chaga on Amazon

—

4- Host Defense Chaga

Lowest price on Amazon

With one of the best selling mycelium-sourced chaga supplements on Amazon, it’s hard to go wrong with Host Defense.

They use a chaga mushroom mycelium grown on brown rice, which is kind of like the mushroom’s root system. It is important to note that this product is from cultivated chaga mushrooms grown on the manufacturer’s own farm, not the wild ones found in Siberia.

According to the manufacturer:

“Host Defense® Chaga uses activated, freeze-dried, Certified Organic mycelium, with a full spectrum of constituents: polysaccharides (beta glucans, arabinoxylane, glucose, xylose, galactose and mannose), glycoproteins, ergosterols, triterpenoids, mycoflavonoids, and other myco-nutrients, which are essential for supporting natural immunity.”

Recommended dosage instructions: Take 2 capsules once per day, with or without food.

Serving size: 2 capsules – 30 servings total in the container.

Buy Host Defense Chaga on Amazon

—

5- My Berry Organics Maine Chaga

Lowest price on Amazon

Just plain chaga roots, slow dried and ready to be made into tea. That’s exactly what you get with My Berry Organics Maine Chaga Tea Chunks.

These chaga mushrooms are harvested in the wild birch forests of Maine and have been conveniently sawed and hammered into small chunks ideal for making chaga tea. No strainers or tea bags needed.

Here’s what My Berry Organics says about how to prepare their chaga tea chunks for consumption:

“Directions: Bring water to a simmer, remove from heat, drop in one chunk and steep up to 15 min. Water must be quite hot to infuse. Water color will range from very light to dark depending upon which chunk is used. Both colors offer all the nutritional benefits of chaga.”

About 17-20 chunks in the bag – makes about 35-50 servings (depending on how you re-use chaga chunks).

Buy MBO Maine Chaga on Amazon

—

What are chaga mushrooms?

Chaga mushrooms are part of the hymenochaetaceae family. This fungus grows on various trees, and is most often found on the birch species.

It features an irregular form that resembles the look of burnt charcoal. The black appearance is due to the large amount of melanin found inside.

Widely found in birch forests, chaga is native to Russia, Japan, Eastern and Northern Europe and Canada. In the United States, it can be found in Alaska, parts of the northernmost states, and in the North Carolina mountains.

Chaga has been used in folk medicine in various North European countries for generations. Today’s medical research on the fungus has centered around its traditional medical use as a form a cancer treating therapy [1].

A study using extracts from chaga on immunosuppressed mice found that it increased IL-6 levels, which could make it useful as an immune system enhancer while a cancer patient undergoes chemotherapy.

The study also showed that the fungus could suppress the growth of TNF-a, a cell that signals protein involved in inflammation.

How Chaga Mushrooms Have Changed Cancer Treatment Research

This could be helpful for individuals who live with autoimmune diseases such as psoriasis.

Recent studies have shown that chaga can activate the immune cells that are responsible for fighting off cancer growth. While these studies are still ongoing, the powerful fungus has shown to be effective in supporting various cancer treatment approaches such as chemotherapy.

It works by combating the negative side effects of the treatment. While it may not be the key to ending cancer overall, the current evidence we have now shows that there could be significant compounds inside the mushroom that make further investigation potentially beneficial [2]. 

When experts want to prove that an herb, fungus, or other natural ingredient can help fight cancer, there are several events that must take place. First, the researchers must show that the extract can successfully reduce cancer cells by performing a cell culture experiment.

If the experiment has positive results, they will then perform tests to see if the extract can reduce the size of a cancerous tumor. If that proves to be effective, and it is non-toxic to the test subject, the test can then be performed on humans in clinical studies.

At this time, there have not been any clinical experiments performed using chaga extract. However, there are numerous published reports that show chagas’s effect during cell culture experiments. Two groups have performed studies on chaga extract.

One showed that the Neurogliocytoma cells in the experiment were inhibited when treated with chaga extract. These cells are neurons or brain cells that have become cancerous.

The other group performed tests that showed related results using human colon cancer cells It found that Chaga water extract could limit the growth of these cells by as much as 56% [3].

How do chaga mushrooms work?

There are six key ingredients that give chaga mushrooms their incredible medical benefits. They are Polysaccharides, Beta-D-Glucans, Phytosterols, Betulin and Betulinic Acid, Antioxidants, and SODs.

Polysaccharides

This ingredient provides users with a powerful boost of energy, promotes heart health, improve liver health and intestinal function, and can also improve blood sugar levels. Polysaccharides are also believed to be excellent mood enhancers. This ingredient is found inside of the chitin walls of chaga.

Beta-D-Glucans

This essential ingredient is known for helping improve the immune system. Beta-D-Glucans can help with balancing cholesterol levels and keeping your blood sugar in check.

Phytosterols

There are several types of phytosterols present in chaga such as Lanosterol, Inotodiols, Ergosterol, and Fecosterol. Various testing has shown that lanosterol and Inotodiols have a direct effect on cancer cells.

Betulin and Betulinic Acid

Betulin and Betulinic acid are highly powerful therapeutic agents currently being studied for their positive effects on cholesterol levels. Along with helping to diminish bad cholesterol, these agents are also being researched on their effect against viruses and cancers.

Antioxidants

Chaga contains prominent levels of natural melanin which is known for its antioxidant content. Chaga mushrooms actually have the highest ORAC score for antioxidant potency of any other superfood out there.

SODs

This is another important antioxidant that can be found inside chaga. SOD is a group of enzymes known as Super Oxide Dismutase. They help protect our bodies from the harmful effects of uncontrolled oxidation as well as free radicals.

What are the benefits of chaga mushrooms?

There are several great health benefits to taking chaga mushrooms. They contain ingredients that can help boost the immune system and powerful antioxidants for overall well-being.

Here are a few of the key benefits that you can receive by taking a chaga supplement:

A Healthy Immune System

Chaga can help to give our immune systems a boost, only as needed. Because of the mushroom’s high Beta-D-Glucan content, it can help to balance the body’s response to the immune system. That means it can slow down the activity of our immune system if it becomes overactive.

This makes chaga an excellent Biological Response Modifier.

Soothing Pain Relief

Chaga can provide pain relief and soothing properties in times of irritation. It supports the function of our blood vessels which can be useful for those suffering from pain or neuropathy.

Healthy Cholesterol and Blood Pressure Levels

Recent studies have shown that the amount of betulnic acid found in chaga mushrooms can help to regulate cholesterol levels and promote healthy blood pressure levels [4].

Promotes Antimicrobial Activities

The chemical makeup and the biological activity of chaga mushroom extracts were examined in a study and showed that the cells have a high antioxidant and antimicrobial content.

Prevents Damage to DNA

Additional studies have shown that cells pretreated with chaga extract and then later treated with H202 to promote oxidative stress had less damage than those that didn’t receive the chaga extract.

Advanced Antiviral Properties

In limited studies, chaga mushrooms showed to provide benefits and protection to irritated skin and prevent blemishes.

Helps with Ulcers and Gastritis

Because it can give our immune system a boost, chaga has been used over the years to promote good gastrointestinal health.

Ulcers are usually caused by bacteria such as Hellcobacter pylori. Having a healthy immune system can help fight off this and other harmful pathogens. Current ulcers can also be soothed by taking chaga.

What are the side effects of chaga mushrooms?

Chaga is a natural medicine that can safely be taken every day in reasonable amounts. Taking too much chaga at once can cause potential side effects.

The fungus is a natural blood thinner, therefore taking excessive amounts along with prescription blood thinners such as Plavix, or over the counter medications like Aspirin can have an adverse effect.

Chaga is also high in magnesium and potassium. While that is good news for those who need more of these nutrients in their diet, overconsumption of chaga could put a burden on your kidneys and lead to kidney damage.

Do not take additional magnesium or potassium supplements while you are taking chaga [5].

Diabetics should limit their chaga intake to maintain healthy blood sugars since the fungus is known to lower blood glucose levels. If you are already taking medication for diabetes, taking chaga could lead to hypoglycemia.

How do you take chaga mushrooms?

Chaga is a tonic and should be taken daily for best results. It is recommended that users consume one to two cups of chaga tea their overall health and well-being.

To help speed up healing or assist with other serious health conditions, it is recommended to take three to five cups of chaga tea for the initial dosage.

Make sure to pay close attention to the label on your chaga supplement and follow the recommended dosage instructions provided by the manufacturer.

Recap

While there are still multiple studies being performed on the effectiveness of chaga mushrooms when it comes to cancer treatment, so far, the outcome looks very good.

Even though we are still unsure if the mushroom itself can halt the disease, we do know that it can help to ease the pain and discomfort associated with chemotherapy, and that could be a huge relief for cancer patients receiving the treatment.

Along with that potential benefit, chaga can also help with various other health issues such as high blood pressure, bad cholesterol levels, pain management and diabetes.

Be sure to take chaga as directed since an overdose could lead to serious health issues. Chaga can be consumed as a tea and safely taken daily.

—

More Health Products

Best Greens

Best Sleeping Aids

Best Calcium

Best Beef Protein

Best Colon Cleanse

Best Raspberry Ketones

Best Garcinia Cambogia

Best Nitric Oxide

Best Taurine

Best Pre-Workout

Best Creatine

Best Joint Support

Best Multivitamins for Women

Best Multivitamins for Men

Best Meal Replacement Shake

Best Nootropics

Best Probiotic

Best Prenatal Vitamins

Best Testosterone Boosters

Best Fish Oil

Best Maca Root Powder

Best Matcha Green Tea

Best Green Coffee Bean Extract

Best Shiitake Mushroom

The post The Top 5 Chaga Mushroom Supplements of 2017 appeared first on HealthRanks.org.

from HealthRanks.org https://healthranks.org/chaga-mushroom/