Monday Brain Meal; Trendy veggie wraps and decadent coco-cacao smoothie.

Tis a glorious day for a public holiday! If you’re lucky enough to live on the East side of Aus, no doubt you’re kicking back with a cold, dewy stubbie, throwing shrimp at/on/around the barbie, and debating last night’s football match (there was a football final, right?).

Or if you’re anything like me, you’re slurping down an icy choc-coconut smoothie before boxing, brewing some turmeric and nettle tea on the stove, and counting all the reasons why I don’t give a shit about rugby league.

If that meaty footy frenzy left you cold last night, why not stimulate your cranium with some awesome articles from around the web!

Or some real life literature. If you’re quaint like that.

Onto the juicy links!

• Still confused about nut consumption? This article gives a nice summary of the pro’s and con’s of chowin down, and how best to prepare them if you’re including them in your diet.

• Yet more proof that mental stamina/drive and focus are the key ingredients to fitness success! An experiment in which time/distance deception was used to test if athletes could push past their previous PB’s.

• How to bust through that irritating, debilitating state of procrastination. 18 tips from one of my favourite self-development bloggers.

• If you drink coffee, here are the three healthiest ways.

• What’s better for strong bones; Exercise, milk or calcium?

• And for a final piece of inspiration, these men prove that getting old doesn’t have to mean becoming immobile! Super cool playground workout video featuring superhuman moves from badass granddaddies.

And if you’re hungry after all that neuron-firing, i’ve taken the liberty of making you lunch!

Big, chlorophyll-laden Cos lettuce leaves are the perfect vehicle for hummus, guacamole and salad (actually, I’d smear hummus on a dried up old boot and enjoy it; who’s with me?).

Grab yourself some rinsed leaves, layer with beetroot/regular hummus, guacamole and shredded salad.

Fashion into an edible roll-like device; feel super trendy for having ecshewed bread and crammed 120 billion nutrients into a single mouthful.

Easy-peasy guacamole

• 1 large avocado or 2 small, mashed
• 1 small diced tomato
• 1 small palmful of finely diced red onion
• a generous squeeze of fresh lemon (1/4 perhaps)
• a handful of fresh coriander, chopped
• salt & pepper to taste

And to drink?

How’s about a paleo-rific coco-cacao smoothie? In a jar. Because we’re students. (Let’s pretend it’s hip).

Inspired by Kallie at Kallie K’s Health & Wellness blog

• water & flesh of one young coconut
• 1 heaped t of cacao powder
• dash real vanilla/vanilla paste
• 2 organic, pasture-raised eggs

Simple, amazeballs.

If you’re looking at me quizzically in regards to the hardcore, wild-thang raw egg business, trust me, you can’t taste it. Apart from a decadent creaminess with a note of vitamin A on the finish they are undetectable. If your next response is, ‘Salmonella! Run for the hills!’, to that I say, organic. Yes, organic, free-roamin’ chickens have a super low incidence of salmonella infection because they aren’t crammed into unsanitary little hell-holes knee-deep in their own faecal matter. They’re out living an empowered, worm-hunting existence in the field, running their chicken democracies and discussing the flaws inherent  in the pecking order. Or clucking. Probably clucking.

Mark Sisson wrote an interesting article detailing some of the main facts about raw vs cooked eggs, if you’re interested.

If not, just drink the smoothie. Did I mention it’s high in electrolytes (from the coconut water), delicious medium-chain triglycerides (healthy, energising, metabolism-boosting fats from the coconut flesh), complete protein (eggs), stimulating theobromine (cacao) and antioxidants (cacao again)? No? Don’t let that put you off the shake – it doesn’t taste healthy, I assure you.