The Zero-Meat Algorithm: How an Automation Engineer Survives on One Meal a Day

Imagine spending years studying Industrial Automation and Control Systems—learning how to program massive factory machines and command efficiency with the click of a button. Imagine the pride of a working-class father who saved every hard-earned coin from his low wages to pay your annual university tuition, dreaming of the day his son would sit behind a modern engineering desk.

Now, imagine graduating into a completely collapsed economy where the factories do not exist and the infrastructure is shattered. The only income keeping your family alive is your father’s monthly retirement pension: exactly $90.

As a graduate, you face a brutal mathematical paradox: even if you take any available public job in your field, the salary will not exceed $90, and exactly half of it—$45—will be completely swallowed by daily transit costs. To avoid becoming a financial burden on your father’s tiny pension, you refuse this broken equation. Instead, you decide to treat your life, your family's survival, and your body as the ultimate system to be optimized through manual resilience.

---

Resource Foraging: From Silicon to Soil

When the digital and industrial worlds shut their doors on me, the ancient soil of my family’s village became my decentralized workspace. Instead of programming microcontrollers, I trained my eyes to spot micro-details in nature.

During the harvest seasons, I trek for hours through rugged, rocky terrains to forage for wild thyme (Za'atar). Collecting this wild herb allows us to sell it locally and secure the cash needed for my essential digital connection and daily transit. I also work the land, harvesting lemons and tending to olive trees. Working in the fields keeps my mind sharp and my hands calloused under the scorching sun, providing a flexible return that no public job can match.

---

The Psychological Toll: System Shutdown

But optimizing survival under this intense pressure comes with a heavy psychological price. I am not happy with this life, and I am not a heartless machine. This constant anxiety about the future weighs heavily on me and robs me of my sleep.

Often, I force myself to do extra physical labor in the fields just to afford a local bottle of Arak. I use it to calm my brain after an exhausting day, giving my overworked mind a temporary "system shutdown" at night so I can sleep and wake up to face the daily grind all over again.

---

The OMAD Blueprint: Rural Recipes Without Meat

To survive, luxury had to be completely deleted from my dietary code. Variables like red meat, poultry, fruits, sweets, and nuts are completely gone. Instead, I engineered a strict One-Meal-A-Day (OMAD) fuel program designed for maximum energy and zero waste. My nutrition changes depending on the land and the micro-budget:

• The Plant-Based Protein Matrix (Mujadara & Dry Beans): Slow-cooked lentils with bulgur and salad, or dry white beans cooked with chicken backs/necks (Qarasib)—cheap parts used only to extract flavor without the high cost of meat. These meals provide the ultimate caloric output.
• The Meatless Rural Stews: Traditional dishes like chard cooked with bulgur (Selg), stuffed zucchini (Kousa Mahshi), or green beans (Fasolia) stripped entirely of meat, relying only on fresh vegetables from the soil and available olive oil.
• The Rapid Energy Matrix: Bulgur cooked with local tomato sauce, consumed with a limited number of olives we harvested ourselves, a dry onion, or a hot pepper. On other days, it is roasted eggplant with tomatoes or cucumbers, plain boiled pasta, boiled potatoes, potatoes with eggs, or a single fried egg with bread to secure quick fats and protein.

---

The European Dream

They managed to destroy the economy, and they managed to halt the factories. But they could not destroy the analytical mind of an engineer. I am not publishing this story to complain; I am publishing it to build my exit strategy.

My ultimate goal on this decentralized Web3 platform is to accumulate an independent capital that qualifies me for my biggest dream: To travel abroad to Europe. I want to start my real life, build my future, and put my automation skills to work where they are actually valued.

---

When you collect this piece, your support bypasses traditional banking blockades and lands directly in my digital wallet. You are not just buying words—you are directly powering the resilience of a human node that refuses to disconnect from the future.