For the first time, The Truth Hurts is welcoming a guest.
A few weeks ago, Gili suggested someone she thought would be a perfect fit for the show. I said, “Let’s do it.”
So here he is: Amihai Beer, the man behind one of the most beautiful and appetizing food accounts I’ve ever come across on Instagram.
Episode summary
Amihai Beer is a lawyer, a kibbutz executive and the creator of a colorful Instagram food page with a devoted following. The account didn’t begin as a business plan or a bid for attention. It began with a conversation in his psychologist’s office, after a blood clot and anxiety showed him just how far he had drifted from himself.
The episode begins with a numerology reading, then quickly moves beyond the beautiful food on the screen. Amihai talks about discovering a creative side he never knew he had, the pleasure and pressure of being seen, and why Instagram is a tool rather than a measure of his worth. We also discuss how he used his platform after October 7, the friendships it brought into his life, the boundaries he maintains around his family, and the steady support of his wife, Sivan.
Again and again, the conversation returns to authenticity: finding your own language, refusing to let numbers dictate what you create, and understanding that praise can’t fill an old wound. By the end, Amihai offers his own definition of a dream. It isn’t a single achievement. It’s a life that keeps moving and growing, with room for every part of who he is.
Episode transcript
The episode is in Hebrew. This English transcript has been edited for clarity and readability.
Our first guest
Host: Welcome to episode 54 of The Truth Hurts. Happy holiday, everyone. We’re recording during Chol HaMoed, the intermediate days of Passover, and this is an especially festive episode. Our guest is Amihai Beer, the man behind one of the most beautiful Instagram accounts I’ve ever seen. It’s the kind of page that makes you hungry. Let’s begin.
Good morning, Amihai, and welcome. How are you?
Amihai: Great. I’m so happy to be here.
Host: We’re so happy you came. You’re our first guest.
Amihai: Now that I know that, I’m even more excited.
Host: It means a lot to us too. We chose you carefully. Since our show explores emotional well-being and the soul, it seemed fitting to invite the man behind one of Instagram’s most beautiful and colorful accounts.
Here’s what I know about you from the internet. You’re 43, married to the lovely Sivan, and a father of three: a daughter and two sons. You live in Sdot Yam, a privatized kibbutz. You’re a lawyer by profession and the kibbutz’s CEO.
You run one of the most striking food accounts on Instagram. Along the way, you share glimpses of family life, work out, run, play the drums, show your love for Israel and even do a few righteous deeds. You’re a rock star at heart. You also like being photographed in urban settings, especially parking lots, with your hands in your back pockets and your eyes on the horizon. How am I doing?
Amihai: I hadn’t noticed that last part about myself. I think you saved it for the end.
Host: I first found your account about three years ago, when you already had a huge following. Since then, it has grown several times over, to around 147,000 followers. The first thing that caught my eye was the color. Your dishes are stylish and beautiful, full of texture. Every frame is a celebration.
But what struck me most was how all that wildness stayed within the frame. I thought, “There is something wild here, but also something noble.” Then there was the period when you used the phrase “Hi Breathing.” Breathing is the most basic thing we do, yet we notice it only when we can’t breathe. I wondered about the man behind that phrase. He looks successful and magnetic, and people are drawn to him, but perhaps he doesn’t feel entitled even to breathe.
So, with typical Israeli chutzpah, the first thing I asked you was your date of birth.
Amihai: That’s exactly right.
A numerology reading
Host: You have one of the most interesting numerology charts I’ve seen. We sometimes use a person’s date of birth as a lens on this podcast, so you’re starting something we hope to continue with future guests. We’ll read the chart, and then you can tell us whether it feels accurate or whether we’re talking nonsense.
You were born on October 18, 1980. The numbers one, eight and nine repeat in your chart, creating an unusual combination that can either send a person soaring or bring him crashing down.
Amihai: That resonates with me very strongly.
Host: One comparison is Elvis Presley. Another is Lance Armstrong, who was born on September 18 and has a nearly identical chart. Armstrong won the Tour de France seven times in a row, then was accused of using performance-enhancing drugs in 2012 and stripped of those titles. Elvis also used stimulants. There is a pattern here that can end badly.
But Armstrong’s story didn’t end there. He later admitted what he had done. Today, he lives a full and satisfying life and has one of the largest cancer-fighting foundations in the world. He found a way to rise again.
My reading is that you’re a natural leader whose sense of purpose is bound up with other people. You have an unusual sense of time: you feel when it moves and when it seems to stand still. Anything false or inauthentic grates on you. You’re an eternal child with a strong sense of justice, a fighter with tremendous physical energy. You can feel fulfilled and unfulfilled at the same time. You might have an account with 140,000 followers and crowds of admirers, then go to sleep feeling as though you have nothing.
Amihai: That’s accurate. I couldn’t describe it more precisely.
Host: For someone with your chart, the recommendation is grounding and balance. To rise without falling apart, you need to stay steady emotionally, mentally and spiritually. You also need a stable foundation, such as family. You have to lead from a place of humility and learn to temper the emotional highs and lows. From the outside, at least, you seem very calm.
The chart also points toward vegetarianism or veganism.
Amihai: I’m almost a vegetarian, but vegan is too much for me.
Host: When I look at your page, I can imagine you building an empire. But the deeper message is to make noble choices: let the wild part of you out, but remain noble. How does the reading sound so far?
The account that began in a psychologist’s office
Amihai: I’m moved by how accurate it feels. And since this podcast is about emotional well-being and the soul, I should tell you that I opened my Instagram account on my psychologist’s recommendation. I didn’t begin by saying, “I want to photograph food, find followers and build something.” It was a hobby then, and it is still a hobby today.
I often find that the things you don’t plan can suit you better than the things you chase. When you rush toward a goal with everything you have, you can miss important parts of the journey. To me, how I get somewhere matters more than arriving, even though, as you said in the reading, I still need results. I need to see something happening.
When I was 31, I had a blood clot in my head. I had gone running and pushed myself so hard that I became dehydrated. After ruling out many other possibilities, the doctors concluded that the clot resulted from overexertion and dehydration. That experience made me start taking care of myself. I was also struggling with anxiety.
During one session, my psychologist said, “You have the medical file of an 80-year-old. You work as a lawyer in a large firm, surrounded by older people. What do you do for yourself? What do you do that suits your age? How do you spend time with people your own age?”
I told him I needed my quiet and privacy. When he asked what I did on Facebook, I said nothing. Someone had opened an account for me years earlier, but I never used it. He told me to try loosening up a little. When a psychologist in his sixties tells you that, and you’re only 30, you understand that something has to change.
Life moved very quickly after I left the army. I left without a high school diploma. I had met my wife during my service, and we quickly built a stable family life. I was always surrounded by older people, and I constantly felt that I had to prove myself.
I had grown up hearing that I had potential but wasn’t fulfilling it. People close to me, including my parents and other authority figures, told me I wasn’t enough, that I wasn’t good, that nothing would come of me. Those words burn themselves into your consciousness. I threw myself into life, and when I throw myself into something, I don’t do it halfway. I give it 200 percent.
I think the blood clot, the anxiety and everything around them grew out of years of being disconnected from myself. I had lost contact with that child inside me because I was always chasing goals and trying to prove myself, first to other people. I wasn’t even thinking about proving anything to myself.
Host: My own experience with Crohn’s disease makes that resonate deeply. I can say that everything ultimately begins in the soul. I’ve been working with that in my own healing for years.
There is a beautiful Jewish teaching: “From doing something not for its own sake, one comes to do it for its own sake.” So many people now open an Instagram, TikTok or Facebook account because they want to be seen, become famous and be loved. You came to this for another reason entirely. Your psychologist told you to do something more playful and age-appropriate. You loved cooking, so you began photographing your food. You weren’t trying to become famous, earn a living from it or turn yourself into an online personality, yet an online presence grew around you.
At first, you posted only food. We barely saw you. Recently, you’ve begun appearing more. What changed?
Finding a creative voice
Amihai: Instagram became a way to express myself. I’m dyslexic and dysgraphic. My children laugh that Dad can’t draw a house or a face. And they’re right: I can’t draw.
For years, I was so ashamed of my handwriting that I covered the page with my hand while I wrote. Eventually, a woman who works in that field told me there was no reason to be ashamed of it and that it could even bring out good things. Through the food I create and photograph, I discovered a creative side I didn’t know I had. That is why I think of Instagram as a therapeutic tool.
Part of me wants the attention and enjoys it. The encouragement feels good, and what you’ve said here moves me. But another part of me is wary, even afraid. For years, I didn’t show myself at all, and people didn’t know who was behind the page. I might post the occasional story, but that was all. Even now, I rarely post photographs of myself.
I don’t do things that feel wrong or forced. At the same time, I try to open up because I know that my resistance to being seen is often driven by anxious thoughts: What will people think? What will they say? How will I come across? How will I look? Will it be good enough? I’m aware of those fears, so I choose how much exposure feels right for me.
Host: That restraint is refreshing. In a landscape where every new food blogger turns on a camera, shouts confidently and sells a persona, you don’t put yourself at the center or expose everything.
Since October 7, however, you’ve used your visibility in another way. You’ve hosted people who lost loved ones and recreated dishes connected to them. You’ve cooked for evacuees. You post the Israeli flag. You understand that your platform can influence people, and you speak more now. Suddenly, we’re hearing Amihai deliver monologues.
Amihai: When I post an Israeli flag or take part in something, it feels natural. I’m not looking for attention. I’m also careful because I know that not everyone thinks or feels the same way. You can post a flag and someone will still say the timing is wrong. I try not to get drawn into arguments.
I saw bloggers do a great deal of advocacy for Israel, and some did excellent work. Others didn’t speak about it at all. In the blogging world, people sometimes say, “I kept my wall clean.” A flag might make an advertiser or a global company uncomfortable. I don’t judge people whose livelihood depends entirely on their accounts. For me, Instagram is a hobby, so speaking felt natural. After October 7, I couldn’t separate myself from what was happening or set aside my identity as an Israeli. It is part of all our lives.
As part of the inner work I’ve done, I also studied the Yemima Method. It speaks about “precise giving,” giving that truly serves the person receiving it. That connects to the way I see my account. When I host bereaved people and know it does them good, I get something from it too. The same is true when I cook for evacuees and know it helps them. The giving works both ways.
Instagram has brought many good things into my life, including new relationships.
When the people around you change
Host: You’ve taken friendships from the virtual world into the real one. You’ve met food bloggers and other well-known people who follow your work.
Amihai: I’ve met famous people, but the more important change is that my circle of friends has shifted a lot in recent years. I’m less of a people-pleaser. I pulled away from situations and friendships where I felt too much was expected of me, where I was always trying to please, or where we no longer had much in common. I didn’t do it to hurt or insult anyone. I did it because those relationships no longer felt good for me.
The people entering my life now have more in common with me, partly because of Instagram and the things we do together. That is also part of growth and movement. I’m not who I was 20, 30 or 40 years ago, and some of my longtime friends have changed too.
There were lonely moments as one circle of friends fell away. Friendship isn’t a relay race where you hand over one baton and immediately receive another. But the process felt right, and Instagram helped new people find their way into my life.
Host: So the platform has reshaped both your inner life and the world around you. The people, the landscape and even the conversations have changed.
Amihai: Exactly. I think it happened because I wasn’t aiming for a particular outcome. When people start food accounts, they often ask me, “How do I get followers? How do you photograph your dishes? Show me your tripod and your phone setup.”
I’ll show them those things, but I also tell them that the equipment isn’t what matters. It’s only a tool. You have to decide what your language is, what you want to say, and what makes your work different when so many talented people are already doing beautiful things. Find what feels true to you and follow it. Instagram can give people a glimpse of a side of you they haven’t seen before.
A tool, not a measure of worth
Host: Social media can also create anxiety and emotional distress. What made it therapeutic for you was that you began with something you genuinely loved, not because you wanted to become an instant star.
People often want the status before they have found the substance. You began with food because food moved you, and the account grew from there. That’s authenticity, and it can be hard to recognize in a world where so much of online life is layer upon layer of performance.
There are troubling reports about social media, emotional distress and even suicide. These platforms are built to provoke fear of missing out. If your goal is a particular number of followers or views, there will always be someone with more, or a video that performs better.
Amihai: That is the difference. Having such a large following is wonderful and flattering, but it was never my goal. Instagram is only a tool. Once you use that tool to measure your worth, the fear of missing out never ends.
People ask why I don’t constantly create something new. I don’t invent recipes. Nobody invented food. I don’t develop recipes; I post what I eat. I might eat the same pasta every week. The salad I post on Sunday was photographed and eaten on Saturday. Instagram isn’t my job during the week, so I cook and photograph several dishes over the weekend, then post them later.
That is another part of Instagram’s unreality. I used to write much more openly and personally. “Hi Breathing” was real. I wrote it during a period when I felt that I wasn’t breathing, when I was losing myself. No matter what people saw from the outside or how many followers I had, I was going through a bad time. The phrase was a reminder to myself.
As the account grew, I shared less of that kind of writing. What I post can now follow me into work and into my relationships with friends and family. You don’t always want everything exposed.
Host: You write less, but you speak more.
Amihai: I do. And sometimes the writing still takes hold of me. Typing on a phone helps because it corrects my spelling, and unlike my handwriting, I can read what I’ve written. Sometimes I pick up the phone and feel a creative impulse taking over. I’m no Chekhov, but what comes out feels true. It might be a childhood story or a memory that I suddenly have to write down.
Still, there have to be limits. I have children. My daughter, Ayala, is 14 and has her own account. She sees what I share, and it has created an interesting dialogue between us. Through Instagram, she sees sides of me she might never have known otherwise. If she knew me only as the father who goes to work, comes home and goes running, she would see a much narrower version of me. This hobby shows her another dimension of who I am.
Praise, self-image and the food people actually like
Host: Your account grew by about 30,000 followers in the past year alone. At a time when many people are watching their follower counts and overall reach decline, that is extraordinary organic growth. What does that kind of recognition do to you?
Amihai: It is amazing. It’s hard to picture even 2,000 people, let alone 10,000, 20,000 or 50,000. Every new follower is someone who deliberately chose to see more from you. I don’t always know what to do with that.
Sometimes people approach me on the street and call my name, and I keep walking because I don’t realize they’re talking to me. Then it dawns on me, and I turn back and say thank you. I may seem rude when I’m really just embarrassed. It is flattering and good for the ego, and I appreciate that people choose to say kind things. There are unpleasant comments online too, of course, which makes the kind ones all the more meaningful.
Host: Even love can feel like living under a magnifying glass. Has the account changed your self-image?
Amihai: Life isn’t Instagram. The account hasn’t changed how I see myself. People often discuss body image in relation to women, but men have their own struggles too. I’m very self-critical, and that doesn’t disappear because of what people around me say.
The dishes I most enjoy making, and often think taste the best, receive the fewest likes and the least reach. If I posted nothing but hot dogs and ptitim, Israeli couscous, for a week, I would break the internet and double my numbers. People love that kind of food. But when I post a fish dish with a sauce I love, fewer people respond. I’m not a vegetarian, though I come close, and I love fish. I understand why fish gets less attention. Hot dogs, ptitim and schnitzel feel easier and more familiar.
But the numbers don’t decide what I cook. If I’m happy with a dish, fewer likes don’t make me regret the effort. Compliments and praise can’t sustain me from within. In recent years, I’ve learned that fulfillment has to come from the inside out. If you carry wounds inside, whatever comes from outside simply goes in one ear and out the other.
Host: That inner work matters. You found a sense of worth that doesn’t depend on appearances or outside approval. You learned to understand what something means to you before looking at how other people respond.
The quiet heroine of the story
Host: In my eyes, your wife may be the quiet heroine of this story. We don’t see Sivan very often. She never tries to step into the frame. Instead, we see that she’s the one taking pictures of you and encouraging you to speak. How does she feel about all the attention you receive?
Amihai: She is my partner in all of it, and she’s incredibly supportive. On weekends, when I’m trying to cook several dishes while we’re also preparing Friday-night dinner, she helps me get it all done. We work on it together.
She gives me room to thrive in my own world and cheers me on. That isn’t always easy, especially with comments from women. If our positions were reversed, I might find it hard. But we’ve been together for 23 years, since we were 19. We went on one date and then started living together after the army.
She understands who I am, and she knows that restricting me wouldn’t be right. There is a beautiful passage attributed to Osho about two people who love each other while giving each other the freedom to remain independent and thrive in their own lives. Sivan is exceptionally good at giving me that freedom.
Host: That is real love. Before we finish, a few quick questions.
Quick questions
Host: India or Thailand?
Amihai: Thailand.
Host: Chinese or Japanese food?
Amihai: Japanese.
Host: Stand-up comedy or running?
Amihai: Running.
Host: The gym or running?
Amihai: Running.
Host: Meat or fish?
Amihai: Running. Just kidding, fish.
Host: Sweet or salty?
Amihai: Sweet.
Host: Jim Morrison or Johnny Cash?
Amihai: Johnny Cash.
Host: Liza Panelim or Sima Biton? This may be the question that starts a fight across the internet.
Amihai: Both of them came into my life, and both are incredible. I once wrote that in my next life I either want to be Liza Panelim or marry Sima Biton. I’ve learned so much from them. They are strong, powerful women. If you look at their accounts the way you analyzed mine, you can see there is much more to them than food. They’re both champions.
Host: I was only teasing. I didn’t expect you to choose between them.
A life that keeps moving
Host: Amihai, thank you for coming. It was a pleasure to host you. May every wish in your heart come true and bring you good. Is there anything you still dream of doing? Perhaps becoming a rock-star drummer and playing onstage?
Amihai: A few years ago, someone asked me what my dream was, and I didn’t know how to answer. Then I realized that my dream is to stay in motion and keep growing. I don’t have one destination, and I don’t need to become a rock star. I want to keep growing spiritually and in every part of my life.
I want a life that holds this and that and that too: being chairman of a kibbutz, being on Instagram, playing the drums sometimes. I want to keep moving and never stop.
Host: That is a brilliant answer. One of the main things that makes people happy is being part of a process and continuing to grow through it, wherever that process may lead. One of the earliest phrases that stayed with me was, “This and that and that too.”
Thank you for joining us. Have a happy and kosher Passover, beautiful souls. Amihai chose our closing song, “Growing Pains.”
[The song plays.]