Mind Muscle with Simon de Veer
Mind Muscle with Simon de Veer
Ultra Processed Food and Why We Fall for BS
What if the media you consume affects your mental health as much as the food you eat affects your physical health? Join us on this thought-provoking episode of the Mind Muscle Podcast, where we unravel the complex relationship between social media, ultra-processed foods, and our collective nutritional choices. We dive into why Americans are so easily swayed by dubious nutritional information, and it’s not a matter of intelligence. We also tackle the cultural obsession with raw milk and the importance of understanding its nutritional context before it potentially loses its benefits. Plus, I share my own painful lesson learned from a military press injury, emphasizing the value of flexibility, machines, and mobility work as we age.
Think of your media consumption like your diet—are you filling your mind with the equivalent of junk food? We break down how different types of media, from books to algorithm-driven platforms, affect our mental well-being and consumption habits. We advocate for an "information diet" that prioritizes high-quality content to improve mental health and cognitive function. Learn how to balance your mental intake, aiming for 80-90% high-quality information and allowing for those occasional indulgences. You'll also understand why Americans gravitate towards nutritional fads—not from ignorance, but from a complex interplay of cultural values and the high regard for freedom and liberty.
Ever wonder why quick-fix diets and celebrity endorsements are so compelling? We explore how contemporary diets are a product of a consumer culture filled with anxiety and the allure of instant results. These diets are not just about what we eat but are deeply rooted in societal values and commercial interests. As a busy parent juggling life in a bustling city like Los Angeles, I reflect on the challenges of staying informed and making balanced choices amidst a fast-paced culture. We wrap up by emphasizing community growth through shared knowledge and fitness, reminding you that true gains come from both brainpower and physical effort. Stay tuned for next week's deep dive into the culture war surrounding raw milk. Keep striving, learning, and growing because mind and muscle are inseparably intertwined.
Producer: Thor Benander
Editor: Luke Morey
Intro Theme: Ajax Benander
Intro: Timothy Durant
For more, visit Simon at The Antagonist
Welcome to the Mind Muscle Podcast. Here's your host, simon DeVere, and welcome back to Mind Muscle, the place we study the history, science and philosophy behind everything in health and fitness. Today, I am Simon Devere and there's nothing new, except all that has been forgotten. All right guys. So on the docket. Today I want to talk about a connection between social media and ultra-processed food that I came across in my reading. I really like it.
Speaker 1:I want to take a stab at why Americans fall for so much bullshit, particularly in nutrition. Spoiler alert, I'm not going to talk about lack of intelligence. I think that there is a much better explanation than that, and I think writing everybody off as stupid is self-serving and potentially burying more salient causes. Last stop of the day, it seems that the culture war has finally learned about raw milk. So I think we should have a more nuanced discussion, as this is going to become highly available on a lot of the biggest platforms and outlets, and they will probably have removed all nutritional content by the time it hits those. So, anyway, let's try to get ahead of one of these and put out a little bit more of the nuance and the gaps that I am sure most of these people are going to skip. But anyway, guys, before we dive in, there actually is. At least I think this is useful.
Speaker 1:I think I told you guys about it, but I had a little injury pop up in one of my Sunday workouts. I actually had to switch my exercise programming to accommodate for what was going on. So anyway, this isn't going to be a big spiel on my workout. I actually think there is a teachable point here and a takeaway that I'll get to. But anyway, I did have this goal to build strength and I was working on that and then had an injury pop up in training. Never liked that, but it does happen. I kind of knew that with. Anyway, it was when I was military pressing. I don't know exactly what happened because there was no pop, but I finished the whole workout and then when I was done, I couldn't turn my neck to the right. I was completely locked out. It actually would have been better if I had had a pop or one of those moments where I could tell you what had happened. But whatever happened in the workout, in terms of the pain as it was occurring, it didn't feel different than any of my workouts. So this wasn't the type of thing that I was able to adjust in real time and avoid. It was something that, once the adrenaline and the motivation of the workout wore off, I realized, you know exactly, or I could actually see the extent of the injury a lot clearer. So, anyway, I knew that it was going to take a long well, not a long time, but long to me in terms of, you know, training time down, to get back to the movements that I was doing, and I also didn't have clarity on what exactly put me down. I can make a lot of educated guesses, but again, I don't actually know. So one of the things I could be certain of that that's something different might be helpful.
Speaker 1:So this almost circles back to when we were talking recently about the use and utility of machines. This doesn't mean that I don't love the barbell basics and my kettlebells and all of that, but with the shape my shoulder and neck were in, I've actually started walking back down to the neighborhood big box gym. I go in there at times when there aren't many people there, and so right now I am actually using a fair amount of machines, particularly ones where I can like. If I'm doing rows, I'm typically going for chest supported variations, it's anyway, I think there's a time, the reason I wanted to bring this up. I was walking home from the gym the other day and I realized there was many years where I don't think I could have, you know, made that move because machines were like beneath me in you know my functional fitness height, if you will beneath me in you know my functional fitness height, if you will, you know, had to be dead lifts, front squats, military presses, barbells. Anything else was just not functional and stupid and a waste of time. You know as I am now a lot closer to 40 and 20, that this is something, this is a belief that is evolving with time, and I'm seeing the context where machines can actually be quite helpful.
Speaker 1:So, anyway, the program right now, what it looks like, it is a push-pull legs program. I only focus on push on pushing days, pulling movements, on pulling days, legs on the leg days, kind of self-explanatory. What I will say with that, though, is again different from how I've employed this scheme in the past. Right now, I am using a lot more machines, because I am technically still rehabbing some issues. One other piece that I just want to throw out there. I have recommended this a lot, but outside of the weight room. I don't think the weight room is helping me deal with the joint issues I have. I think what helps me with that Tim Anderson Original Strength. He is on YouTube. I work a lot of his stuff in, and that is what I consider my mobility work. So anti-aging workouts to me we've talked about this in the past it looks like some hypertrophy training with some mobility training, and you're probably going to want to throw in some don't to you know cardio work as well. If you knock all those things out, these are the types of things that are going to make you feel, look and perform well over the long run, particularly if you are over 35.
Speaker 1:Teachable moment that I just want to highlight, though, is we do have to remain flexible and malleable, even with our own ideas In me. Turning to machines right now, this is going against things that I once very strongly believed, and I was extremely passionate at the time talking about, you know why. Barbells were the end, all be all. I don't think any of my facts were wrong about the benefits of barbells. What happened to me in that time is I got so enamored with those facts that I was willing to ignore lots of other facts and subtlety and nuance. And the truth is I had an argument to make. I was trying to set apart the kind of training I was doing at that time from from stuff that other people were doing. So the reality is, if somebody was programming machines and I wasn't you probably didn't view it this way in real time, but but it's like a natural threat. Why are they doing that and you're not?
Speaker 1:You feel this need to have to justify yourself or set yourself apart. And as I am growing as an athlete and, you know, certainly as a man and a father, I really do care less and less about that. I kind of feel that, like almost all ideas and all tools exist for a reason and it's incumbent upon me to figure out what that reason is, what that context is, and then if that situation were to pop, then I use the right tool. I don't go with the tool that I like the most. I grew up doing construction. So even if you have like a lucky hammer that you keep around on your tool belt and it makes you feel better to have it, if you need to drive a bunch of screws, put your lucky hammer away and just get out a fucking screwdriver. It's a lot easier than trying to pound screws in with a hammer.
Speaker 1:So, anyway, I believe that I was guilty of this in the past. It is something that I am trying to root out as time goes on. And, anyway, with moments like that when I can change course easily and adopt a different idea, that makes me think that I have at least made some progress in that regard. So, anyway, we're all going to be faced with a different, you know, set of decisions. It's not always going to be as easy as switching up a strength program after an injury, but no, I would just say, you know, strive to to be truly open-minded. And you know, I know, cause, cause people throw this around a lot today. It's always other people that that aren't thinking and aren't being open-minded. I would actually like to push us more into the self-reflection bin than pointing our fingers. So, anyway, one of my favorite questions to people is when is the last time that you changed your mind about something that you once believed? Unfortunately, you ask people this question a lot of times. There's a long pause. Maybe if I get them started and show some vulnerability, they can get going.
Speaker 1:I talk about my time with paleo. I talk about my time going gluten-free. I talk about my time buying hormone supplements like Tribulus. I talk about my time buying fat burners. I try to be really open and honest about the many mistakes I have made. And honest about the many mistakes I have made it helps me understand one how we all make mistakes, but my own mistakes are my best tool for learning. And then again, I've also just experienced this firsthand that had I remained beholden to all ideas that I once believed, I would not have progressed as far as I am. I'm not setting myself up as a guru or a goal to follow. I'm just simply stating any progress I have made has come from the fact that I have been willing to move in and out of ideas when they no longer are relevant or are helping me anymore. So, anyway, be flexible, be truly open-minded.
Speaker 1:I don't know, this comes from one of my you guys all know my love of Nietzsche, but there was a random quote where he says something to the effect of you know, a good day is when you shatter 10 truths. And so, again, I guess what I'm trying to push as a thought game is think of the way that people often attack other people's ideas, and the thing I want to teach or push is attack your own ideas with that exact same vitriol, and the reason I say that is that some stuff is going to keep standing and that's great. Now you can buy into that stuff and keep rolling, but a lot of things are going to break and then you can just disabuse yourself of that and then no longer say it anymore. So, anyway, I do think it's a great, and that wasn't the other thing. You're supposed to laugh 10 times a day too, but no, I think that actually is a really good goal. Every day, you should try to break 10 things that you used to believe. If you can actually do that, that means that you learned a lot that day, and then if you were to actually laugh 10 times, that also means that you're not just having some joyless existence up on the mountaintop by yourself. But anyway, that has always been a lodestar or like a guiding constellation for me.
Speaker 1:Every day, try to shatter something that you used to believe and make sure that you have some fun while you're doing it. I think that's a day well lived. Yeah, if you're not laughing and if you're still believing all the stuff that you believed when you woke up in the morning. That's called dead in some versions of it. So, yeah, I wouldn't call that a great life. It really shouldn't be scary, or? I guess what I'm getting is we shouldn't feel defensive of ideas. Ideas are not you, they are external to you. So this whole concept of defending ideas is funny to me, and one that I've found that, as I have gotten less prone to do it, it actually helps me, you know, continue to make gains and progress at the things that are important to me. So, yeah, I just don't think it's a good policy. Anyway, guys, hope you guys could learn something from my little program switch up.
Speaker 1:But yeah, I came across this article from Cal Newport. I don't know if you guys have read, well, anyway, the book of his. I really like Digital Minimalism. Admittedly, I think he's trying to turn that book into a course. I don't mind that, it's a good book, but anyway, he actually made an analogy that I really wish that I had made, but no, it's a good one, so I want to share. We're going to quote Cal Newport here.
Speaker 1:So ultra processed foods at their most damaging and extreme are made by breaking down core stock ingredients, such as corn, soy, into their basic organic building blocks, then recombining these elements into hyper palatable combinations rich in salt, sugar, fat, soaked with unpronounceable chemical emulsifiers and preservatives, end quote. But obviously the problem with ultra-processed foods is that they are engineered to hijack our hunger mechanisms, making them literally irresistible. Bet you can't eat just one. That's damn near a scientific fact. And the result of ultra processed food, and the main problem with it, contains very little of the things people actually need to get from food. So I think you see where this is going.
Speaker 1:But Cal Newport, to me, made just a great analogy from food to information. We're going to make the jump now to ultra processed content like food. This is going to be information that has been squeezed, pressed and formed for the sole purpose of consumption. The result is often going to be devoid of any of the beneficial properties and parts from the bits that were formed to make it. So again, I love this connection. I wish I had made it, I didn't, but I do think this is now just a great way that people can visualize this. And once you kind of name and can see something in your mind, that is when I think that you can start to, you know, make better decisions in real time. You see it and you say, oh, that's another one of those, because you have named it and given it that type. That is the power in naming things. There's a dark side we've probably talked about here as well, but we'll skip that for now.
Speaker 1:But yeah, so Newport then breaks it down into so obviously we have different types of food minimally processed, moderately processed, ultra processed. In this paradigm, if you will, minimally processed foods would be equivalent to, say, text-based, passive media, books, some articles I hesitate to say all articles, because so many are produced for the news cycle, so I guess I'm thinking articles from like a quarterly journal or something that doesn't have just such a quick turnaround time and isn't being made to go out onto a social media platform. So, yeah, some articles, but let's say mostly books for now. That's going to be a better thing. Most of the articles I think people are thinking of when I say that word are probably what I would consider ultra processed, um, but anyway, so. So when we're thinking books um, oh, here's a better way let's say like passive, text-based media that has survived the test of time to some extent. That has survived the test of time to some extent. If it's been around for a long time. Obviously, then, most people have adapted to it Like Whole Foods.
Speaker 1:You're not going to find a lot of people who have issues consuming it and I don't know. We hear a lot of kids these days. These days, as we have for the last 6,000 plus years. But you guys know my feelings on that. Not a buyer, but no, in all of history, like, have we ever heard concerns of people reading too much? You kind of do have to go back to, like, the advent of the printing press to find people you know feeling decadent about reading. Or or even, you know, maybe even further back to when we shifted from, uh, oral traditions to writing. I know some people thought that was going to downgrade our memory and, um, you know, obviously human society has come a long way since then. So I don't know if those claims really played out all that well, but again, you just don't. Really. Do you have any friends that you've lost touch with because they read too much? I don't think so.
Speaker 1:Very, very few people have any problems with minimally processed foods. Same with text-based passive media. Not a big problem, pretty much. Everybody is evolved or adapted if we want to be paleoistas, but yeah, everybody can pretty much. Take down the minimally processed foods, no problem, moderately processed foods. We're going to equate these to electronic mass media radio TV Now we're probably getting into some blogs, electronic mass media, radio TV Now we're probably getting into some blogs, newsletters, podcasts. Their food analogy, I guess, would be like white breads, pastas.
Speaker 1:The truth is these aren't good for everyone. Some people do have issues metabolizing some of these things. I don't want to fearmong, fear monger around that, but it is true there are percentages of people who just don't metabolize these foods very well. Some of it can actually be good, but some of it isn't. The biggest problem that you get into again isn't me saying that it's good or bad. It's bad, rather. But what you get is a heightened propensity to over consume. You probably know many people that maybe watch too much TV or got a little too into talk radio or even a podcast, dare I say. But it's entirely possible and I'm sure we all know people who have succumbed to some form of mass media addiction. Versus books, obviously, this layer is just a lot easier to consume and again, if we're comparing it to the level above it, there is generally going to be less nutritional value contained here. So the last one we're going to talk about is obviously the ultra processed food, and I think the best way I'm going to slightly change.
Speaker 1:You know the way Newport broke it down he called it social media. The reason I don't want to call it social media is there are a lot of algorithmic platforms that many people I know use and then don't call social media. They'll tell you oh, I don't use social media. You know, popular with that was like if someone didn't have a Twitter account but they're on like Instagram or Pinterest or something like that. They might self identify as a non social media user, but they're actually engaging all of their content through algorithmic platforms. I just don't like that word social, because I think some people then make that jump like that they have to be commenting and partaking. For me the mark is more on the algorithmic discovery of information, just so I really don't come off like the guy on the mountaintop yelling down at everybody. If you grab my phone and you jump onto Instagram, hit that little search button and you can see.
Speaker 1:You know, obviously, what the algorithm wants to feed Simon, it is like exclusively Kendrick Lamar videos ripping Drake. My my wife sent me a bunch. She knows I love it. No mystery, I'm out here in LA. So so, yeah, we are absolutely loving what's going on. But yeah, you know, okay, I watched 30 videos. I actually don't know. But again, the algorithm is going to keep feeding me what I've already told it I like Um and I am still loving, you know, all the jokes and all the memes popping out, but the truth is I really don't need to consume anymore. I love all those memes that I am seeing. But again, I'm just trying to be honest and self-reflective here. I don't really need to be doing that. It's fun. If I can keep it to a few minutes a day, that's cool, but if I were to start over-consuming this stuff, that would be a big problem.
Speaker 1:Obviously, I'm not going to go too hard on my Kendrick addiction right now, but in general, what I want to say about ultra-processed foods and I don't think I'm above it is that the ultra-processed foods are obviously created by breaking down cheap stock food into their basic elements and then recombining those ingredients into something unnatural but irresistible. That is exactly what algorithmic platforms do. Not only are we over-consuming food or information that probably isn't beneficial to us, but to me. There's another add-in component here, at this level of processing, where there is a feedback loop going on. The content that you are seeing is reverse engineered to what you have already consumed. So anyway, I really do think all of this can actually help us.
Speaker 1:I have talked about this in a roundabout way, but just equating our information diet to a diet and actually kind of thinking about how how we break it down in nutrition, maybe we think about like macronutrients and this percent should come from carbs and fat and whatnot. But you know, I really do like this connection between whole foods because for a long time you've heard me argue that you know we want to be eating roughly 80 to 90% whole foods. That's not 100%. That leaves a little bit of room. So if you really are, you know, consuming 80 to 90% of, let's say, minimally processed information, now at that point, because you have such a large critical mass of good nutrient-dense base, you've actually built a foundation. Now for you who consumes 80% to 90% minimally processed, it's okay for you to go and have a little pasta dish every now and again. It's okay for you to go run down and grab some ice cream with the kids, but if you aren't doing that precondition of 80 to 90% of the time, solid foundations, you are going to get a result that you don't like it's coming, and so, anyway, I just think that this is a good way to one try to inject some sanity back, because we also don't need to be, um, have some joyless, monkish existence. Um, you can watch some lowbrow TV shows, um, some lowbrow TV shows. You can consume some stupid memes on Instagram, but again, that's assuming that you're taking care of the basics.
Speaker 1:What I see happening in diets and in information is actually it's working in reverse, where people are consuming the ultra processed the most and they are consuming the minimally processed the least, just like in your fitness results. It shows I know people don't think it does, but it does. It's very, very clear what people's information diets look like, based on their speech, how they approach new ideas, et cetera. So, anyway, credit to Cal Newport. I really like this idea. I think having a visual in mind of where our information sits in this level of process can really help us determine how much of it that we should be consuming. And then, yeah, I really, really hate the gurus and people who talk down to everybody. So I'm in here with you guys, too, trying to carve out what that looks like for myself, that this, for me, feels like a constant battle. You get on top of it, you get a really productive bit, and then you know, like I just referenced, then a Drake Kendrick beef pops off, and then all of a sudden you're back in the rabbit hole. So I view this as something that I myself constantly fight and struggle against, but, again, I really am striving 80 to 90% of the time. Keep it minimally processed, that's my goal with my food and the information To me.
Speaker 1:All the topics that I brought up today, they all tie together, and so the next thing that I want to jump to is why do Americans fall for so much nutritional bullshit? I think the intuitive answer attritional bullshit. I think the intuitive answer to quote my behavioral economics gurus, amos Tversky, daniel Kahneman the intuitive answer would be that people are dumb. I'm not even going to argue against that. Of course they are. Of course there is a subset of people that are dumb. The reason I don't think that's an explanation, though, is there has always been a set of stupid people in every single population, so this argument, to me, very quickly takes the form of a fall from grace or a kids these days decadence argument.
Speaker 1:You know, what all of these arguments kind of hinge on is that bad people are replacing good people, and now we're getting these bad results because the people just aren't as good as they used to be. You go back and you look at history. It's really hard to find evidence of these. You know so called good people in the past. People really do seem largely unchanged. So again, there's certainly some dumb people and their stupidity explains their mistakes.
Speaker 1:Hanlon's razor, though, never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity or ignorance. I think it's a better word. Ignorance invokes more this idea of just things that you aren't aware of, where stupidity is a little bit more judgmental, like you're not capable. I think most people are ignorant and that's fair and that's kind of to be expected for humans. But again, there have always been dumb people and there have always been fad diets. So none of this stuff is new.
Speaker 1:I'm not really going to waste any more air on the idea that Americans are stupid and that's why we always fall for these, you know, fad diets. I want to introduce just an alternate explanation and I guess you know before we do it. Last note on the I'm also not interested in the mistakes of stupid people because I know what the mistake is they're stupid, they're ignorant. I'm interested in the mistakes of intelligent and serious people. That is where there is something to learn and I'm interested in it, not to make fun of them or raise myself up. I am trying to learn from those mistakes so that I don't make them myself. Trying to learn from those mistakes so that I don't make them myself. Cool, I feel like I got it okay, but anyway, guys, here's my alternate explanation that I've been cooking up.
Speaker 1:So I was looking at some just opinion polls on Americans' beliefs, and one of the ways that we really stand apart from people around the world is Americans place a very, very high value on freedom and liberty. We believe that we have the right to be unconstrained and do as we please simultaneously at all times. I'm going to avoid any of the political ramifications of this, but well, I guess I won't because I'm going to range through this one. But this, to me, is an issue and I'm not taking a side on this. It'll be that the gun issue has a lot to do with this American belief in just outright liberty and freedom simultaneously Every time that there is a big shooting, like a bunch of kids die at a school, then the parents and people connected to that. They want justice for what happened. And then there's almost always another group that you know. They live maybe a few hundred miles away and you know like, like my friends up in Montana, they hunt out in the woods and this situation has nothing to do with their life at all. So they react to the liberty component of you can't abridge my liberty and this, to me, is something that does make so many of our debates circular. Is that all? I don't think this is a one-sided thing. I think Americans believe that they can have both freedom and liberty simultaneously.
Speaker 1:I remember when I was reading Albert Camus' the Rebel and I actually found this part very, very interesting where he points out that he's using slightly different language, but that liberty and justice are contradictions and that liberty is this outright freedom, and justice is actually when you enforce and make something level or try to write something, and it literally is baked into our cultural dogmas that we can have both liberty and justice maximized at both times. This, I think, is a fundamental error in the way that all of us Americans think you can't have both of those. It is like having your cake and eating it too. And that is again so often why we Americans find ourselves in circular debates around freedom and liberty. We're talking past one another and we are not recognizing the values that the other person is speaking to, and we're not recognizing the frankly incoherent belief we all have that we can have liberty and justice at the same time.
Speaker 1:So anyway, in addition to that, americans are also highly individualistic, more individualistic than just about any people on the planet. In opinion polls, we view our lives as a project of continually improving the self. Americans, more so than any other people on earth, believe that their success or failure is the sole result of their own abilities. Because the audience, I'm assuming, is mostly American, that probably seems natural. Because the audience, I'm assuming, is mostly American, that probably seems natural. But in other countries, particularly Europe, people are more prone to recognizing that there might be some systemic limits to what you can do.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry, man, I can't do the growth mindset. You can be anything you want. There's a really good chance that you're not going to be that guy ever. There are a lot of things that are beyond your control that you got to have in place. I'm here in LA. I see countless people who have come here and they're going to be the next big standup. But they're going to be that and actually, no, you're not.
Speaker 1:But when you say things like that to people up front, it sounds like you're the negative, nancy, like you're the downer. But the reality is all things are not for all people. Everybody can't do everything You're speaking to, or speaking as, someone who didn't make the NBA, didn't become an astronaut. No, I actually think it's a little bit. I know what it's meant to do. It's meant to sound positive and make us all feel uplifting, but it's also just a flat out lie that everybody can do everything. No, you can't, most people.
Speaker 1:If you didn't make the Olympics I'm not even giving you an out it was probably never in your future. It's not like some choices you made back in kindergarten that you know pushed you down the wrong way. Trust me, if you were on that path, you would have known it right around then too. And so, yeah, just as we're getting ready for the Olympics now, I've been watching the trials every night and yeah, man, there's no accidents out there. I know that people are going to get into these athletes and hear about their psychology and buy into that. Oh, that was the missing piece. But no, you also need the genes, a whole lot of other things, and all of us who are not partaking in the Olympic trials right now. That probably wasn't in your destiny. I don't think that was just the result of choices you made or didn't make.
Speaker 1:But anyway, I just want to point all this out because I really do generally think that these things are considered positive attributes, and I'm not trying to say they're not. I'm just saying that there's a flip side. You don't get all pros all good with anything. Every choice in life comes with positives and negatives. There is a downside to believing in freedom and liberty and having such a strong inner locus of control, meaning that we believe that we can control our destiny. I think these are mostly viewed as positive attributes, and they certainly can be. These are mostly viewed as positive attributes, and they certainly can be, but I do think that this actually leads us, you know, to believing in a lot of bullshit.
Speaker 1:Um, you know and I'll wrap up my cultural bit here in a second but uh, to me, these attributes combine to forming a cultural belief system that sees the body as infinitely malleable, that makes an individual responsible for his or her shape and morally culpable for whatever position they are finding themselves in. You know, position they are finding themselves in. And so I guess what I'm getting, I don't think that it is so much our intelligence or lack thereof that pushes us to seek out, you know, fad diets and amendments. I actually think it is these larger, you know cultural assumptions. Your body is your responsibility and if you don't look the way that you are supposed to, that is your fault and you will be judged accordingly for it. So you know, obviously we are going to take means and mechanisms to try to avoid that um. And then, all right, we'll pick this up here in a second um because, because I think we have a lot of uh.
Speaker 1:I was going to use the stanford mimetic desire. Let's use the lowbrow. People just copy people they see um, but no so. But why do they do that? Why do people just copy what they see? Um. Culture has this ability to make arbitrary things seem totally rational and reasonable and natural. I'm going to read one more quote to you guys, but one of my favorite David Foster Wallace, when he was giving a speech at Kenyon College, a commencement speech.
Speaker 1:His opening for this Is Water, I think, communicates the point that I'm trying to get about how culture can make things that are arbitrary seem totally natural and reasonable and like the only way it is. So here we go. There's two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way who nods at them and says morning boys, how's the water? And the two young fish swim on for a bit and then eventually one of them looks over and the other goes what the hell is water? This is a standard requirement of US commencement speeches the deployment of didactic, little parabolic stories. The story thing turns out to be one of the better, less bullshitty conventions of the genre. But if you're worried that I plan to present myself here as the wise older fish explaining what water is to younger fish, please don't be. I'm not the wise old fish.
Speaker 1:The point of the fish story is merely that the most obvious, important realities are often the ones that are hardest to see and talk about. Stated as an English sentence, of course, and talk about, stated as an English sentence, of course, this is just a banal platitude, but the fact is that in the day-to-day trenches of adult existence, banal platitudes can have life or death importance. So I wish to suggest to you on this dry and lovely morning, so I guess what I am getting at a lot of the diet choices we make, just like these fish here in David Foster Wallace's example, when you're born into certain conditions, you just don't question them, never questioned the environment that they grew up in. Um, and so, yeah, this again is for me just a useful visualization for for what a cultural paradigm can do, for just what the beliefs that you think are possible. And obviously I, I study diets and I look at this a lot.
Speaker 1:Um, I think it's fair to say that the diets of today are anxious, celebrity-driven, distracted, full of products and consumerism, rife with pseudoscience, needlessly tribal, and I would say that is because it is downstream from our consumer culture. That's the way that ecosystem works, that's the water we're swimming in, that's why the diets look the way they do. I don't want to just throw out a big thing like that and not try to support it. What do I mean by anxious? I guess I'm looking at all the detoxing, all of the single nutrient eliminations, just how so many popular diets are obsessed with purity, anxious, anxious about what people are putting in Certainly rightful and good reasons to do that. Most of these approaches go way overboard. Celebrity-driven I think that's pretty obvious, that we have significantly lowered the bar for celebrity wine.
Speaker 1:Attention is all that it requires now, and most of the popular diets really are perpetuated by somebody who has merely garnered the attention of the intranet. Most of them don't have the staying power. Not everybody can be Joe Rogan and Gwyneth Paltrow and keep that act going for as long as they have. Most of them come and go, but obviously that's the way it goes Distracted, so obviously downstream from our favorite technologies. But most of the dice are very, very distracted too. Quick results do this fast, 30-day challenges.
Speaker 1:This idea of telling people to do things slowly, incrementally, sticking with it just isn't attractive in a culture like this, because we have no reinforcement of doing things in that fashion. Get it yesterday or you suck. Every diet is full of products. You really have to purchase the merchandise, the food, the books. It isn't just about eating food or thinking about or putting together a program. There is this big component of commerce that you obviously must engage in to actually be a card-carrying good member of whatever diet you want. To fall into.
Speaker 1:Pseudo-scientific, I think. Every fad diet lays claim to a revelation. Then they go and they cite the literature selectively to back up their own argument. Then you ignore all evidence to the contrary. There's anything that doesn't make the case you want to make. Don't tell anybody about it. Offer up either a scapegoat, a silver bullet, or both. People love to have some external thing to blame for all their problems.
Speaker 1:And then, whatever you do, don't ever say that most of the benefits of your so-called diet really could come from just eating whole foods and exercising. You have to make it all about the. You know your initial revelation, so, yeah, the I don't know. This just drives me crazy, because so many of these diets get made. And then you can break that down and they'll say oh well, you know, you got to admit it's smart. Someone always says that. And if you were thinking of saying it, don't fucking say I want to fucking say actually I won't, that's mean, but no, just for years of having the same retort, it just gets so annoying.
Speaker 1:Again, it's not about intelligence or smarts here. It's about integrity and values, and anybody promoting a fad diet in that way simply doesn't have it. There are many people, far more people than the people promoting fad diets who are just as intelligent to do what they have done. The reason they don't do it is because they view it as beneath their integrity and values. So many times, if you even articulate this as cleanly as I did, I'm now hating on these influencers. No, I'm not.
Speaker 1:I've had a sales job in the past and if you want to talk about hating, I hated myself. When I looked in the mirror, I felt like a fraud. I felt like a leech. I was selling security systems that sucked. So no, even when you're doing well and you don't believe in your product or at least this was me, and this is what this belief comes from I literally hated myself.
Speaker 1:I'm making money, I'm selling and I get ready for the day and I'm looking in the mirror and I'm thinking you are the worst thing in the world. You're literally a fucking door to door salesman. You come to people's homes, you lie to them, you put in a system that sucks and then you take some money. So, anyway, I worked with plenty of people at that. Obviously, I wasn't alone. A lot of people are fine doing that. I'm not. I hated myself. They don't. It isn't intelligence.
Speaker 1:Selling is actually pretty easy. The difference there gets into values integrity. Had I been selling a product I believed in, maybe I wouldn't have felt that way. But again, give me a product I believe in and I'll fucking sell it. But it's kind of the problem, ain't it? But anyway, circling back to my issue with diets, diets never become popular in a vacuum. People aren't reading scientific information. People aren't analyzing animals to jump at this. Diets become popular within a cultural context. They become popular within the fishbowl, so to speak. Every fad diet you can think of today has a sizable online community. Sizable online community and allowing people who, or giving people that forum where they can commune with one another and then enforce collective forms of behavior, is what makes these approaches psychologically attractive.
Speaker 1:In my opinion, many people are going to think that they have chosen the specific diet for reasons that are personal or individual to them. I think, in fact, that there's a set of diets that are actually available to them and they gravitate towards one based on social systems and cultural narratives that they have accepted in other realms of their life. I don't actually think they are looking at the nutritional information on these things. I would go so far to say not one single American chose keto or South Beach or paleo or any other fad diet outside of a social and informational context that promoted it to them and then, within that context, it felt natural and it made sense. But had you lived in a different social context and you don't get to see that because you didn't, it wouldn't seem natural, it wouldn't make sense to you and you might think it was silly. But most people are. They choose their diets not based on like intuition or taste preference, but how they are socially influenced by people around them.
Speaker 1:Nutritional belief systems are downstream from culturally determined narratives that are often designed to affect, you know, selfformation, identity or rituals of purification. I'll try to say that in a less complex way. What I'm thinking now is I really don't think that there would be carnivores without vegans. There is this social context where veganism comes out and then you have this reaction to go to the other end comes out and then you have this reaction to go to the other end. I don't think people are gravitating to either one of those camps from doing objective research on nutritional studies. I also don't think it's level. I'll take a shot. I think the carnivores are a little bit silly, but I think they invented their whole fucking diet as a reaction to veganism.
Speaker 1:But both diets. Now to throw them both under the bus. They both cherry pick the science to highlight either people who ate only plants or only meat, ignoring the vastly larger body of science showing that humans are opportunistic omnivores that are highly adaptable to whatever food source is available and are insanely malleable and can actually survive on pretty much any fucking diet. But if you want to get into either one of those camps, you're going to need to ignore the vast majority of nutrition studies that don't prove the argument that you feel inclined to make. Most diets similarly, not just bagging on veganism and carnivore. But they don't make biological sense. They make cultural sense. They fulfill psychological needs. That's why I'm not willing to call people stupid because they're not reading the scientific studies and peer reviewed. That's not what they want.
Speaker 1:Every era is marked by a specific set of dietary dogmas or regimes that are around. It can be helpful to look back and look at older things, so we don't have an emotional attachment to any of the arguments. Being made was a far greater problem than overconsumption. This was the time that fortified grains were made. If you attempt to understand fortified grains outside of the context in which they appeared, you're probably missing the plot, and, just like I was even saying about machines earlier, things and ideas tend to exist for a reason. Um, it's worth, you know, diving into the context and figuring out why that thing exists. Um, and and again, I think what you're going to find is, a lot of times these are downstreams from problems that people were facing at a time. Maybe that problem isn't relevant anymore, etc. But there's a lot better ways of engaging, you know, than simply copying the work of others.
Speaker 1:But here's why and this is now getting back to some of these cultural influences we're deeply individualistic. That's the positive way of saying it. The negative side of that winds up being alienation, and when you combine the technology that most of us use today, I do think that is probably what I don't want to, you know, do any absolutes. It's one of the most influential psychological features that is impacting the way people think about damn near everything. You know, I feel this a lot, actually as a parent. I get my parent gripes in here.
Speaker 1:But, yeah, modern parenting is pretty much done in isolation. You're supposed to learn through books and blogs and experts, and the day to day reality of parenting is that you're, you know, isolated from. You know a lot of the friends that you had prior to becoming a parent. You wake up, you go to work, you get your kids and you're just expected to know how to do everything. I'm supposed to know how to like tie a swaddle. I'm supposed to know how to cook and I'm supposed to know how to. And literally nobody teaches you this stuff. You just like one day. You're just supposed to know how to do all of this stuff. Historically, people actually learned this from other people. These were communal activities. Now every one of these things has been financialized and turned into a commodity. We're expected to go buy some books and take some courses and learn it on our own. We also know that nobody does.
Speaker 1:I'm guilty of this as well, but how many guys my age are just not that handy around the house? I'm better than most. My dad was a contractor, but this is where the generational thing holds. Is my dad's way more useful to have around the house than I am? This is not traits that came down the generations. Fortunately, I actually worked alongside my dad, so I got to pick some stuff up. He's just better at it than I am, except for tile. I'm better at tile than he is. Put that one on record, but no, the whole. The only reason I had to do anything around the house is that I worked alongside my father. That's the way people used to learn shit. We would pick up skills like that from from older people that were wise, if it wasn't our father.
Speaker 1:Our consumer-based culture doesn't do any of that. We're all these isolated individuals out there striving and competing with one another. You don't really help people because that could wind up knocking you down. This again is one of my critiques of transactional relationships. Is I genuinely do start doubting the authenticity of people that only conduct a relationship with me because there is capital involved? A lot of them are great, super nice people, but I really don't think, if you remove the capital, that they would care about me. Maybe other people sense that. Maybe I'm just weird, but no, a huge part of even my work is like this fancy Hollywood trainer is actually being like the home economics teacher that nobody had in high school. Because they cut that and got rid of it, shop got cut. Remember that. Because they cut that and got rid of it, shop got cut. Remember that. No, I mean like we just don't teach people how to take care of themselves on a very, very basic level.
Speaker 1:I don't want to bemoan this, because there are. There's so many awesome things about living in the culture that I live in, this individualistic culture. I love all the freedoms, I love all the liberties, I love that I get to choose my own destiny. Again, I just think all of us are aware of the positive sides. I don't think you need me to tell you that. I think the part I can contribute is that there's actually a dark side to all of this. This is what pushes us to tribes is because the dark side is loneliness and alienation, and when you get into that state, you become ripe, particularly with the technology. We have to be plucked up on people who, you know, want to hijack your attention and your time. But no, you know, I do want to say that most people really aren't dumb. To say that most people really aren't dumb. I do believe that what they see as natural and reasonable is just a function of the time and the social context that they live in, expecting these alienated and isolated individuals to consistently come up with great decisions all on their own, when the only way that they have to engage and get at information is through tech platforms that are pushing them things to sell them. You know, chances are that they're going to make bad choices.
Speaker 1:You know, as a parent, I have to admit that my social context is limited. I'm around mostly parents. I'm around kids I don't exactly get a representative sample but at least I'm not around people that are exactly like me. I'm not in a world like that, and the thing that I see the most people are working hard. You know, sometimes I'll hear I got some friends that are, you know, back in Dixie and they're whining about, oh, people don't want to work these days. And I tell them I'm like, wow, I don't. Maybe this is just my world, but in Los Angeles, as expensive as things are, I'm like I don't know anybody who doesn't work all the time. Yeah, at the school I'm at, the norm is two parents working. I am constantly surrounded by people who are working their asses off. I'm doing it myself.
Speaker 1:I feel how busy we all are and the truth is it's pretty damn hard. I used to prize myself on being up on what all my clients were going to talk about, and I think I've admitted as much. But more and more I'll admit I genuinely don't know what people are talking about A lot of the time. Um, you, you take a week off the internet and and it's just, it's like, you know, wild when people try to catch you up on, like the outrages you missed and and all of that. And then again because I am so consistently coming in behind this you know some celebrity does something and then the whole reaction thing plays out, and then you read up on it like a week later and everybody's done with it and you know they're all hopped up. But it's like this was stupid, there was nothing here. So no, I just say all that, just say we're busy, there's so much noise, there's so much going on.
Speaker 1:I don't think it's fair to say that we're all stupid. I know plenty of us are in some regard, but I don't care about their mistakes. Easy to explain. The preponderance of fad diets and the way we circle through them to me cannot be adequately explained by just mere ignorance. There's too many of us who aren't. I do think that it is these broader features of our consumer culture, if you will, our individualism, our inner locus of control and belief that we are, this project of the self that is to be perfected Normally a good thing, or definitely a good thing in a lot of stuff, but I actually think that in this instance, this is one of those things that consistently misleads us. So anyway, guys, white lie at the top of the show.
Speaker 1:I'm not going to get into the culture war moving into milk today, because I went a little longer than I expected. So anyway, guys, if I try to cram this thing in, I'm not going to do it justice. If I do it, you're going to be here probably for another 30, 40 minutes, so I'm going to save this one for next week. Sorry, I ran on a little bit and didn't get to. You know my full plan today, but I do hope that there was some bits of value in there, because clearly I rambled on for a bit. But yeah, so today, guys, we did get to cover. You know, stay flexible with your workout programming. With any ideas that come in. You're going to find ideas that you once didn't need. Maybe later you will Keep your mind open to those things. Almost all these ideas exist for a reason. That was my lesson.
Speaker 1:Circling back to some machines, again, I think that Cal Newport's example of ultra-processed content. What the real problem with it is. I'm not interested in saying it's good or bad. My main issue is that you are going to over consume and, yeah, sure it has been. You know squeeze of all you know nutritional content, but all that being said doesn't mean you need to throw it all out completely. 80 to 90% minimally processed, and then that 10 to 20, whatever you're doing, you'll be fine and then, yeah, I think this is where I got bogged down a bit.
Speaker 1:But why do Americans fall for so much diet bullshit? I don't think it's that we're dumb. I actually think it comes from a better place. I think we have cultural values here on freedom, liberty, individualism and self-striving. That, when combined with economics and technology we have, are what consistently lead us to making these circular bad choices. This is why, like we say at the top of the show or at least I try to there's nothing new except all that's been forgotten. That's why this diet space just keeps going around in circles the way it does, or at least that's my current explanation for it.
Speaker 1:Anyway, guys, you know I appreciate you spending your time with me. I hope that you learned something today. If you did, make sure that you share this episode with some friends. Let's keep growing the community and, yeah, next week I will actually start off with my culture war raw milk bit that I teased this week, but yeah, we got a lot to cover there. So anyway, see you guys next week. Remember mind and muscle are inseparably intertwined. There are no gains without brains. Keep lifting and learning. I'll do the same.
