Category Archives: Wellness

The Problem with Gluten Free

Eating gluten-free will help you lose weight.  It will help you find more energy.  And it will help you wane crappy Western illnesses.

So avoiding food with gluten, like bread, is a good thing.  White or wheat.

But avoiding food with gluten does not mean seek out gluten-free products.

Gluten-free products are just that.  Products.

A giant bag of gluten-free pasta is technically gluten-free.  If you’re a marketer, why not put a gluten-free sticker on it?  It will sell better than one without.

But, will a giant bag of gluten-free pasta help you lose weight, find more energy or wane crappy Western illnesses?  Not so much.

Weird Peanut Butter

There are two kinds of peanut butter out there.  Take your pick.  No, not creamy vs chunky.  Not Skippy vs Jif.  It’s simply good vs bad.  Or as my dad likes to call it, weird peanut butter vs normal peanut butter.

Normal peanut butter, like Skippy or Jif, has a long shelf life.  It lasts because of oil hydrogenation, a process very simply illustrated here.  Hydrogenated oils cause:

  • Increase LDL (bad cholesterol)
  • Decrease HDL (good cholesterol)
  • Increase risk for heart disease, diabetes and cancer

Weird peanut butter, like Trader Joe’s brand, has a short shelf life.  It requires refrigeration.  It’s ingredients are singular: Peanuts.  And sometimes salt.  But never hydrogenated oils.

So that’s why I like weird peanut butter.

Is that so weird?

Hello, Irene

Big drug dealers have a simple strategy.  Sell a highly addictive, high-margin, readily available product in mass to low-income neighborhoods.  Example: Frank Lucas, heroin, and Harlem, NY. He claimed to earn $1 million dollars per day.

Big Food has a simple strategy, too.  Sell a highly addictive, high-margin, readily available product in mass to low-income neighborhoods.  Example: Irene Rosenfeld of Mondelēz (formally Kraft Foods), Oreo Cookies, and Mobile, Alabama.  She makes $28 million dollars per year.

That we perceive the former at any differently than the latter makes me want to do drugs.

Good thing there’s a 7-11 across the street.

The solutions that never go on sale

Free isn’t really free.  And free is often a bad pick between the paid alternative.  We know this.

But what about when it comes to fixing problems?

Have frequent heartburn?

  • P&G’s solution: Buy Prilosec OTC and take it every 24 hours for your entire life.
  • UL’s solution: Eat more alkaline foods.

Having frequent anxiety?

  • Privately practicing therapist solution: Schedule time with her every week.
  • UL’s solution: Exercise rigorously for 30 minutes, 4x per week.

Need to lose weight?

  • Sensa’s solution: Buy their white powder and sprinkle it on your food
  • UL’s solution: Employ both prior recommendations

So free isn’t always the poor choice.  Maybe it’s only when it’s the easy one.

Papa John Peyton

Professional athletes are part-time athletes.  Their other job is to be paid endorsers.  Clothing, pain relievers, and food.

Since professional athletes are rational, they will accept money to endorse products that increase their net worth.  Even if it means endorsing products that are detrimental to society.

But if there is a stigma about endorsing products that are detrimental to society, perhaps the more prudent financial decision will be to endorse products that are more beneficial to society.

Looks like one stigma, professional athletes endorsing junk food, may be ready to drive social change.  Or at the very least, make endorsing junk food a poor financial decision for professional athletes.

Reputation is precious.  Threatening it, and the ability for a rich athlete to get more rich, is powerful.

I cannot wait to see Lebron dropping McDonalds.  Peyton dropping Papa Johns.  Serena dropping Gatorade.

And for the record, this grassroots-awareness-resulting-in-stigma-for-celebtrity-endorsers thing transcends junk food.  How can we use it more?

Cruising altitude

What do you do every morning on autopilot?  Drive to work?  Your morning shower routine?  A 30 minute run?

Having to figure these things out every morning would be exhausting.  New route to work every day?  Getting cleaned up in a different order every day?  Changing the duration and path for your run every day?

Exhausting.

Same thing with making breakfast.

Figure out 1 breakfast to make.  Turn on autopilot.  And basically, go back to sleep.

Just like the real pilots.

Knowledge, power, names

Looks can be deceiving.  And so can names.

Burger King’s new fries, Satisfries, are deceiving.  So they’re low fat, apparently.  But what if you knew they should be called “Chemicalfries?”

Starbuck’s Pumpkin Spice Latte is deceiving.  It should probably be called Pumpkin Syrup Latte. All these years, I thought it was just the pumpkin spice giving it flavor.  Now I make this #PSL instead.

Facebook is deceiving.  Once I really understood its power to be an anxiety-inducing false reality, I used it a lot less.

Yes, knowledge about a name can be restrictive.  And challenging.  Especially when it means avoiding fries, PSL’s, and Facebook.

But isn’t knowledge power?

ALT Tab all day

Leaving your traveling-consulting job.  Or your position as a small business CFO.  Or your role as GM of a restaurant.

Leaving a good job is not easy.  Nor is it right if you’re doing what you love.

In fact, if your work is what you love, stick with it.  You’ll probably live longer.  Like Frank Lloyd Wright, 91.  George Burns, 100.  Grandma Moses, 101.

Selective sample?  Science actually suggests that “time can actually expand to contain the work with which you choose to fill it”.

Ready to start doing what you love?  Your boss will never know.

Mine didn’t.

Keepin it 100

Ask any coach, executive, or leader of any kind.  It’s crucial to recognize and celebrate milestones.

Just wrapped up Spring Training?  Recognize and celebrate.

Just finished your first full year in business?  Recognize and celebrate.

Just published your 100th blog post?

Recognize!

Now let’s celebrate 100 blog posts by remembering some of the best:

Thanks to you for reading.  I write ’em for you.

Lenny James Gale

Dear Lenny Gale,

Thank you for taking the entire week to criticize celebrities for endorsing products that are marketed as stuff that makes us feel good now.  America is a free country.  We have the freedoms to buy whatever makes us feel good now.  Not in the long run.  Now.

So go ahead, you righteous fuck.  Juxtapose yourself with Larry the Cable Guy, Beyoncé, Michael Phelps and Erin Andrews.  I know what’s coming.

You want to tell us that how great Vitamix is and how it can actually make us feel good.  Ugh!

You know what, Lenny Gale?  You can take your Vitamix 7500 and shove it up your ass.  I don’t care that it helps me reduce heart burn, improve digestive health, stay refreshed and prepare easy, healthy and quick meals.

In America, we’re about feeling good now. Not after a couple weeks of making juices.  Or smoothies.  Or soup.  We want to feel good now.  Now!

Just leave America alone.

Disdainfully yours,

America