Why is Wellness So Fucking Annoying?

Adaptogenic coffee creamers, ashwaghanda breathmints, spirulina facial mist and a litany of other utter bullshit, deinfluenced

I don’t think there’s enough ancient pine resin on earth to quell the sense of rage I feel when I walk into a Sprouts lately. It’s not the barreling boomer with no sense of spacial awareness, it’s not the egregiously underripe and $6/lb heirloom tomatoes, either. It’s the absolute splattering of well-washing (let’s coin that now, shall we?) on packaging in every aisle and on every product that sends me into a doom spiral. So instead of internalizing all of that and no doubt growing the lump in my thyroid even more, I thought I’d do us all a favor and rant about it on Substack, and hopefully stop one of you from spending your hard earned money on any of this deeply useless bunk.

Let’s preface this. I cook healthy food for a living. I cook for athletes, I cook for yogis, healing people, sick people, wealthy people and regular people. I regularly cook for retreats centered around “detoxing”, “cleansing”, and “rebooting.” I take these jobs to educate guests on what works and what doesn’t, and I get letters upon letters of supreme gratitude as peoples’ lives improve. Never, and I mean never, in my fucking life, do I buy anything that says what it does on the label - and that’s with unlimited grocery budgets, annoying buzz word chattering clients, and the unrelenting urge to buy the product with that one font that seems to appeal to millennials to the tune of millions of dollars (you know the one because you used it on Canva). I’m watching in horror as TikTok influencers get paid to promote products that don’t work, and as graphic design becomes the base of merit in the supplement industry. This feels like craft beer all over again, and I am not ready for that.

There is no single product on earth that will make you healthy that does not grow or eat from the ground.

There is also no powder, juice cleanse, ginger shot, or lifestyle gummy that will move the dial towards anything other than the growing mountain of plastic in the ocean. If it takes absolutely no work to consume, it will not save your life. Read that a few more times.

If I had to relate the rise of absolutely stupid wellness products (I’m looking at you, lions mane coffee creamer made with literally poison for a creamy mouthfeel while being plant based, or the eponymohus “de-bloat” greens powder that is comprised of so many dissonant ingredients that it’s causing your bowels to purge everything immediately to rid themselves of the shock), I’d think fast fashion. You buy something that makes you have to think less about your health, you take it with no real thought, you believe that it helps you and you toss the packaging away. That creamer is the Zara t-shirt, and unfortunately, all of the trash our overconsumption produces gets left behind in a very real, non metaphorical ocean.

When I speak with coaches and nutritionists about athletic and professional nutrition, I find the conversation often shifts to recovery vs. reaction. Why focus on recovery over injury prevention? Why not make the body and all of its systems strong, so recovery occurs naturally, faster? This almost $40 billion dollar industry which is also highly unregulated wants to sell you a collection of elixirs to heal you. Bottles, vials and drops promising gut health, mental health, hormone health - but like, what is in this shit? Dietary supplements in the United States are not regulated by the FDA - and we’re talking the highest end, creme de la creme - not to mention the cute little microdoses of products sold to you on a convenience basis. I will always talk people out of supplements they don’t need, but here’s some rules to live by so you so an industry bigger than life itself doesn’t hit the lick of the century on you next time you’re loading up your grocery cart.

1. If bloodwork has not determined that you are deficient in a vitamin, mineral, or body function, don’t spend a fucking dime.

   Before you say “but doctors are expensive” or “I don’t have health insurance” - you can get an entry level, comprehensive bloodwork analysis for a couple hundred bucks. You’ll spend that on vitamins and herbal remedies you don’t need anyway, so you might as well save up if that’s what’s stopping you. A significant amount of harm can occur from at home, self diagnosing - and as totally unregulated, very potent substances, supplements can do a lot more harm than good. Every symptom on the planet has myriad causes and diagnoses. You are not qualified to make that call.

2. If the powder is derived from a rare fruit or something that sounds like a Dr. Seuss character, or only grows in remote parts of the world you have never been to, your body absolutely does not need to consume it.

   I can assure you that the carbon footprint you leave by guzzling tropical fruit derived lozenges will kill you faster than whatever it is that you’re healing.

3. If the packaging is very appealing, put it back.

   Are there exceptions? Yes. Is it a general rule? Also yes. If the packaging tells you what it does, you need to do research or ask a pro until you don’t need it to anymore. Labels are designed to sell you products, not tell you the truth. Turn to Ayurveda for herbal questions. Ask your local herb shop.

4. Speak symptom, not diagnosis.

   If you find yourself in the presence of somebody who can help you with supplements or with herbs, resist the urge to diagnose yourself. Instead, describe your symptoms, honestly, and this one’s big - we know your poop is weird. We need to know how. Talk about it.

5. If it promises to replace multiple servings of fruit, vegetables, fiber, etc., put it back, and spend a tenth of the price on the real thing.

   Have you ever stopped to ask yourself what a “serving” or fruit looks like? No? Put the fucking supplements back and eat an apple.

6. If it’s a green powder, save your money.

   Eat a bowl of greens. I cannot stress the importance of fresh food over dried, frozen, and otherwise shelf stabilized. You do have time to make yourself a salad, to wash some baby kale, sautee some broccoli. Your health requires your time. You will not change this paradigm.

7. Do not buy anything other than tinctures for mushroom based adaptogenic products, and buy them from Host Defense.

   Every chocolate bar, coffee bag, and vegan jerky pretending to provide “reishi mushrooms” to you is selling you unregulated mycelium powder that will do nothing for your body or your brain. Mushrooms require adequate dosage and extraction methods to be useful. This will cost more and you will get less.

8. If it’s significantly cheaper than the tincture or supplement form, there is a reason. This is really true for mushrooms, and really true for buzz words. If the $6 bottled juice or kombucha tells you it contains spirulina, that’s because there’s a half penny’s worth in the container. There is no room in capitalism for gift giving. You are being had.

9. Nothing that makes you shit liquid is good for your body.

   Irritating your bowels + disrupting what precious gut biome you have left for the sake of losing a few pounds of water weight is ridiculous. Introduce fiber, gently, naturally - a prune, a celery stalk, a bowl of quinoa. If you are unable to poop, you need to figure out why - forcing a mass exodus in a traumatic way will not help you.

10. You do not need to detox.

11. You do not need to detox.

12. You do not need to detox.

    Your liver detoxifies your body naturally. If your liver is not detoxifying your body, you have much bigger problems and you will not solve them with turmeric. If you’re detoxing because you drink a lot, quit drinking. Chronic alcoholism or bad diet choices will not be reversed by ginger tea. I’m sorry. If you want to give your liver a break, take a few days to not eat much, eat easily digestible foods, drink lots of water, and lay off the booze.

13. The body needs gradual changes, gentle introductions, and consistency.

    This is the biggest takeaway from this article, and you will not like it: If you cannot consistently feed your body well, with whole foods, an absence of processed sugars, toxic substances, and balanced fruits, vegetables, proteins and fibers, do not bother with supplementation. You are putting a bandaid on an injury of your mind and you have to heal that first.

Now that I’ve yelled at you, let me make this easier. Pick one fruit and one vegetable, both of which you like, and introduce them to your body every single day for one week. Remove one processed food. The following week, add two more, subtract another, and so on, and so forth. After a few months of this, a few things will happen - you will feel like you’re in control of your diet, and not the marketing departments at the grocery store. And, you’ll have introduced enough whole foods into your body, with a diverse array of minerals and vitamins, that you will be in the active stages of saving your own life.

I hate giant companies, corporations, pharmaceutical marketing ploys and fear mongering graphic design campaigns. I hate that my friends and community bust ass for their money and spend it on plastic buckets of little lies.

The earth provides. You can live a long and healthy life with a chicken thigh, a potato, some greens and some rice. Please do not let companies who do not care if you live or die convince you otherwise. And if I can help along the way, just ask.

In Health,

A