Bulletproof CEO Dave Asprey & Whole Foods CEO John Mackey

[Ledo]

Asprey looks like Kevin Spacey. He's put alot of weight on in recent years. Didn't realize he was so stout...seems an improvement over that fried paleo look he had going at one point.

Mackey looks like every other weak vegany fem thing out there. Its the chemo-like diet that may be more likely to end up in cancer compared to just doing something rational.

 

[Ledo]

IMO Mackey looks quite a bit older than his age...I would put him at 70 or so, just looking at him. He also has age spots (lipofuscin, I think) on his face, a sign of oxidative stress. His numbers aren't particularly great, either...both cholesterol and BP too low. I would like to have his fasting blood sugar control, though.

IMO Asprey also looks older than he is...he's only 43 but I would have guessed 50-ish.

Of course the camera doesn't do any anyone any favors, and I'm sure neither is wearing makeup, but still.

Or maybe my opinion just means I'm a picky harpy and doesn't have anything to do with how they actually look. LOL

In any event, they're both arguing for lifestyles I don't think are particularly healty...Asprey likes too much fat and Mackey too much PUFA. So maybe that's a problem with the way they're aging, too.

@whodathunkit , When I add a small amount of pregnenolone to a meal, maybe 10-15 grams with one or two meals a day, my postprandial numbers are great, no sugar spikes and a quick return to baseline. I'll sleep well nightly too.

If I go extended periods without the preg, I likely to start with wakeful sleep thing and FBG in the 99 range which is high for me. I think the preg pushes glucose into cells...liver what not and this keeps me sleeping with no cortisol spikes at night.

 

[Ledo]

Publix grassmilk is homogenized (at least at my local Publixes). WF sells non-homogenized.

Publix doesn't have grassfed oxtail or stewbones...only steak and ground beef. And you can get grassfed steak and groundbeef cheaper at Walmart than Publix. Publix's prices on organic beef muscle meat is the same or more expensive than WF.

Publix doesn't sell grassfed cheese. WF does.

Publix doesn't sell organic grassfed beef liver. WF does.

Publix doesn't sell organic baking cocoa (which I mix with milk and sugar in my Ninja blender for chocolate milk 100% better than anything off the shelf). WF does.

Publix's selection of organic frozen fruits is very small, limited to berries. WF has organic berries, cherries, mangoes, and peaches.

Publix only sells Uncle Matt's organic OJ, which is more expensive than WF store brand. The price of Uncle Matt's at Publix is exactly the same price as WF.

Publix does usually have organic bagged oranges, which are usually better than WF bagged oranges, and cheaper.

Publix also has one good brand of raw organic honey that's a lot cheaper than WF.

But Publix doesn't sell loose organic baking potatoes...only bagged organic russets, which are usually too small for good baking. WF sells loose potatoes.

WF organic jasmine rice is a bigger bag, cheaper, and tastes better than anything offered at Publix.

Even my local organic markets, which I would definitely prefer to patronize over a chain, don't sell all these things. I would have to cover 30 miles and shop at three different stores and still probably couldn't get the non-homogenized grass milk.

So if you're looking to actually *shop* somewhere for your Peaty lifestyle, as opposed to just picking up a specific item or two, WF is by far the best bet.

I've thought a lot about why there's so much anti-WF sentiment out there. I think it's simply because it was so obnoxiously trendy for a while, attracted a lot of snobby, trendy people with elitist mindsets. Plus, it could be really overpriced.

But these days it's mostly just a one-stop grocery store where you can get serious food for your healthy lifestyle that you can't get anywhere else. Normal-acting and normal-looking people shop there. Prices are still kind of high but they're high for organic and natural anywhere. That's the economic market at work.

Of course there may be regional differences, but anyone shopping at Publix is in my region. You might consider re-trying WF.

And no, I don't work there. I'm just against irrational bias, and I still see some of it around WF.

@whodathunkit , great post thanks!

 

[Queequeg]

Maybe look into buying grass fed beef direct from farmers online. Its much cheaper than Whole Paycheck.
Not to add additional worries to think about, but the rules for calling something grass fed are very lax. Even if the cow is grain finished it can still be called grass fed. Supermarket grass fed beef always seems a little too tender to be really grass fed which should be much tougher and have an orangish hue to the fat. Of course you can get tricked by the internet sites as well so you have to do some research.

 

[whodathunkit]

I eat most the the things here. about 3500 kcal/day. I juice about 6-8 lbs of oranges every day. If i bought organic this would be extremely expensive. It's already expensive. I eat a lot of ground beef @ 2.99/lb. Grass-fed organic would cost a lot more.

Yeah, that's a lot of oranges...probably about $10.00/day right there if you're doing organic.

But even with other food...you're still well short of $40/day ($1200/month). It takes A LOT to eat $40.00 worth of food every day. I eat quite a bit (some days 3000+ cals) and don't even touch $1200.

That said, eating organic can increase your food budget quite a bit...anywhere from 30-50%, depending. I don't blame you for not eating organic and feel fortunate that I can absorb the extra expense.

Main point to my posts was not that organic is so great or that we all should eat that way, it's that *if* you're shopping organic (which Peat recommends if possible) or for non-mainstream foods like grassfed oxtails and bones and non-homogenized milk, AND (in the Boolean sense) looking for the widest variety of these types of foods in a "one stop shop", Whole Foods is probably it for most of us in the U.S. We may not like it (I would prefer to use local markets but because of time and convenience factors don't do it), but that's the reality.

Just because other grocers have started expanding their selections doesn't mean they can fill the niche that WF occupies.

 

[Elysium]

This is a funny one. Watching Asprey being extremely uncomfortable for 25 minutes as he awkwardly tries to suck in his spare tire.

 

[Mjhl85]

Mackey, age 63, says he weighs 145 lbs., his cholesterol is 135, his LDL is 65 to 70, his blood sugar is in the 80's, and his blood pressure is 105/70. He credits these numbers to a diet which is 90% plant-based with low sugar and lots of fruits, vegetables, legumes, beans, and whole grains.

They disagree on whether moderate to high levels of fat can be part of a healthy diet.

sorry but at the end of the day that's a high sugar diet.

 

[Dessert_All_Day]

This is a funny one. Watching Asprey being extremely uncomfortable for 25 minutes as he awkwardly tries to suck in his spare tire.

lolol

 

[Westside PUFAs]

Lisle made some comments recently that are going to piss off many vegans. I'm putting the clips together.

 

[Westside PUFAs]

This is a funny one. Watching Asprey being extremely uncomfortable for 25 minutes as he awkwardly tries to suck in his spare tire.

All that butter intake and avoidance of sugar/starch.

The magic of SFA happens when you use it in small amounts, imo.

 

[Mito]

Mackey, age 63, says he weighs 145 lbs., his cholesterol is 135, his LDL is 65 to 70, his blood sugar is in the 80's, and his blood pressure is 105/70. He credits these numbers to a diet which is 90% plant-based with low sugar and lots of fruits, vegetables, legumes, beans, and whole grains.They disagree on whether moderate to high levels of fat can be part of a healthy diet.

Mackey's nutritional philosophy (and book) seems to all be based on diets of what he claims are the longest lived people's: "we have a chapter on the blue zones for example in the book. Where we talk about all the longest lived peoples in the world. The five blue zones they’ve identified, Okinawa, Sardinia Italy, Ikaria Greece, Nicoya Costa Rica, and Loma Linda California. They all eat a 90% plant based diet, 10% animal foods on average. On a meta-analysis shows that."

This leads him to conclusions that are almost the exact opposite of Peat.

Mackey on telomeres: 'I think I’ll live to be past 100. We’re about telomeres, I had a telomere check a year ago. I was in the 98th percentile. I had the telomeres of a 12 year old. I thought, That’s cool.”

Mackey on sugar: "Sugar is from plants, and it is the pure carbohydrate from the plant. It doesn’t have any of the fiber. It doesn’t have any of the nutrients. It’s basically just pure carbohydrate, the sugar. We don’t seem to have any problem in our society recognizing that sugar is a very harmful food and we should eat very little of it or none at all."

Mackey on Omega 3's: "I particularly believe that from the animal food perspective, that wild caught fish, you’ve got to be a little careful about the bioaccumulation of mercury and PCBs and things like that. However that’s going to be your best source for omega-3s, particularly the long chain omega-3s that are more difficult to get in a 100% plant based diet or definitely grass fed beef."

Mackey on beans: "A lot of people say they can’t digest beans very well, and they probably can’t because they don’t have the bacteria geared up in their system to digest it."

Mackey on fasting: "I do periodic fasting. Not so much for cleansing. If I don’t think my digestion is getting off, for whatever reason. Just simply withholding food and fasting for 24 hours or 48 hours makes a huge difference." "Fasting is a very good way to … It’s like a reboot. When you fast, you’re almost rebooting your digestive system. You’re letting it rest. You’re letting it recalibrate."

Mackey on caffeine: "I drink decaf, I’m a recovering caffeine addict. I was hooked for many years. Once I got off of it, which was now about 15 years ago. I got my own energy back. Otherwise the caffeine was creating the energy. Then I would have to pay back the debt on it."

Mackey on Green Tea: "Green tea is the champ though or white tea compared to coffee anyway."

 

[Travis]

Aspergillus: Even worse than the mycotoxins is the fact that they degrade precious caffeine!

I can stand being poisoned, but I'm not going to let a unicellular organism rob me of caffeine.

 

[LukeL]

Aspergillus: Even worse than the mycotoxins is the fact that they degrade precious caffeine!

View attachment 5471

I can stand being poisoned, but I'm not going to let a unicellular organism rob me of caffeine.

"Green" coffee beans. Would the roasting process mitigate the toxin?

 

[Travis]

Good question. It appears to reduce ochratoxin A:

Effect of Roasting Conditions on Reduction of Ochratoxin A in Coffee

I am not sure about the other mycotoxins. I know that ochratoxin is the most prevalant, but aflatoxins are more toxic.

 

[Travis]

Might as well post this too. This shows how South American coffee beans have less mycotoxins because of the climate and processing techniques. This is mainly why I drink Costa Rican.

Its highly variable within each country, but South America is entirely free of mycotoxins as measured by liquid chromatography with fluorometric detection. The toxins absorb and emit light at certain frequencies and this can be measured.

You don't need to buy from David Asprey to low mycotoxin coffee.

Survey of aflatoxin B1 and ochratoxin A in commercial green coffee beans by high‐performance liquid chromatography linked with immunoaffinity chromatography

 

[Astolfo]

This shows how South American coffee beans have less mycotoxins because of the climate and processing techniques. This is mainly why I drink Costa Rican.

Is that means the cheap turkish coffee (C. Arabica - Costa Rica) I buy from supermarket is safe? Also I'm living in a country where the foods are not being appropiately regulated.