Last weekend I did a CrossFit competition with CrossFit Kevin. We did not win. Nor were we remotely close to winning. And Kevin is still not over it.

All week I’ve been getting texts of regret and disappointment, thoughts clearly keeping him awake at night.

Kevin at 2:09am Sunday morning:
“I can’t believe I missed that 235# snatch.”

Kevin at 11:04pm Tuesday night:
“Do you think if we’d strategized the rowing workout better we could’ve had a shot?”

Kevin at 4:10am Thursday morning:
“Heading to the gym. Still can’t get over my effort on the Echo Bike. Time to train. No excuses.”

Then this morning Kevin’s wife texted me asking if I could come over for an intervention. Apparently he’d been doing an every-minute-on-the-minute of strict handstand push-ups through the night. He was on hour 12—a protest of sorts—saying he wouldn’t stop until he felt improvement.

Anyway. Enough about Kevin’s midlife crisis.

How are YOU doing, Buttercups? Life still treating you alright?

• Speaking of not being enough physically, a new study out of Finland found that the right playlist can increase workout endurance by up to 20% for the average athlete. Researchers divided two groups of cyclists, and the ones with their own killer playlists lasted much longer than the group cycling in silence. What this tells us? Kevin and I need a better gym playlist.

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I’m on my way back from D.C., where I did some light protesting against Bayer’s request to SCOTUS for legal immunity from glyphosate, also known as Roundup.

It was inspiring spending time with the brilliant researchers who have dedicated their lives to researching glyphosate, the doctors who have devoted their practices to helping patients harmed by glyphosate, and the attorneys who have spent their careers defending farmers and gardeners who have been sickened—or killed—by Bayer’s Roundup.

At the same time, it was disheartening to sit in the House Rules Committee meeting and watch firsthand how many politicians—mostly Republicans—seemed uninterested in the potential harms of glyphosate, as the committee once again pushed legal immunity for pesticide manufacturers in the upcoming Farm Bill—an effort that ultimately failed, thanks to the aggressive MAHA advocates who dissuaded Congress from siding with the chemical giant.

Still, right now, Bayer is in the halls of the Capitol, courting the Trump administration, and petitioning SCOTUS—asking all three branches of government to provide legal protection so that average people like you and me, your friend who farms, or your grandma who gardens cannot sue if they’re harmed by RoundUp. It’s an effort that undercuts one of this nation’s most fundamental legal principles: the right, guaranteed by the Seventh Amendment, to have your day in court.

I cannot think of another issue where there is this level of coordination stemming from a single company. It should also be noted that Bayer is a foreign company.

I really wish the “just asking questions” crowd on social media would direct their queries toward this matter. If Bayer were an Israeli company (it’s German), I suspect Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson would be all over this topic. But alas—no Jews, no news.

• Allyson Felix is coming out of retirement, aiming to make her sixth Olympic Games in her hometown of Los Angeles. She’ll likely be racing the 400 meters—and, by the grace of our Lord Almighty, I managed to get tickets to the women’s 400m semifinals. Part of me was thrilled to snag the tickets. Another part of me felt a little defeated, because buying tickets to the Olympics means accepting the fact that I won’t be there competing. Acceptance, the final stage of grief. 🥲

• Two runners broke the 2-hour marathon in London. 4:33/mile pace. Insane.

• The latest workout trend is shock therapy. Athletes (a generous use of the word here) strap into wetsuit-like gear wired with electrical currents that stimulate their muscles for 20 minutes while lifting what appear to be eight-pound dumbbells. The setup relies on electrical muscle stimulation machines that cost $20,000 each. The business director behind one German company said Americans are their target audience. “The U.S. is a big market, there’s many lazy people,” he told the WSJ.

• Speaking of environmental toxins: a study from MIT found that NDMA—a toxic byproduct of several industrial processes—may be significantly more harmful to children than to adults. In the early 2000s, a Massachusetts community’s drinking water was contaminated with this chemical, and pediatric cancer rates there were higher than in surrounding areas. In this new lab experiment, researchers found that the same DNA damage had very different consequences depending on age. “The double-stranded breaks were exclusively observed in the young,” the study’s lead author explained. What I find—well, I don’t know—worth pointing out is that there seem to be some very serious ties between Germany and MIT. (one of the physics professor is from Munich.) Germany, as we know, is where Bayer operates—and it’s also where they’re making this shock-therapy-style workout equipment. What’s going on over there in Germany? Are the vibes off? Hard to say. But the ROB Central Europe bureau has some fascinating tips coming in. Our sources there run deep. We’re keeping our eyes on you, Germany.

• Two-thirds of babies under two watch screens daily, with 30% watching screens for more than three hours a day. Have we forgotten Matthew 18:6?

• A 71-year-old man is running 100 marathons in 100 days to raise awareness for Parkinson’s research. At face value, that sounds admirable. But hundreds of millions are already being poured into the search for treatments. What receives far less attention is prevention. There are dozens of studies linking pesticide exposure to Parkinson’s, yet we rarely talk about what might be driving the disease in the first place.

• Steak 'n Shake hired a “Chief MAHA Officer.”

• “A basketball court is essentially 94 feet of prefrontal cortex development opportunity,” says Dr. Matt Angove, the ROB Godfather. Read his excellent piece on why kids should play basketball.

  Dr. Matt

  Want to Give Your Child A Hand Up in Life? Sign Them Up for Basketball.

  I’m serious, this is easy health accumulation…

  Read more

  a month ago · 11 likes · Dr. Matt

• The White House is fast-tracking research of psychedelic drugs. Running On Butter has no official stance on—nor experience with—these substances, aside from that brief period when I started a commune in Ecuador. Wild times down there in South America.

• Celebrities seem to be abusing GLP-1 drugs and looking increasingly anemic and emaciated. Not good, but also not new. Drug experimenting is sort of a defining celebrity trait. Last year it was Adderall. This year it’s Ozempic. Next year? Probably psychedelics from Ecuador—which, again, can we please stop bringing that up? I told you it was just a season of my life.

We’re starting a new column here at Running On Butter. One that looks back at significant moments in health history: atrocities, miracle medical breakthroughs, and lost traditions that can help us think more critically about health and how it ought to shape our lives.

I’m your all-knowledgeable professor. Questions are encouraged. Questioning me? Strongly discouraged. Attendance is mandatory.

Now everyone sit down and listen.

Humans have been searching for the fountain of youth for millennia. It’s instinctive for us to chase rare potions and cutting-edge technologies that promise extended youth and restored beauty.

Sometimes this impulse has led to remarkable scientific discoveries. But it has also produced some of medicine’s most catastrophic mistakes—like at the beginning of the twentieth century, when people believed Marie Curie’s discovery of radium, a mysterious new substance that seemed to radiate endless energy, might reverse aging and restore vitality.

Marketers began putting radium in drinking water, cosmetics, even blankets—promising it as a cure-all for fatigue, aging, and illness. Today that sounds absurd. Of course drinking radioactive material causes harm. We look back and think: how could anyone have believed this?

And yet the mindset that produced the radium craze hasn’t disappeared. It has simply changed its vocabulary.

I think about the current peptide craze, and the way biohackers rattle off military-sounding code names—BPC-157, CJC-1295—as if they’re reciting coordinates to the future of human perfection. To be clear, peptides used as targeted medicine to restore something broken can be genuinely helpful. I know people who have recovered more quickly from injuries because of them.

But the broader promise behind much of the biohacking movement—the idea that we can engineer our bodies to live to 120 through stacks of synthetic compounds—is based on a troubling assumption: that the human body is a machine we can endlessly optimize without consequence.

Miracle drugs that promise extended life often underestimate the complexity of the body itself. Every day, millions of biochemical reactions interact in ways we still only partially understand. Introducing powerful synthetic compounds into that system for decades at a time is not the same thing as using medicine temporarily to treat disease.

Right now there is enormous hype coming out of places like Silicon Valley and Austin around secret protocols and longevity compounds that supposedly unlock radically extended life. Most of these claims are dramatically overstated. And there is an important difference between taking a short-term pharmaceutical intervention to treat illness—like antibiotics—and integrating synthetic compounds into your body as a permanent lifestyle strategy.

There’s also a growing concern that many peptides sold online do not contain what they claim. The FDA has warned that roughly one-quarter of tested peptide products include undisclosed ingredients.

The lesson of the radium era isn’t that innovation is dangerous. It’s that innovation without humility—and without respect for the complexity of the human body—can lead to costly mistakes.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the reality is that the best way to live a long, healthy, and meaningful life isn’t to chase every new cutting-edge technology. More often than not, it’s simply to keep running on butter.

Life’s been busy lately, which is why I’ve been a little MIA here. I’m sorry for the negligence. I’ll try to be a better leader. I know I haven’t always been there for you, Buttercups. But I’m trying now. I’m back on the straight and narrow.

In fact, I even found a support group for dads who just got out of prison and are trying to reconnect with their kids. I am not a dad, I do not have children, and haven’t been incarcerated. Not yet, at least.

But honestly, it’s the closest thing I could find to help me figure out how to reconnect with you all.

Anyway, I’m glad to be back. And your mother and I are going to see if we can patch things up.

I went to checkout the NYTs yesterday and was pleasantly surprised to see a MAHA piece as the cover story.

My favorite quote was from Alex Clark, a health podcaster who said that “Republicans would be stupid, moronic to let these voters just slip through our fingers.”

It’s fascinating, because this is the exact diction my girlfriend deploys when I add ingredients to a recipe that aren’t called for. She’s a stay-within-the-lines kind of girl when it comes to cooking. Me? I’m more free-spirited. I like to experiment. This is also known as “stupid, moronic.”

Anyway, it’s a great piece you can read here.

I went to dinner this week with a friend who was recently diagnosed with colon cancer.

I’ve read many reports about the disease’s rapid rise—about 1 in 25 men and 1 in 26 women will develop it, with incidence increasing roughly 3% each year—but this week I was struck by the humanity of it, sitting across from a middle-aged, otherwise healthy man facing a stage-four prognosis.

Fortunately, he has an excellent team of physicians and family around him, and he’s doing remarkably well. He’s hopeful.

Still, his diagnosis sent me back into the research. Why is colon cancer skyrocketing?

There are hundreds of papers investigating the question. Each offers a piece of the puzzle—but the overall picture is not nearly as mysterious or complicated as it’s often made to seem.

Essentially, we’re destroying our guts.

Like many cancers, colon cancer does not have a single cause. There is no sole perpetrator.

Researchers point to several contributors: the liberal use of antibiotics, ultra-processed foods, inactivity, pesticides, certain pharmaceuticals, and even specific viruses.

Together, these forces have bulldozed our microbiomes like a post-apocalyptic cityscape. They leave behind ecosystems that are depleted—dysregulated by a scarcity of beneficial bacteria and increasingly dominated by pathogenic species.

But fundamentally, a gut environment that fosters disease is not created overnight. It is shaped by decades of continual and invasive mistreatment. And among all these factors, the most influential is what we eat.

Are we eating foods that nourish the gut—foods that feed beneficial bacteria, introduce microbial diversity, supply essential nutrients, support digestion, and equip the immune system to disarm pathogens? Or are we feeding ourselves foods that do the opposite—foods that contain little life at all?

You may feel fine eating a muffin and a Starbucks coffee for breakfast. A Chipotle burrito or Chick-fil-A lunch may be convenient—and again, you feel fine, at least for now. A frozen pizza or DoorDashed dinner is easy and satisfying.

Life is good, you feel fine!

But these lifeless foods, compounded over years, refashion your gut so that what seems like diminutive changes are in fact tectonic.

Add to this repeated courses of antibiotics, chronic medication use, and pesticide exposure, and suddenly the terrain of the colon begins to resemble something closer to Chernobyl than a healthy ecosystem. Colon cancer does not arise from nuclear radiation, of course. But it manifests and thrives in environments that have been similarly stripped of their natural defenses.

When I think about the sudden rise of young people like me developing colon cancer, I consider what the average upbringing of my generation actually looked like—and I find myself thinking: well, of course. Did we really expect there would be no consequences from:

• formula replacing early microbial exposure from breastfeeding?

• Fishy crackers for toddlers?

• Lunchables for elementary schoolers?

• Taco Bell and energy drinks for high schoolers?

• chronic exposure to glyphosate?

• multiple courses of antibiotics every year in childhood?

We’re feeding ourselves dead foods.

There’s obviously the junk foods, but I’m also thinking of foods that may not contain many calories and that advertise themselves as good sources of fiber, calcium, whole grains, and so on. They may even be good sources of those things.

But whenever we’re grocery shopping, eating out, or preparing a meal, it’s Running On Butter’s standard that we ask a simple question:

Is this food full of life—or is it a dead food?

That may sound arbitrary or subjective. But I can promise you that once you start thinking through this lens, your God-instilled intuition begins to kick in.

And if you’re still unsure what I mean, cook for real flavor rather than what you’ve been told is healthy.

Think: fresh basil and cilantro tossed into a salad with olive oil and apple cider vinegar. Fresh raspberries in a bowl of yogurt with raw honey. Cinnamon sprinkled over sliced apples. A turmeric-ginger chicken curry simmering on the stove. Pulled pork taco bowls with fresh pico de gallo, homemade guacamole, and pickled onions.

An easy way to dramatically increase the life in your meals is simply adding a few spoonfuls of sauerkraut to your plate, as I do most days.

Again, you may be thinking: seriously? My best defense against cancer is a Granny Smith apple and some cilantro?

To that I would say: yes. Eating this way is exactly how you avoid giving cancer daylight.

One meal becomes a day of eating. A day becomes a month. Months become years. And years become decades.

Small, seemingly insignificant decisions—repeated over time—culminates in at the emperor of all maladies: cancer.

• Freya India’s article on how social media is feminizing us all is excellent. “Indirect aggression, for example, is how girls typically fight; they are more likely to use tactics like passive-aggression, social exclusion and reputation destruction, rather than getting physical. But now boys are growing up doing the same.”

• Rory McIlroy’s 2026 Masters Dinner menu included bacon-wrapped dates with goat cheese, grilled elk sliders with caramelized onion jam and garlic aioli, peach-and-ricotta flatbread, and yellowfin tuna carpaccio with foie gras, toasted baguette, and chives. These are not dead foods.

• Fertility rates have dropped again. I don’t think the Buttercups are to blame, given that my core readership consists mostly of moms with at least four children.

• Remember when the grandson of Reese’s Candy blew the whistle on Hershey’s for not using real chocolate and peanut butter in their peanut butter cups? Well, the company heard his—and the public’s—complaints and announced it would be returning to real chocolate and peanut butter. (This is not Running On Butter endorsing candy bars. I just find the succession drama interesting.)

• The EPA and HHS are taking on microplastics.

• Pfizer had to cancel its trials for a new Covid vaccine because they couldn’t find enough willing participants. They should’ve asked me. I’d be curious to find out whether I got the placebo or not. I suppose if I developed myocarditis, that would settle it.

• HHS is threatening to pull funding from hospitals if they don’t align their food with the updated dietary guidelines. Turns out Jell-O and pancakes with Aunt Jemima syrup are not exactly the recipe for healing.

• Kylie Jenner has pivoted her vodka soda company into a hydration brand. The multi–plastic surgery patient is now reminding us that “beauty starts from within.”

• Texas AG Ken Paxton is suing SHEIN, the Chinese clothing company that sells $4 sweaters, over alleged lead contamination. Our clothing safety laws haven’t been meaningfully updated since the 1940s—even though dozens of new synthetic chemicals are now routinely used in modern fabrics. It turns out many of these substances can be absorbed through the skin and pose health risks. RIP to my Lululemon collection.

• Do yourself a favor and watch what is my new favorite surf doc:

Last night on my way home from work I was tired. I was at the office late, and it was one of those days when the grind was grinding. I was so tired that rather than making dinner I picked up Sweetgreen on the way home.

“You never eat out,” my girlfriend said over the phone as I was heading home. “Are you feeling okay?”

Truth is I was just tired and sort of wanted to veg out. My brain seemed to be fully saturated and completely tapped for the day. I wanted to turn on a movie and zone out, or scroll YouTube to watch House Hunters, a heresy hunter, or bear hunting.

But then at 7:09pm CrossFit Kevin texted me about the workout in the morning, and said he wanted to meet up before the 6am class to do some additional conditioning. This may sound silly to you, but this actually pumped me up (the gym is my happy place) and sparked new life in me for the evening.

I decided there and then to turn my night around. To reclaim it.

So rather than reading the twelfth update of the day on the Iranian war (as if monitoring the situation is something I need to do for our nation’s national security), or watching YouTube videos about how JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette were much more problematic than what’s recently been portrayed, I picked up my fiddle and played some tunes.

Playing the old tunes that my sister Liddy wrote was literally, as my favorite composer J. S. Bach says, a complete “refreshment to the soul.” It was like my brain cells were parched and dehydrated, and the act of playing music—creating—was the water that brought everything back to life.

As my brain turned on again, the creativity started pouring out, and I ended up writing a new song on the fiddle. It made my soul so happy.

In contrast, the mindless scrolling of the news or online creators hashing conspiracy theories would’ve bogged my mind down like a dense Northwestern fog.

I empathize with the way many people feel at the end of a long work day, when the only thing they want to do is zone out and not think. But the things that we think will be restful and rewarding—social media scrolling, binging sports, the news, or reality TV—often do the very opposite of what’s actually satiating.

They deplete our minds and discontent our souls. They hijack our dopamine so that, not unlike addicts, we keep needing more and more for another hit.

My mom always told me and my siblings that we are a family of creators, and not consumers. I’m embarrassed to say that many times I choose to consume over create. But last night, I created something. A new song.

Creating not only keeps our minds agile and strong for a long, vibrant life, but it also reinforces our identity as image bearers, knowing that unlike everything else in the world, we—created in God’s image—have the ability to create things out of nothing. This shouldn’t inflate us but rather humble us, knowing that we ourselves are fearfully and wonderfully created.

Anyway, I wanted to write down this thought and share it with you. Know that Mr. Running On Butter himself still at times struggles to combat idleness and the lie that vegging out is rest. It’s not.

Here’s the new song:

You are seen. You are heard. You are among friends.

This letter is dedicated to my coworkers Brynn, who started her Friday with chocolate milk and fruit snacks, and Jett, who showed up with a Celsius energy drink in hand. You guys are the reason why ROB exists.

A new review found that healthier diets are linked to lower depression rates in teenagers. We shouldn’t need to fund research to tell us that Taco Bell and Celsius energy drinks (cc: Jett) aren’t exactly supporting adolescent development. But this research can help clinicians whose knowledge and practices are limited to what’s peer-reviewed. Research like this will (hopefully) help pediatricians start prescribing steaks and salads rather than SSRIs, which more than 2 million teens are currently taking.

Erythritol, a sugar substitute popular among Keto kings and low-carb queens, has been linked to changes in brain cells associated with increased stroke risk.

The sweetener is common in protein bars, low-sugar sodas and ice creams, and is often mixed with monk fruit or stevia as a zero-calorie sweetener for baking or coffee.

After studies found a strong link between erythritol and strokes and heart attacks, researchers at the University of Colorado tested whether the connection might actually be causal. Their findings suggest it may be.

When they exposed brain blood-vessel cells to erythritol at levels similar to a typical sugar-free drink, the cells became less able to relax vessels, less able to break down clots, and showed more signs of stress and damage—changes associated with increased stroke risk.

“Given the epidemiological study that inspired our work, and now our cellular findings, we believe it would be prudent for people to monitor their consumption of non-nutrient-sweeteners such as this one," the lead research said.

Protein bar sentenced to the gulags: David Protein, a popular protein bar I’ve covered closely, is now facing a class-action lawsuit from plaintiffs alleging the bar contains roughly 70% more calories than advertised based on third-party testing. The company says the claim misunderstands a key ingredient: EPG (esterified propoxylated glycerol), a lab-created fat substitute that technically contains calories, but isn’t absorbed by the body.

What I find fascinating is the defense itself. In effect, the company is saying: you’re misunderstanding the label because you’re assuming this is normal food. It isn’t. The ingredients are engineered so differently from traditional foods that it’s not really food at all, but a substance designed to resemble it.

This is treasonous against our bodies and food itself. ROB’s House of Justice™ therefore sentences David protein to 10 years of hard labor in Siberia.

The founding chef of Noma, the Copenhagen restaurant that’s spent years at the top of the world’s best-restaurants list, has been accused of physically abusing his kitchen staff. One allegation involves him punching a sous chef for turning on techno music. Which, honestly, is fair.

Another chef said working there felt like “going to war,” and that “you had to force yourself to be strong, to show no fear.”

To which I say: how do you think three Michelin stars are earned? By patting backs and handing out gold-star stickers?

The current seasonal menu features reindeer brain custard. Innovating a dish like that isn’t for the weak. Sometimes punches are part of the price of inimitable cuisine.

• A Canadian woman went to the hospital for back pain and was offered assisted suicide. She refused, recovered from her injury, and at 80 is now traveling the world. 5% of deaths in Canada are from medical assisted suicide.

• The International Olympic Committee says it will introduce genetic sex testing for the 2028 Games. France called it “a step backwards,” and I agree. Devastating news for my gold medal pursuit.

• Ozempic causes appetite loss. But many users also report losing their desire for other different aspects in life, too. “You can imagine a dystopian future—not unlike the sci-fi movie Serenity—where an entire planet’s population was decimated because their DNA was changed to make them not desire,” said Stanford researcher Dr. Anna Lembke. Not alarming at all.

• Check out this great video essay on the political apparatus safeguarding glyphosate.

• “My grandfather, H. B. Reese (who invented REESE’S), built REESE’S on a simple, enduring architecture: milk chocolate + peanut butter. Not a flavor idea. Not a marketing construct. A real product identity consumers trusted for a century,” wrote Brad Reese, grandson of the peanut butter cup mogul. Today, he says, that identity is being rewritten. Not by storytellers, but by formulation decisions that swap milk chocolate for compound coatings and peanut butter for “peanut-butter-style crèmes” across multiple REESE’S products. Brad, we here at ROB see you and respect you. Consider yourself a bonafide (peanut) Buttercup.

Both make arguments predicated on the idea that some Christians—the “crunchy” ones—take their health too seriously. And as such, it’s causing them to be fearful, prideful, judgmental, and even to delve into gnosticism.

Today here at Running On Butter, we will examine—and dismantle—the “concerns” these men have about the rise of we who eat butter and minimize microplastics.

I place “concerns” in quotation marks because their arguments are predicated on scenarios that are either nonexistent or vanishingly rare. In ROB’s house, bringing attention to a non-issue isn’t discernment or vigilance; it’s noise. Clanging cymbals. And frankly, it’s peeving this Buttercup to high heaven.

Stewardship: taking care of God’s creation or vanity?

Christians are called to steward God’s creation. We often think of safeguarding the beauty and integrity of the natural world as part of this duty. And rightly so. But it is our own physical bodies, the pinnacle of creation and now temples of the Holy Spirit, that ought to be governed with the greatest sobriety and gratitude.

In the aftermentioned podcast, Greg Gifford, a biblical counselor and professor at the Masters University, suggests that using the principle of stewardship to care about our health is “nebulous” and that “scripture doesn’t give us a detailed blueprint for how to manage every aspect of our physical health.”

This line of thinking—“it’s not mentioned in the Bible, so out of sight, out of mind”—from a biblical counselor, no less.

Scripture does not provide a detailed blueprint for most areas of life, yet we are still held accountable for how we steward them. Our finances. Our knowledge. Our children. Our government.

To silo bodily stewardship for its supposed lack of specificity reveals a hodgepodge, piecemeal theology. One that clings to explicit directives while overlooking the broader call to honor God in all things, even in what we eat and drink, as the Apostle Paul exhorts.

In a way, this is its own form of legalism—not building one’s life and convictions on the full counsel of Scripture and its repeated principles, but on what Scripture does not explicitly say.

Even if we grant Gifford’s premise—that Scripture says little about nutrition and health—we are still called to steward our bodies through natural law and wisdom, applying common sense in light of the knowledge we have.

After all, the New Testament offers virtually no detailed directives for how to establish a government. Yet we would not conclude, as Gifford suggests, that there is little to glean or build upon in constructing a government that provides its citizenry protection and freedom.

Parents, too, might wish for a meticulous account of what their child’s upbringing should entail. How to discipline (what do you do with a defiant three-year-old or a rebellious teenager?), how to educate (where should they go to school, and what should they learn?), how to nurture (how do you show love while encouraging independence—and when is the right time for it?), and how to pass along faith and tradition. But they are not given one.

And more than that—Scripture does, in fact, provide a remarkably rich account of guidance related to health and nourishment.

It warns, “it is not good to eat much honey” (Proverbs 25:27)—a principle that, in our context, readily extends to the overconsumption of all sweets. It commends nourishing foods: sprouted bread (Ezekiel 4:9), vegetables (Daniel 1:12–16), olive oil (Psalm 104:14–15), milk (Deuteronomy 32:14), meat (Genesis 9:3; 1 Kings 4:22-23), and fruits like figs, grapes, and pomegranates (Deuteronomy 8:8), each received with gratitude and without excess (Proverbs 23:20–21). It calls us to discipline our bodies (1 Corinthians 9:27), to walk in self-control (Galatians 5:22–23), and to glorify God in all things—even in eating and drinking (1 Corinthians 10:31).

And there are many more examples that could be added. For further study, Jordan Rubin’s andDr. Josh Axe’s The Biblio Diet offers an extended look at Scripture’s health-related principles.

Legalism: confusing seed oils with sin

The examples Gifford offers to support his reasoning for speaking on the topic are that some of his online followers feel so overwhelmed by food and health discourse that they begin asking questions like: Is eating seed oils sinful? Is it morally wrong not to avoid microplastics?

I know a lot of healthy, godly people. My nine siblings, my parents, my church, hundreds of friends. Even my girlfriend happens to be pretty into this health thing.

And not once in real life or online have I encountered anyone who questions whether raw milk is morally superior to pasteurized milk. I don’t know anyone—or have seen a sliver of content—advancing the idea that Wonder bread is unholier, spiritually speaking, than homemade sourdough. I have never once thought: we gotta deploy Romans 14 to combat this heresy.

And yet these nonexistent examples are treated as the foundation of Gifford’s and Wilson’s critique of “crunchiness” in the church. When the supposed threat does not exist, the critique becomes unwarranted and unhelpful.

But even so, let’s again assume that Gifford’s examples are true—that some people actually wonder whether they need Christ’s intercession for choosing conventional carrots over organic ones.

Let’s grant the scenario: suppose this person—let’s call her Jessica—is one of Gifford’s own counseling clients. As she begins to unpack her moral anxieties, a wise counselor might ask:

“Jessica, what are you reading or watching that’s giving you the impression that scented laundry detergent is sinful?”

She might mention a few mom influencers or a doctor she follows on YouTube, expressing that she feels “mom guilt” and like she’s failing as a Christian.

The counselor nods. “And when they talk about microplastics entering the bloodstream… are they quoting Scripture, or just explaining how the body works?”

“Just explaining it,” Jessica admits.

“Right. So they’re not saying it’s sin?”

“No.”

“They’re not suggesting you need to repent for buying conventional carrots?”

“No…”

The counselor pauses.

“Jessica… did any of these people at any point claim to be your pastor?”

“…No.”

“Did they assign you a penance at the farmer’s market?”

“…No,” Jessica says with a cracking smile.

“Okay,” the counselor says. “Then I think we’ve found the problem.”

Jessica: “Hi, I’m the problem. It’s me.”

“That, you are.”

Jessica represents a contingent of people (oftentimes mothers) who interpret information—scientific findings, observable realities—as morally loaded guns. As though health scientists at Stanford spend their mornings plotting how to unsettle suburban Christian moms with their research papers on microplastics.

If you feel that your mind or spirit cannot handle certain reports of reality—that you cannot take in information that may be, at times, concerning or even convicting—you have every right to step away from it. You don’t have to follow accounts that talk about healthy deodorant. You have agency. You can unfollow.

Better yet, you can remove yourself from the online discourse altogether. As a good health influencer might say: go outside and touch some grass.

But if you find yourself writing to a biblical counselor about it—on Instagram, no less—the issue may not be the information. Like Jessica, the problem may lie closer to home.

Gluttony: the bygone sin

In all his discussion of how Christians ought to think about health, Gifford neglects Scripture’s clear warnings against gluttony and laziness. Solomon is unambiguous: “the drunkard and the glutton will come to poverty” (Proverbs 23:21), and “a man without self-control is like a city broken into and left without walls” (Proverbs 25:28). Paul likewise commands believers to “glorify God in your body” (1 Corinthians 6:20).

I find myself going back and forth on where to place the blame for America’s food and obesity crisis—whether on systemic failures or on individual responsibility.

Most days, my heart breaks for Americans—often low-income families—who are given few real options and little informed understanding of how damaging much of our food supply can be. I have many friends who have been shaped by this system, and I feel for them deeply.

And yet, at times, I find myself wondering whether part of the issue may also involve something Scripture speaks to plainly, but the church rarely addresses: the sin of gluttony.

Perhaps this is a difficult topic because, statistically speaking, many Americans are overweight, and a significant portion are obese. It’s understandable that churches would want to tread carefully, not to offend or to “major on the minors.” I share that instinct. Sunday service should be about God’s holiness. I’m not advocating for the church to become a kind of hybrid between a recovery program and a fitness class.

But I do wonder if there is a faithful and compassionate way to speak about what Scripture actually says—about self-control, about discipline, about stewardship of the body. At the very least, it seems worth having thoughtful conversations about health as a matter of stewardship?

I don’t pretend to have a perfect answer for how churches should engage this issue. But I do believe that avoiding it altogether has contributed to a kind of ignorance around a discipline that is both spiritual and physical.

They don’t know what we’re dealing with

In both Wilson’s book and Gifford’s podcast, there are clear indications that they lack a serious understanding of how health actually works. Wilson, for example, mocks those who avoid gluten, suggesting that unless someone has a “sincere” allergy—something like an immediate, severe reaction—they should simply eat what’s put in front of them.

But this reasoning reflects a shallow view of health. It assumes that only acute, dramatic reactions matter, while ignoring the far more common reality: the body is shaped by cumulative, everyday inputs.

Many people avoid certain foods not because of life-threatening allergies, but because of how those foods affect us 10 years down the road. What seems insignificant in a single meal, over time, meaningfully reshapes the body’s biochemistry to where disease proliferates.

The chronic diseases that now dominate American life do not arise from “sincere” allergies. They develop slowly—over years and decades—fueled by repeated bad habits and seemingly “insincere” allergies or sensitives.

For Wilson, who emphasizes long-term, generational thinking, this issue should be especially significant. It is difficult to build a lasting Christendom if we are a people increasingly weakened by insulin resistance.

Gifford cites the FDA and expert consensus. Need I say more?

Their ignorance of modern health and disease hinders their ability to consider this issue with both biblical wisdom and modern context. Which makes their confidence in addressing it all the more puzzling, and frankly, irritating.

“We’re all gonna die anyway”

Many Christians poke fun at health-conscious brothers and sisters, saying things like, “We’re all going to die anyway,” or “Our days are numbered.”

Of course, both statements are true. Our bodies will eventually fail, and God knows the number of our days. But that reality shouldn’t discourage us from pursuing wisdom and living healthfully.

If anything, it should motivate us. Because my days are numbered, I want to steward them well. To live with energy and strength.

Yes, to enjoy life and the people I love, but more importantly, to have greater capacity to serve others and faithfully carry out the work God has given me.

(I also recognize that God often uses suffering and illness for our sanctification and for the advancement of the Gospel. That is not what I’m addressing here. I’m talking to the 25-year-old guys who habitually eat fast food and drink energy drinks.)

I believe in God’s sovereignty. And I also believe that we are given real responsibility in how we live day to day.

After all, if the apostles had adopted a fatalistic mindset—“we’re all going to die anyway”—their mission would have been truncated. Instead, they endured, acted, and pressed forward with purpose. Even Jesus, at times, withdrew from danger until the appointed hour had come—showing us that personal action operates within God’s sovereign plan.

Trust in God’s authority has never been an excuse for passivity—and certainly not laziness. It has always been a call to faithful stewardship.

I’m writing this en route back to Scottsdale from New York, where I spent the week gallivanting in a snow-covered Central Park and eating bolognese at Saint Ambroeus.

Despite the narrative that the city is collapsing under its new mayor’s socialist policies, it felt lively. Safe, even.

Which raises an uncomfortable question: is ROB falling for the warmth of collectivism? Have I looked up to see whether Phoenix has a Democratic Socialists of America chapter? (It does. Meets on Tuesday evenings.)

But then again, I also learned—the hard way—that New Yorker commies aren’t ones for legit snowball fights. Nobody told me that face and crotch shots were off limits!

There’s a lot to cover today, so buckle up, Buttercups. We’re going deep on:

• Peter Attia’s faulty medical advice and Epstein ties

• My girlfriend’s obsession with glyphosate

• Dr. Casey Means as surgeon general

• Microplastics in testicles

• Update on Gen-Z’s IQ scores, and more.

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This morning at men’s Bible study, my friend Marcus was taking notes quite assiduously. The main message was about pride—a sin largely unfamiliar to the tenure of ROB, given its generally selfless thinking and tireless work on behalf of the Buttercups. All, of course, out of the kindness of my heart.

Anyway, enough about me and my humility. Back to Marcus and his notes.

He was taking them on his laptop. And while it heartened me to see my friend locked in, I was disheartened to notice that his laptop was sitting on his, well… lap.

I don’t love the reality of a device that emits electromagnetic fields (EMFs) being just centimeters from one’s reproductive organs. Animal studies indicate EMF exposure negatively affects semen quality and quantity.

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Today we’ll be discussing all the need-to-know happenings of the Olympics, given the Games’ long-standing, sentimental place in Running On Butter’s heart.

After the 2008 Beijing Games, my little brother Rudy and I set up a “vault” (a plastic picnic table) to work on double pike flips—aka cartwheels—for the next Olympic cycle, which, unfortunately, we failed to make.

But ever since the 2008 games, the Olympics have captured my heart. It’s the one time every four years when I briefly believe in the promise of globalism. Watching athletes march in the opening ceremonies—unified, yet diverse—gets me every time.

Anyway. Enough globalist propaganda.

High infidelity in Norway: Each Olympics brings with it a collection of unexpected side narratives—stories that, at times, become just as captivating as the competition itself. This year’s golden nugget out of Milan? A scandalous confession paired with a public plea for forgiveness.

Norwegian biathlete Sturla Holm Lægreid used his bronze-medal moment not just to celebrate athletic achievement, but to seek reconciliation with his girlfriend—admitting he had cheated six months earlier and asking for forgiveness on the world stage.

Predictably, people were quick to judge. Critics said Sturla stole the spotlight from the gold medalist. That it wasn’t the time. That it wasn’t the place.

But here at Running On Butter, we couldn’t disagree more.

It’s Olympic moments like these that crystallize what someone truly believes and what they truly need. And in that rare, emotional window, Sturla chose humility.

Sadly, as of now, his girlfriend isn’t taking him back, according to an anonymous interview with Norwegian media. To this woman, we say: give Sturla a second chance.

Are you really going to judge him for one moment of weakness after a lifetime of obvious discipline and hard work? This is a man who competes in one of the most demanding sports on earth. He skis for miles. He shoots with precision. He performs under impossible pressure. He knows how to handle a rifle. He can protect you. And he seems like he’s learned his lesson.

Running On Butter is rooting for you, Sturla. And we’ll be tracking the latest from Norwegian sports and gossip media to see whether this couple is soon sighted—reunited—in Oslo.

More Norwegian Drama: after building a considerable lead heading into the final slalom run, Atle Lie McGrath missed a gate halfway down the course, instantly ending his Olympic gold dreams.

Instead of finishing the run, he took off his skis and marched toward the nearby woods, where he collapsed into the snow, visibly shaken by the magnitude of his mistake.

It was a raw moment. It reminded me of playing basketball with my brothers. When my older brother Elisha gets flustered after a tough loss and needs a minute alone to regroup before rejoining civilization. High-level competition does that to you.

So, once again, to our Norwegian athletes like McGrath: we see you. We understand you. We’re with you.

But for real—Norway is dominating these Olympics: Right now, they’re beating the United States in total medal count. The Vikings are conquering Milan like they once conquered British monasteries in the 900s.

I stumbled on an article about Norwegian youth sports that caught my attention. Norway doesn’t push kids to be ultra-competitive. They don’t even keep score in many youth games until age 13. The emphasis is on cultivating a “love of sport” and preventing kids from becoming too emotionally invested too early.

In other words: let kids be kids. Sounds nice. Very Scandinavian. Very hygge.

But respectfully, this is not the ROB way. I think kids need to lose. And they should go to bed crying about how they never broke 4:20 in the mile—even though I they trained so hard. But if it weren’t for some kid who tripped me them in the Washington state finals, I they would’ve won.

Anyway.

I’m much closer to a Chinese tiger dad than “everyone’s a winner” type guy. And if Norway’s system is supposed to produce emotionally unshakeable adults, well… I mean, I don’t think Atle Lie McGrath and Sturla Holm Lægreid are the best examples here.

ROB stands with Lindsey: Those who think Lindsey Vonn was foolish or selfish for skiing in Milan with a torn ACL are people who simply don’t understand what it means to be an Olympian.

Do I understand it personally? Spiritually, yes. Physically, no. But given my lifelong love for the Olympics, I completely get why athletes choose to compete, even when they’re injured. Making the Olympics is like winning the lottery. Skipping them is like refusing to pick up the $100 million winning check.

And yet critics online were like: “I can’t believe she would do that!” As if Olympic downhill finals are some casual, optional commitment. Like pickleball night. No. This is the pinnacle of a career. Here at Running On Butter, we stand behind Lindsey’s decision.

(Also: The New York Times ran a great piece explaining how skiing with a torn ACL is actually more doable than most people realize. Worth the read.)

Who Running On Butter does not stand with is Eileen Gu—the American-born, American-raised, American-educated skier who now competes for her mother’s homeland: China.

Right before the last Olympics—where she went on to win three medals—Gu switched from representing the United States to representing China on the world stage. Her stated reason? She wanted to inspire more Chinese girls to ski.

Never mind the reported $6 million in income she’s earned through Chinese state-linked sponsorships and endorsements, including promotional work tied to the Chinese Communist Party, as recently reported by The Wall Street Journal. She wants to inspire Chinese girls!

And, shockingly (not), much of the American media has barely pressed her on what it means to represent an openly repressive regime. Instead, she’s received a steady stream of glowing profiles.

The only semi-serious pushback came from Time, which asked her about competing for China. Her response? She said she hadn’t “done the research” and added, “I don’t think it’s my business. I’m not going to make big claims on my social media.”

Gu studied international relations at Stanford. She must’ve missed the lecture on the ongoing Uyghur genocide.

• American figure skater Ilia Malinin completely bombed his free skate. He was hands down the heavy favorite and ended up placing 8th. He took his loss extremely graciously, which was cool.

• The USA women hockey team will compete and—if there’s any justice in the world—beat Canada in the gold medal match.

• After watching hours of curling, I still don’t know how the scoring works. But it’s still enjoyable to watch. Love seeing the Minnesota dads and moms out here competing.

• Mikaela Shiffrin won gold in the slalom. In a press conference before the competition started, she said: “I’m really hoping to show up and represent my own values—values of inclusivity, values of diversity and kindness and sharing.” ROB will happily accept 15% of your brand sponsorships, since you said you’re sharing.

• Even though Russia is technically banned from the Olympics because of the war in Ukraine, there are a few Russian athletes competing as “neutral” athletes. Among them is figure skater Adeliia Petrosian, who was not really known before these Olympics. She’s in fifth after the short program and can allegedly land quad jumps in the free skate, which is tonight. Will be watching intently, but rooting for USA’s Alysa Liu nonetheless.

• Really enjoying these food reviews from the athletes at the food court in the Olympic Village. The pesto ravioli got a 6.7/10 from U.S. curler Ben Richardson.

I hope you’re doing better than what seems like half of Team USA over in Italy right now. Some of them are feeling “uncertain” about representing the United States—because this country, which hands you a practical gold medal just by being born here, doesn’t reflect their values at the moment.

“It brings up mixed emotions to represent the U.S. right now,” Team USA skier Hunter Hess said at a press conference in Milan. “It’s a little hard. There’s obviously a lot going on that I’m not the biggest fan of. If it aligns with my moral values, I feel like I’m representing it. Just because I’m wearing the flag doesn’t mean I represent everything that’s going on in the U.S. I just want to do it for my friends, my family, and the people who supported me getting here.”

I, for one, am grateful Hunter clarified this common misconception that the U.S. Alpine Ski Team and the Department of Homeland Security are one and the same.

Last Olympics, I held a grudge against the figure skaters, assuming they were personally responsible for President Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan. Every time I saw an American land a triple axel, I thought, How could you?—because I couldn’t partition the athletes from the U.S State Department’s foreign policy.

So this year, I’m grateful they’ve reassured us they don’t represent presidential decisions. Otherwise, I would’ve assumed Hunter was personally drafting and enforcing every policy between training runs.

• Coffee lovers, rejoice! 2–3 cups a day may help keep dementia at bay, according to a new review in JAMA. Notably, the cognitive benefits didn’t show up among decaf drinkers. My guess? Common decaffeination methods use chemical solvents that neutralize some of coffee’s beneficial phytonutrients, thereby (maybe?) taking away its protective benefits. That said, caffeine itself is a pretty legit compound, functionally speaking, so my money’s on that being the main driver. Check out my full piece on coffee and caffeine here.

• “Within a month, she suffered several bouts of stomach upset that ‘went on for hours,’ she said. ‘I was crying on the bathroom floor.’” The side effects of GLP-1 drugs are becoming harder to ignore.

• The American Medical Association now says giving kids irreversible “gender-affirming care” is a bad idea. If only that position had been taken ten years ago, it might have spared a lot of harm. The AMA are cowards.

• A new report found that food served on U.S. military bases contains alarming levels of arsenic, lead, and glyphosate. Researchers also detected ractopamine and trenbolone acetate—growth-promoting drugs used in American beef and pork production that are banned in more than 160 countries. If Running On Butter has ever seen a national security threat, this is it.

• “I finally made it to shore. I hit the bottom of the beach and just collapsed.” A 13-year-old Australian boy swam nearly two miles to save his family after they were swept out to sea. Aussies are built different. We here at ROB salute you.

• Being a bad dad? Time to rethink it. New research suggests that a father’s level of involvement in his children’s upbringing can shape their inflammatory and cardiovascular health well into adulthood. “We expected that family dynamics—mothers and fathers alike—would influence child development,” said Dr. Aytuglu, the study’s lead author. “But in this case, it was only fathers.” When a father’s behavior in three-way family interactions is consistently negative, he explained, that negativity doesn’t stay contained. “It bleeds through the family system,” eventually showing up in measurable declines in a child’s long-term health.

• Reading Mark Hyman in The Free Press reminded me of one of the great nutritional absurdities of our time: under past USDA guidelines, tomato sauce qualified as a vegetable—meaning pizza did too. Big Food lobbyists successfully pushed lawmakers to define pizza as spinach’s cousin. Crafty!

Yesterday I competed in a Hyrox race with my buddy Kevin, who plays a crucial supporting role in the Running On Butter narrative.

Kevin is the ultimate frenemy. The guy who pushes me in every area of life, whether I like it or not. Yesterday was no exception. We went hard.

That said, I do need to issue a small correction.

Some online outlets (namely: my girlfriend’s Instagram) reported that Kevin and I won the entire competition. This, unfortunately, is fake news.

You see, my girlfriend is clueless when it comes to sports and athletic events. I could tell her I’m hoping to see a game-winning grand slam at the Super Bowl next week and she’d be like, “Cool! Me too!”

On the drive to the race yesterday, she asked, “Wait—so is this like a race where you run fast?”

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When I was 18 and preparing to compete at the state cross country meet, my teammates spent the night before the race doing what endurance athletes are told to do: eating absurd amounts of carbs. Pasta. Bread.

Me? I viewed carbs mostly as a vehicle for butter. I remember asking the server at a chain Italian restaurant for extra butter not once, but twice.

Anyway. Fast forward to today.

A new meta-analysis reviewing more than 160 studies suggests that carb-loading—the practice endurance athletes swear by, and that Michael Scott famously attempts ten minutes before the Dunder Mifflin Scranton Meredith Palmer Memorial Celebrity Rabies Awareness Pro-Am Fun Run Race for the Cure—is based on a flawed understanding of how the body actually fuels endurance performance. The researchers argue that sustained energy has less to do with maximizing glycogen stores and far more to do with maintaining stable blood sugar throughout competition.

The takeaway? Carb-loading—especially with ultra-refined carbohydrates—is neither necessary nor optimal for peak athletic performance.

Real food 365 days a year is what’ll make you a great athlete, not cramming in carbs the night before your half marathon.

Alex Honnold—famous for free-soloing El Capitan in Yosemite—is attempting to free-climb a Taipei skyscraper tonight. Honnold, a father of two, gave an interview to The New York Times this week.

NYT: "But it’s not just that you have more to live for. It’s that your loss would be felt in a deep way for more than just Sanni [his wife].

Honnold: “Kind of. I mean, baby Alice wouldn’t remember. Baby June probably wouldn’t remember. She’ll be four in another month. It’d be felt, and obviously it’d be super hard for Sanni, but they’d be well provided for. I don’t feel like I’d be leaving them in the lurch. They wouldn’t even necessarily be traumatized their whole lives.

In Alex Honnold, we have an early contender for Running On Butter’s Father of the Year.

After all, baby Alice wouldn’t remember her father plummeting to his death in Taipei. It’s not like Netflix is live-streaming it or anything (they are). And besides, the kids would be well provided for. The North Face contract would presumably cover June and Alice’s wedding costs, rendering the need for a father largely obsolete.

“They wouldn’t be traumatized their whole lives” is the new metric for paternal success that ROB completely endorses.

It’s a standard I’ll be sure to reference someday when my future wife expresses concern about me emotionally burdening our children with stories from the dark years—when butter was rejected by the masses.

Last week, I stumbled across a New York Times piece from 2016 on Venezuela’s fractured, state-run healthcare system. In short, the government seized control of hospitals, and many people, especially children, died as a result. Basic necessities like antibiotics and oxygen became scarce, if not impossible to obtain.

My favorite line came from then-president Nicolás Maduro: “I doubt that anywhere in the world, except in Cuba, there exists a better health system than this one.” Yes, of course. Havana—the global vanguard of medical innovation.

I find this piece worth revisiting because socialism is once again being rebranded as compassionate and humane. We are told “the warmth of collectivism,” as Mayor Mandomi puts it, is what will usher in fairness and a higher quality of life.

But the historical record tells a colder story: when the state centralizes control over essential systems, quality deteriorates, shortages follow, and the most vulnerable pay the price.

ROB is firmly opposed to socialism (unless, of course, government-run grocery stores begin supplying Amish butter at a fraction of the price. In that case, comrades, we have nothing to lose but our chains.).

• Ski mountaineering is making its Olympic debut in Milan next month. It’s like regular skiing except instead of riding the chairlift, you walk up the mountain. Call me crazy, but I would enjoy this.

• Lindsey Vonn is returning to the Olympics. Her first Games were in 2002. I was three years old. Now, the perimenopausal athlete is aiming to bring home another Olympic medal. Go, Lindsey!

• The NIH will prohibit the use of human embryos from elective abortions in research.

• Tennessee lawmakers chose not to move forward with a bill that would have provided legal protections to chemical manufacturers. Similar laws in two other states have limited lawsuits against companies like Bayer, which has already paid roughly $11 billion to settle claims from farmers were injured by glyphosate exposure. At its core, the bill would have made it harder for injured individuals to seek compensation. Its failure to advance is a MAHA win.

• Lord, we’re ready for your return. We’ve hit peak decay as a society:

  

• To end on a more encouraging note: this week I started reading Charlie Kirk’s last book he wrote, Stop, in the Name of God. So far, really good. Highly recommend. If you don’t have time to read it, you’re exactly who needs to read it.

Last week, when HHS and USDA released the updated U.S. Dietary Guidelines, I wondered if they would finally join me in correcting the decades-old lie that saturated fat and dietary cholesterol are driving our record obesity and metabolic diseases.

I hoped they would say, unequivocally, that butter is not to blame for heart disease. When I first saw the new food pyramid, I was excited. I loved what I saw.

But then I dove into the actual guidelines—the real policy that will dictate the diets of more than 45 million Americans—my excitement vanished.

The rules around fat are inconsistent and contradictory. They still perpetuate the false idea that butter should be eaten sparingly.

I’m not happy.

The Math Doesn’t Add Up

Throughout the new guidelines, there’s a clear emphasis on eating foods rich in saturated fat. Full-fat dairy is encouraged, and so too are egg yolks. And if you’ve been on the internet at all this week, it’s red meat stealing the show. The people are rejoicing over steaks—as they should.

While these foods are a clear focal point of the new regimen (sitting on top of the pyramid), the actual guidelines on fat are pointing us in the opposite direction, saying that we should limit saturated fat intake:

Let’s unpack these three sentences. They’re not just misleading, they’re actively harmful and, frankly, pretty clueless.

“Saturated fat should not exceed 10% of total daily calories.”

This perpetuates the decades-old lie that red meat and full-fat dairy—loaded with saturated fat—are problematic. If that were true (it isn’t), then why are these foods now the stars of the show? The guidelines basically say: “Welcome back, red meat, egg yolks, and butter!”—but immediately follow with: “Don’t overdo it. Only 10% of your diet should come from these foods.”

Here’s the problem: those two rules can’t coexist. You can’t enjoy generous portions of red meat and full-fat dairy while keeping your saturated fat under 10% of daily calories. This is a glaring contradiction that will have real-world consequences.

This 10% metric will dictate what’s served in schools, the military, and hospitals. It shapes how nutritionists design meals in nursing homes and will continue to guide doctors’ dietary understanding.

We can admire the new pyramid, with its charming illustrations of butter and steak—but in practice, nothing has changed on that saturated fat front. The government’s actual policies that dictate what up to 45 million Americans eat still restrict these saturated-fat foods, effectively ensuring that meals are made not with butter, but with industrial seed oils.

“Significantly limiting processed foods will help meet this goal.”

One of the taglines the government is pushing with this release is “Eat Real Food,” which, of course, we at ROB wholeheartedly endorse. The foods they list as “real” and minimally processed? Foods exceptionally high in saturated fat: red meat, full-fat dairy, and eggs. Yep, we’re on board.

Which is why this sentence is utterly baffling. The healthiest foods on the planet are the ones highest in saturated fat, while ultra-processed foods are loaded with unsaturated fats, primarily polyunsaturated seed oils.

In other words: processed foods = high in polyunsaturated fat; natural, unprocessed foods = high in saturated fat.

Take In-N-Out French fries, for example. They contain 15 grams of fat per serving, 13 of which are polyunsaturated seed oils. This is an extremely processed food, but low in saturated fat. The same can be said about most processed foods you can think of: frozen foods, fast foods, chips, crackers, store-bought bread and baked goods, condiments, etc.

So when the guidelines suggest limiting processed foods, it actually makes it harder to maintain that 10% saturated fat threshold.

This sentence isn’t just confusing, it’s embarrassing for whoever wrote (and approved) it.

“More high-quality research is needed to determine which types of dietary fats best support long-term health.”

This final sentence is the admission: there’s no coherent thinking behind the government’s stance on fat. They call butter and red meat “healthy fats,” yet here they hedge: “we don’t know which fats are healthy.”

If butter and red meat are healthy, why won’t they simply say that saturated fat isn’t a problem?

At best, they’re confused and uncertain after decades of nutritional propaganda. At worst, Big Food still wields significant influence over what makes it into—or stays out of—the guidelines. The $275 billion industrial seed oil market isn’t going down without a fight.

Many of my close friends are upset with me for being upset about this. They want me to celebrate the nice new pyramid.

But when did conservatives start celebrating policy for its intentions rather than its outcomes? That’s something Zorhan Mandomi supporters do, not us.

This pyramid fires up the MAHA base, but frankly, we didn’t need these new guidelines. We don’t need the government’s advice. We’re already eating regenerative organ meats and wearing organic cotton.

Who needs good guidelines? The people whose actual meals are dictated by them: low-income families, our armed forces, and nursing homes residents. Yet under these rules, the meals they rely on will still be low in saturated fat—and the health problems that come from replacing real fat with industrial seed oils, like obesity and metabolic disease, will remain.

Running On Butter will continue its crusade without the backing to the United State government.

There is so much to be grateful for from last year—far too much to list. But one thing I will name is you: the Buttercups. Thank you for reading my writing. Y’all are the coolest.

Which, now that I’m thinking more about it, I guess ROB is probably what’s making you cool, so I really only have myself to thank.

As we start this new year, I want to lay down seven ideas that have been percolating for the past several months that I’d love y’all to consider.

These are concepts that will set you up for a killer 2026, a year providing the most abundance and health yet.

Idea No 1: Don’t ask questions.

My mother often told my siblings and me that there is no such thing as a dumb question. 2025 proved her wrong.

It became the year of “just asking questions”—a phrase increasingly used not to signal curiosity or critical thought, but to disguise intellectual laziness as skepticism and absurdity as discernment.

This year, let’s sit down and shut up. Let’s listen and learn.

Let’s read books written decades or centuries ago. Because when we do—when we study life on the Western frontier or the customs of ancient Japan—we feed our minds with historical knowledge and wisdom, which, in my experience, only makes me realize how little I truly know and how uncertain I am of my own thinking.

The truth is, we are neither as smart nor as bright as we like to think. And asking dim, conspiracy-laden questions is ultimately a declaration of small-mindedness.

Another question we should euthanize this year? “Does this_______make me happy?”

It could be a job or city in or perhaps even a relationship you’re in.

This kind of inward-curling, self-serving fixation is wildly out of fashion, dear Buttercups. And worse, it makes you miserable. There’s compelling research showing that when “happiness” becomes our primary compass (and let’s be honest, it’s often just a euphemism for selfishness), we end up making short-sighted choices that lead, paradoxically, to unhappier lives.

So let’s say no to selfishness masquerading as happiness, and yes to meaning. Yes to deepening our ties with friends, family, and God. Yes to asking a better question: How can I make the people around me feel more valued, more seen, more loved?

Idea No. 2: Escape the algorithm.

Social media is where intelligence goes to die.

It’s not that it’s just a waste of time; it’s literally atrophying our brains, causing memory failure and worsening attention spans.

There’s something deeply inhuman about the social media phenomenon. I don’t think it’s optimal to, in the span of 0.7 seconds, scroll from what your old high school acquaintance is up to, to regime change in Syria, to a dance set to a Sabrina Carpenter song, to a carousel of “healthiest sources of protein.”

We’re addicted to the algorithm. First step to overcoming addiction? Admitting there’s a problem.

Idea No. 3: Invite boredom into your life.

Why does everyone suddenly have collective amnesia about what childhood was like before iPads?

Parents today say things like, “I don’t know how we’d survive a road trip without their tablets.”

Deep breaths, Jessica. You—and literally all of human civilization—managed to grow up without 24/7 access to Cocomelon. Sweet Sadie and Cooper will survive a car ride with a few books (which are luxuries in their own right). And when those are finished and the whining begins, invite them to—gasp—look out the window.

Boredom isn’t a pathogen. But treating it like one erodes a child’s ability to think, imagine, and create.

I’m hardly innocent here. I treat boredom like a medical emergency. About 90% of my waking hours are spent reading, watching, or listening to something—anything—to avoid being alone with my own thoughts. The result? A diminished capacity for original thinking.

Running On Butter is making 2026 the Year of Boredom—for the kids, and for us adults too.

Idea No. 4: Create enemies.

I naturally and genuinely like most people. I can usually make friends with anyone, because almost everyone becomes interesting once you take the time to know them.

But last fall, I met someone I genuinely despised. He was a former marketer for a Big Food company and managed to embody the most dangerous pairing of traits imaginable: arrogance and ignorance.

I was actually eager to learn from him. Given his years inside Big Food, I asked what he made of the rise of MAHA and Americans’ growing interest in healthier food, and whether the industry felt any pressure to course-correct.

He waved it off as “all hype” and dismissed RFK Jr. as a “quack.”

When I asked what, specifically, made RFK Jr. a quack, he replied: “He’s trying to connect the measles vaccine to… what is it? What’s that condition called?” Seven seconds of verbal fumbling followed. I watched, enjoying as he dug his own rhetorical grave, before he finally landed on: “…Alzheimer’s.”

I looked at him, smiled. Said nothing.

This man, however, muttonheaded as can be, is not my enemy. I hold no bitterness toward him.

But that conversation did remind me of something important: the real enemies still need to be named—and relentlessly so.

MAHA is winning, and I love to see it. But we mustn’t get complacent. Buttercups: Let’s keep calling out these three recidivists when we see them in the grocery store:

• Seed oils

• Refined sugar and refined flour

• Synthetic sweeteners

Idea No. 5: Stigmatize inactivity.

Running On Butter posits that movement is for all people, and that inactivity should be named and shamed. Movement is for:

• The 8-year-old boy who hates math.

• The teenage girl with boy problems.

• The law student who’s busy with law review.

• The electrician with knee pain.

• The software engineer who sits at a desk 8 hours a day.

• The nurse working the night shift.

• The dad stressed with bills to pay.

• The pregnant mom who’s stressed about her husband paying the bills.

• The grandmother with a quiver full of grandchildren questioning whether her daughter should’ve married for love or for money.

Running On Butter promotes all types of exercise.

Whether it’s overhead weights or overhead serves, playing tag or leg day, pickleball or gardening to can pickles, sidewalk hopscotch or surfing, competitive cheer or hunting deer, running for Team USA or running from your past, pumping dumbbells or getting your revenge body after breaking up with a dumb guy, climbing a mountain or climbing the border wall, resistance training or resisting arrest, pole vaulting or pole danc—

Okay, wait. Maybe ROB doesn’t promote all forms of exercise. I’ll bring this up in the next board meeting.

The point is: normalize being active.

Idea No. 6: Eradicate slop music.

The K-pop song “Golden” came on in the grocery store the other day, and I found myself questioning the trajectory of Western civilization yet again. It sounds like it was written by a culturally illiterate, spiritually depleted seven-year-old wearing a unicorn backpack and a bedazzled “Daddy’s Princess” T-shirt.

From the chorus:

We’re goin’ up, up, up, it’s our moment
You know together we’re glowin’
Gonna be, gonna be golden
Oh-oh-oh, up, up, up with our voices

T.S. Eliot, is that you?

Now, listen. I’m no prude when it comes to music. I love a well-written, well-produced pop song. But much of what’s currently charting—pop, country, and yes, even Christian—is melodically simplistic and lyrically hollow. Tell me, sincerely: what exactly does “gonna be, gonna be golden” mean to you?

I also realize that many of you have no idea where to turn for interesting new music. So, out of the goodness of my heart, I made a playlist for the Buttercups. A few of my all-time favorites mixed with newer finds.

ROB is also openly hostile to the very concept of “children’s music.” It’s sonic high fructose corn syrup. There is only good music and bad music, and most so-called “kids’ music” is, objectively, slop.

I can already hear the parents protesting: “But Sadie just loves the Moana soundtrack,” and “Cooper goes crazy for Baby Shark.”

Tell me, Jessica—who showed Sadie and Cooper that slop in the first place? Did they stumble upon it organically, like ethnomusicologists? Or did it come through your Spotify account?

Get another grip. You’re the one with the aux cord. You’re the parent.

You largely decide what your children are interested in because you are, quite literally, constructing their reality. Taste isn’t innate; it’s cultivated. And in this house, we listen to Bach and Oscar Peterson.

Idea No. 7: Eat butter.

Okay, maybe this isn’t exactly breaking news for ROB. But we should never grow weary of the fact that butter is genuinely one of the healthiest foods you can eat.

Refresher of butter’s goodness:

• Fat-soluble vitamins: A, D, E, K₂ (especially grass-fed) → immune, bones, calcium balance.

• Saturated fats → hormone production, cell integrity, satiety.

• Butyrate → feeds gut cells, reduces inflammation, may improve insulin sensitivity.

• Cholesterol → brain, nerves, hormone precursor.

• CLA (grass-fed) → fat metabolism, anti-inflammatory, potential anti-cancer benefits.

• Stable cooking fat → resists oxidation unlike industrial seed oils.

Whether you’re a mom (hi, Jessica!), a gym bro, or a grandma, butter deserves a starring role in your diet. Unsure where to start? Slap a generous slab on your roasted veggies.

More butter = more health.

I hope you are having a wonderful holiday with your family, spending the morning breakfasting on homemade cinnamon rolls and soaking up smiles.

You heathens had better have read the Nativity as well. Jesus was born two thousand years ago, yet He is still alive and well. Coming back real soon, in fact. And I am absolutely certain—more certain than my love of butter—that Jesus loves you.

I am writing this from my new Daylight computer, gifted to me by my girlfriend. The Daylight computer is supposedly designed to be “less addictive and distracting” which, come to think of it, seems more like an intervention than a gift.

I really don’t think I have a screentime problem. Like, five hours of nightly Minecraft really isn’t that bad, is it? Jon Haidt, wouldn’t you agree? What’s also frustrating about this organic computer is that I haven’t figured out a way to stream by favorite Twitch users, making Christmas 2025 more Kafkaesque than it is Little Women.

But I must be honest. I, too, gifted my girlfriend with an intervention of sorts: private dance lessons.

You see, last month we went country dancing with one our favorite couples, Kevin and Jordan. Kevin happens to be one of my best friends and worst arch nemesis. We compete in everything—CrossFit, board games, cooking, theology (he’s not as Reformed™), and now country dancing.

But where I am typically the alpha victor in most of our arguments and competitions, Kevin and Jordan danced circles around us. They were doing all sorts of twists and turns and flips with effortless charisma, while my girlfriend and I were stumbling around as if we were alien beings hearing musical patterns and inhabiting human bodies for the first time. They were hot, we were not.

But if there’s something else that I am also not, it’s a quitter. And I refuse to go down in this particular competition without a fight. So to Kevin and Jordan: enjoy your Christmas. We’ll see you in 2026 with an improved two-step and better sense of rhythm. Be scared.

I was texting a friend last weekend about exercise. This friend (let’s call her Monica for the sake of anonymity) really doesn’t like weight or aerobic training. Plus, she’s naturally lean and already looks great, so it’s not that she’s motivated by aesthetics. Why fix something that’s not broken, right?

But a person’s waistline is not necessarily indicative of their fitness—and the multifaceted benefits that come exclusively through movement. Monica might look great for swimsuit season, but if her body isn’t being physiologically tested, certain aspects of her health will remain locked.

For example, there are numerous reports outlining the positive epigenetic changes that occur when we lift weights and elevate our heart rate. Genes with a propensity for breast cancer or neurodegeneration get muted—turned off—as a result of moving the body.

For Monica, who has cancer in her family, I want this truth to sink in deep: that through exercise, among other lifestyle habits, we have more agency over our health destiny than we know.

So for the Buttercups lacking motivation about exercise, don’t just think about how good—or not good—you look. Think more holistically and long-term about exercise, because movement—or lack thereof—in your thirties is shaping the lab results and brain scans in your 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s.

Monica, you convinced?

• The FDA approved a pill version of a GLP-1 drug. Good news here is no more needles. Bad news is 74% of the trial participants experienced GI issues. Charming, idyllic.

• Researchers found that upping NAD+ levels can reverse Alzheimer’s and restore memory. “The key takeaway is a message of hope—the effects of Alzheimer's disease may not be inevitably permanent," said the study’s author.

• RFK Jr. is reportedly going to mirror America’s vaccine schedule to Denmark's, thereby recommending children skip respiratory syncytial virus, influenza, rotavirus, chickenpox, meningitis, hepatitis A and hepatitis B vaccines. “They’re going to bring back suffering and death,” said Dr. Sean O’Leary, chair of the infectious disease committee for the American Academy of Pediatrics. Let’s not forget that the AAP is heavily influenced—and funded—by vaccine makers. It's also the same APP that continues to recommend gender affirming care (cross sex hormones, puberty blockers, surgeries) to children struggling with gender dysphoria, despite overwhelming evidence that these practices cause irreversible harm and will go down in history as the most scandalous, immoral experiments of all time.

• Speaking of gender affirming care, the NIH announced that they are funding research to find ways to help detransitionsers.

• And speaking of the NIH, last weekend I got to meet the NIH Director, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, thanks to my girlfriend’s sick job. There are very, very few political leaders I admire and aspire to be like. Dr. Jay is among them.

• A study following over 27,000 individuals for twenty five years found that those who ate high fat dairy were significantly less likely to develop dementia than those consuming low fat dairy products. My reaction? Duh. The brain literally functions on fatty acids and fat soluble vitamins. Continue to run on butter if you want a sharp brain, Buttercups!

• Lastly, I told y’all I would drop the link to my family’s Christmas concerts last weekend. We didn’t end up live streaming it, but we did just drop the footage, attached below.

🎄🧈🎄MERRIEST CHRISTMAS TO ALL THE BUTTERCUPS!!!🎄 🧈🎄

This week I’m back up in Washington State performing our annual Christmas show with my family, a tradition that goes all the way back to my infancy.

You see, my family—the Voetbergs—are basically Von Trapp wannabes. The Sound of Music was/is a canonical work in our household, so much so that I did a tribute to the show at my senior recital. I even flew to Salzburg to hop those steps from the “Do-Re-Mi” scene. Plus, my mom went to Catholic elementary school, so she’s essentially Fraulein Maria.

Really, the only major difference between our families is that we’re not trying to flee the Nazis and that my dad couldn’t sing Edelweiss to save his ten children’s lives.

Anyway, the Voetberg shows are going down this weekend, and if you were lucky enough to snag a ticket, I’m sure you’d love to see me in the flesh, Mr. Chief Buttercup. Maybe I’ll do an autograph or something.

For those of you less fortunate to miss out on the tickets, we’re allegedly going to livestream our final performance on Saturday. When I get the link for the stream, I’ll be dropping it here so you can watch me in my musical glory.

• The USDA is launching a regenerative farming pilot program to help American farmers adopt smarter, more sustainable farming practices. The USDA is putting $700 million into the program, which looks good, but in government finances, that’s basically like forty bucks.

• Speaking of saving Mother Earth, the leading science journal Nature retracted a paper published last year that claimed climate change will reduce global economic output by 62% by the end of the century. It was the second most-cited climate paper of 2024, and it turns out that when people dug into math, it looked like my girlfriend (not good with numbers) was manning the spreadsheet. Whoopsies! I didn’t realize I moved that decimal too far over. My bad!

• I used to think that the phrase “there’s no such thing as a dumb question” was good and true. But then I started reading the New York Times, and now I realize that there are indeed questions that should go unasked—and unprinted.

  

• The European Union passed a resolution condemning surrogacy, coming off a landmark UN report highlighting that surrogacy:

  • intentionally separates children from their mothers,

  • commodifies women’s reproductive capacities,

  • prioritises adult desires over the rights of the child, and

  • exposes women to heightened physical, psychological, and financial risks.

• Researchers are seeing more aggressive breast cancer in young women. It’s critical to remember that lifestyle is the driving force behind this rise. Obviously nutrition and exercise matter, but the main culprit in this case is the toxic milieu of synthetic chemicals mimicking estrogen that are omnipresent in American women’s lives. Think: standard makeup, shampoo, hairspray, etc. For the female Buttercups not sure where to start on non-toxic, non–breast-cancer-causing cosmetics, check out my friend Suzi of Gurl Gone Green. She’s a Buttercup and clean beauty queen.

• What a privilege it is to be living at the same time as Mikaela Shiffrin, who just won her 104th skiing World Cup title. Running On Butter will be reporting diligently as she represents Team USA in the upcoming Winter Olympics.

• Over 1,000 women are suing Pfizer, claiming that the company's birth control caused brain tumors.

• Substack put on a delightful pie contest with an all-star judge line-up. Need that shaker lemon pie recipe.

Congratulations to every Buttercup other than Elizabeth from Arizona for making it through No Sugar November.

I hope you enjoyed a homemade pumpkin pie last Thursday as we celebrated Thanksgiving, which Running On Butter, I’m sure, was at the top of your list of things for which you’re thankful.

I spent the holiday weekend over in Indiana and Kentucky with my girlfriend’s family and friends. Thursday featured a terrific dinner brought to you by my girlfriend’s mom and me. I gained some major points from her when, the night before dinner, I saw she was stressed and offered to man the turkey. She gave me a hug in alleviation.

Another score (I think?) with her family was that I brought my fiddle and played a few fiddle tunes on Thursday. They either really liked it or felt bad for me and their “Good job learning that song, Vance! How long did it take you?” compliments were rooted in sympathy rather than amazement. I am hoping for the former.

Friday we headed down to Kentucky, where I met my girlfriend’s trio of best friends—and that’s where the real test began for me. Each of these three women was a standout mom (there were 14 kids among them), and their husbands were equally great. It made me so grateful to see that my girlfriend’s closest friends were such high-caliber people.

The interrogation was daunting, but I’m hoping the farm-fresh butter we brought was enough to earn their seal of approval.

• Megan Thee Stallion, the rapper whose lyrics are a bit too vulgar for the Buttercups’—pure, innocent—ears, whipped up what looks like a killer homemade Thanksgiving spread. Meg, drop your dressing/stuffing recipe ASAP. And is that a salt-brined turkey I’m seeing?

• Soybean oil, one of the most widely used seed oils, has been linked to significant weight gain, according to researchers at the University of California, Riverside. The linoleic acid in the oil breaks down into oxylipins—compounds associated with inflammation and increased fat storage. “It took 100 years from the first observed link between chewing tobacco and cancer to get warning labels on cigarettes,” said Dr. Sladek, the study’s author. “We hope it won’t take that long for society to recognize the connection between excessive soybean-oil consumption and negative health effects.”

• Running On Butter’s favorite ex convict delivered yet again.

• In a leaked internal FDA memo, Dr. Vinay Prasad, the government’s head vaccine czar, wrote that they had discovered 10 unreported pediatric deaths among children who had received the Covid vaccine. “This is a profound revelation,” Prasad wrote in the memo. “For the first time, the FDA will acknowledge that Covid-19 vaccines have killed American children.” And to think that the virus itself posed virtually no risk to children. So sad.

• Sydney Sweeney spent her Thanksgiving slalom skiing in 42° water. She is beauty, she is grace.

• Zen Honeycutt, an advocate for raising awareness about the risks of synthetic pesticides, recently shared the heartbreaking story of her son’s suicide. She explained that his vegan diet, combined with high toxic exposure and resulting nutrient deficiencies, played a role in his decision. While this may sound surprising, research has shown that deficiencies in critical nutrients—such as vitamin D and B12, absent in vegan diets—causes severe depression

• Austrian researchers found that fructose-sweetened drinks (think: soda) supercharges inflammation when the body’s fighting sickness. The takeaway? Stay away from refined sugar this winter to minimize sickness severity.

• This is a wellness check on all who ate that $7 Costco pumpkin pie over the weekend. How are those hydrogenated seed oils and corn syrup and tert-butylhydroquinone preservatives treating you? Feeling shame and regret?

  

We’re on Day 15 of No Sugar November, and I’m calling on all Buttercups to pray for and support Micah from Minnesota. He’s fallen into temptation. But he’s seeking forgiveness and reconciliation into the ROB community.

Remember the prodigal son story Jesus told. We don’t want to be like the older brother. Let’s welcome Micah back into the fold with open arms.

• This is a man’s world, and we finally have a cereal that reflects that reality.

  Man Cereal—a “high-performance” cereal with creatine and minimal carbs—has officially hit the (online) shelves. When I first heard about it, I was skeptical and fully expected the ingredient list to resemble David protein bars (read: very bad). But after looking into it, I’m pleasantly surprised. They’re using coconut oil instead of seed oils, and stevia instead of synthetic sweeteners like sucralose.

  I welcome this brand. Not only because it’s advancing the Testosterone Narrative™, but because it’s not cutting the corners I assumed it would. Good for them!

  Is it worth $46 for three boxes? I won’t pretend $46 cereal makes sense, but I do appreciate that Man Cereal is leveling up the category.

• One of ByHeart’s manufacturing facilities—a baby formula company—was shut down this year after inspectors found mold, a leaking roof, and more than 2,500 dead insects in a food-production area. The brand also dealt with a botulism issue earlier this year.

  There’s an important lesson here: look past the polished branding. Its vibe gives “happy babies” and “good mom,” but behind the scenes this was an incredibly unsafe product.

  

  And when it comes to what’s optimal for babies: breast is best. (Moms, please don’t come after me. ROB doesn’t sit around plotting, “How can I make moms feel like a failure?” But I do feel obligated to report what is empirically true.)

• Plastic surgeons in Washington, DC are now getting requests for “Mar-a-Lago faces.” I’m not sure how this is making America great again, but I suppose this vanity project can coexist with our broader national interests. After all, Kristi Noem has single-handedly made TSA hawt, not again, but for the first time. I’m honestly a little turned around by this political moment. Trump is applying the skillsets he picked up producing Miss Universe directly to federal agencies.

• Dr. Cate Shanahan argues that seed oils are a much bigger problem than glyphosate in a piece she published this week. It’s a bit biochemistry-heavy (nerd alert), but my eyes were piqued by this line was: “This is where the concept of toxic potential comes in.” Pretty sure that’s also how my best friends used to describe my ex. Toxic potential.

• Why do I suddenly want to join Antifa now that their protest tactics involve 80s aerobics? Big upgrade from defacing federal buildings.

Sorry for the absence the last few days. Because Running On Butter is funded by the federal government (we applied for a National Endowment for the Arts grant and received seven figures to “explore the profound ways butter shapes art, communities, and culture”), so things can get bureaucratic around here at ROB headquarters.

But I’m happy to report that we’re officially back in business today, given the government is back up in running.

Last week, I came down with a head cold. I know—I probably shouldn’t admit that I, the very embodiment of robust health and Viking level immunity, had a few rough days. But honesty is important in leadership. And according to the last leadership TED Talk I watched, I’m supposed to be “less power-hungry” and “more receptive” to you Buttercups. Sure. I’ll work on that. Whatever.

For the record, the only reason I got even slightly sick was because I ran a desert Ragnar relay last weekend with my brothers and some friends from church. If you’re unfamiliar with Ragnar, imagine the dystopian novel The Maze Runner, but with even more crying and less sleep.

See the photo below of my brothers and me at sunrise moments after finishing the race and questioning our life choices.

The New York Times wants us to hate our lives by avoiding salt. “Try seasoning your food with mushroom powder, nutritional yeast, and MSG,” they advise.

I’m considering implementing these replacements at Thanksgiving this year. I’m going to my girlfriend’s family in Indiana, and I’m pretty sure salt-less, mushroom-dusted mashed potatoes will be a dish the Midwest didn’t know it needed. How could the family not love me?

Seriously, though: salt is an essential nutrient. As in, you will genuinely suffer—and potentially die—if you avoid it. The research claiming salt is a direct cause of hypertension and heart failure is sketchy at best and intentionally misleading at worst.

So when you’re cooking at home, please don’t avoid salt. Because (a) it’s truly irreplaceable for flavor (sorry, shrooms), (b) it’s essential for virtually every biological function from your nervous system to your cardiovascular health, and (c) Jesus literally calls us to be the salt of the earth.

Use Celtic sea salt or Redmond salt.

The Trump administration’s EPA is preparing to approve a new class of PFA pesticides. These are manmade “forever chemicals” that take years to break down in the environment and are linked to developmental delays, infertility, and immune suppression.

MAHA is unhappy. HHS Director Bobby Kennedy repeatedly promised that a vote for him and Trump meant tighter oversight on pesticides, especially newly approved ones with documented health risks.

It also doesn’t help that the Biden administration had actually moved to restrict this same class of compounds. Now it appears the Trump EPA is being influenced by chemical-industry lobbyists in a way that contradicts basic MAHA priorities and public promises.

It’s important to note that the EPA is not under Kennedy’s authority. My sources say he is frustrated with the decision but also reluctant to overstep. Challenging the EPA could be seen as meddling in territory that isn’t his to govern, and he doesn’t want to risk irritating a president (or his chief of staff) who are not exactly known for their patience and grace.

This tug-of-war between lobbyists and some administration officials is a reminder that, even when we want and advocate for good and protective health policy, we should not expect politicians to consistently act in our best interest. That may sound blunt, but letting go of political hopefulness often leads to a more peaceful mindset.

The most effective way to create change is through market demand. Conventional, pesticide-dependent crops still dominate. Only three percent of American farms are organic.

Improving public health will require changing what farmers are incentivized to grow. If we want more organic crops, we have to buy organic crops. Farmers will follow the demand, and right now it simply isn’t there.

It is also true that an immediate, total ban on synthetic pesticides would destabilize the entire food system.

This became clear to me during a conversation with my friend Ashley from South Dakota. Her family grows wheat, corn, and soy. She graciously explained that without synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, their farm and livelihood would collapse. The agricultural system is currently built around these inputs, and removing them overnight would disrupt American life.

All that to say: be the change you wish to see and buy organic.

And remember that conventional farmers like Ashley’s family are faithfully feeding America. Honor and thank them, even as we push for a better system.

• We’re getting a fifth Toy Story, and if I’m interpreting the trailer correctly, it might be an effective warning against children’s screen time. In the teaser, Woody and Buzz and the gang are petrified by their human child’s newest arrival: a Lily Pad.

  I, too, am scared of screens, Mrs. Potato Head.

• Only 38% of Americans trust the government to handle domestic problems. Make that 35% after the Trump administration’s PFA chemical approval. :(

  What fascinates me is this: barely a third of Americans trust the government to fix anything, yet socialism is having a wild resurgence. We don’t trust the government, but we want more of it in our lives?

• In more discouraging news from the executive branch, the President pardoned a trail runner who was being criminally prosecuted for jogging outside the designated trails in Grand Teton National Park. I could not disagree with this pardon more. We voted tough on crime, people! Put the distance runner behind bars!

• Despite facing some health concerns a few months back, Dolly Parton is back and stronger, and now on Substack. Did I subscribe? Of course.

• Sydney Sweeney says she never wants to get Botox or injections. “I want to age gracefully” she said. This what what I told my plastic surgeon who also did Kris Jenners facelift.

• Speaking of Kris… her 70th birthday bash looked unreal. Grieving that I wasn’t there to witness the champagne tower or eat my bodyweight in caviar. ROB is already working an invite to her 75th, where Kris will somehow look ten years younger than she does today.

• It’s day 13 of No Sugar November. How is everyone doing? Hanging in there? Need a bit of encouragement or perhaps scorning from the Buttercups?

Abbie from Scottsdale (formerly of Denver) texted me yesterday—concerned, curious, or perhaps just bored—to ask about my recent tirades on Substack Notes regarding ADHD:

To explain a bit more: a lot of people online are now pathologizing normal behavior—things like being forgetful, selfish, or unmotivated. They’ll tell you, “No, the assignment you were supposed to turn in last Monday but didn’t? That’s not because you’re lazy or undisciplined—it’s because you have ADHD.”

I’ve talked before about how arbitrary and subjective most mental health diagnoses are. ADHD is perhaps the most glaring example. And children are harmed by this paradigm.

It’s often “diagnosed” through a short questionnaire or by asking parents and teachers to describe a child’s behavior—usually to a nurse practitioner or school counselor predisposed to see normal behavior as a condition.

If I’d been part of the standard public school and medical system as a kid, I probably would’ve been raised on Adderall rather than butter. I was ultra-talkative (shocking, right?) and constantly moving, always wanting to play cowboys and Indians rather than read about them. And my brother Deter? He was about five times more wiggly than I was. Come to think of it, maybe my parents should’ve drugged him a bit.

I jest. Deter is now a police officer and father of four.

And I’m so grateful for my parents’ intuition and general disinterest for the ADHD Industrial Complex. Their philosophy for raising rowdy boys was simple: “Go play in the woods and don’t come inside unless it’s an emergency.”

We built the sickest forts.

But if Deter and I had been diagnosed with ADHD as little boys, we would’ve been enrolled in a program that didn’t involve underground forts or tree houses—but rather:

• Limits children’s opportunities: boxing them in by suggesting that because they struggle to focus on arithmetic, they’ll struggle to thrive in more advanced academic settings.

• Ignores children’s natural needs: especially for young boys, who require physical activity and stimulation. Eight hours behind a desk is one of the least conducive environments for healthy development. ADHD diagnoses assume that docility is normal in children. It isn’t.

• Introduces sketchy medications: psychostimulant prescriptions like Adderall, which carry serious risks: an 18-fold increase in depression, stunted growth, obesity, and poorer academic performance. Approximately 3.8 million children in the U.S. have an ADHD prescription, generating billions annually to Big Pharma.

Now we’ve got mental health influencers flooding the internet, sharing relatable stories about adult ADHD to convince the entire country that, surprise—you probably have it too.

Late for work? ADHD.
Didn’t finish that project? ADHD.
Can’t sit through a book? ADHD.
Can’t hold down a relationship? AD-freaking-HD.

The reason I say ADHD isn’t a medical condition is because it’s not one. The NIH defines ADHD as “an ongoing pattern of one or more of the following types of symptoms:

• Inattention, such as having difficulty paying attention, keeping on task, or staying organized

• Hyperactivity, such as often moving around (including during inappropriate times), feeling restless, or talking excessively

• Impulsivity, such as interrupting, intruding on others, or having trouble waiting one’s turn”

When I read these descriptions, I don’t think developmental disorder. I think: every normal, healthy little boy I’ve ever met.

Now, if you’re an adult with these symptoms, you’re probably just TikToked out of your darn mind. Delete the socials—designed to fry your attention span—and read the Proverbs or something.