amish butter is trending

a win for humanity

Good morning Buttercups.

I’m still very sore from the 4th of July Games. But fortunately for me (and you), writing these posts really only requires a few fingers and half a brain, so the Running On Butter train continues…

Where’s the snack scene heading? One of my favorite pieces this week came from Bon Appétit, which covered the Summer Fancy Food Show in NYC, a convention for snack brands trying to make a statement and prove they understand how the vibes are vibing. There were plenty of interesting offerings (i.e., this sick new water company with American beer can branding), but the trend I’m most excited about is the rise of whole food snacks.

“If the long lines at the Amish butter and full-fat dairy booths were any indication,” the reporter noted, “perhaps the cultural zeitgeist has gone so far in the health-optimized direction that interests have circled back to more basic, whole foods-based beginnings.”

Consumers are becoming more conscious about the ingredients in their food—and they’re asking for better ones, and fewer of them. The people want butter. I take full credit for this shift. I’ve led this movement on the back of my servant’s heart for years now. Very cool to see the fruit of my visionary leadership.

We don’t need more smart watches: HHS Secretary RFK Jr. is launching a massive campaign to get all Americans wearing smartwatches that track heart rate, sleep, steps, and other biomarkers. “Wearables are a key part of the MAHA agenda,” he recently told lawmakers.

This strikes me as odd. One of the central tenets of the MAHA movement is technological decolonization—literally reconnecting (barefoot!) with the earth. Strapping a Wi-Fi biological surveillance device to your wrist isn’t giving hunter-gatherer.

I think this is a misstep in the movement for four reasons:

(1) Most of us already know plenty of people who wear smartwatches. They track sleep, steps, heart rate. This information doesn’t change habits. I’ve watched it happen over and over. Knowing how many flights of stairs you climbed isn’t particularly useful for the average person.

(2) It exacerbates the already poor social skills in our society. Nothing drives me more bonkers than when someone checks their Apple Watch mid-conversation. It’s rude. Look me in the eyes and give me the human attention I deserve.

(3) It reinforces the false idea that all that’s standing between you and vibrant health is a purchase. That’s a lie. You cannot buy health through a smartwatch. Sure, there are worthwhile investments. An exercise class, a good pair of walking shoes, maybe a multivitamin. But at its core, health is not something that can be Prime-shipped to your front door.

(4) There’s been a fair amount of research on whether wearables actually improve health. And honestly? It’s not compelling. According to a meta-analysis, the benefits are at best “modest” and “short-term.”

Brits go all-in on Ozempic: The losers of the Revolutionary War—but proud inventors of the greatest afternoon tradition known to mankind (high tea)—have just pledged to make the U.K. “fat-free” within the next decade. How? By encouraging people to cook real food and prioritize movement.

Just kidding. The NHS’s actual plan is: “Give ’em the fat jabs and hope all our problems disappear.”

The proposal claims that democratizing access to Ozempic and similar GLP-1 drugs could magically boost the economy by 257,000 working days. I have no clue how they landed on that number, but hey—sounds promising! Go ahead and shoot up the nation with GLP-1s. We’ll worry about the long-term health consequences later.

• The actor Rob Lowe has “partnered” with drug maker Eli Lily to get more people enrolled in cancer clinical trials. Would love to know what that paycheck looks like.

• Air pollution from modern industrial life is worse for your lungs than secondhand smoke, according to a new study analyzing lung cancer etiology. So if you live in a busy city like me, you’re essentially smoking a pack of Marlboro a day. Lovely.

• Phthatlates—used in plastics to make them more flexible—seem to be a key contributor to heart disease. These guys clog up the arteries like crazy. They’re also commonly used in a variety of personal care products, which is super cool.

• A new study from the University of Cambridge found that a naturally occurring gut bacteria may help shed microplastic accumulation from the body. You all know that few things scare me like microplastics. I’m excited to finally see research focused on reversing the problem, rather than yet another study confirming how bad and omnipresent they are.

• Synthetic food dyes are in 20% of packaged foods. I didn’t realize just how many products—thousands—still use petroleum-based dyes. Will the FDA’s recent pressure on Big Food to phase out of these dyes actually work? Let’s hope so.

• Del Monte, the canned food giant, has filed for bankruptcy. Industry watchers say the company failed to evolve with shifting grocery trends. Turns out it’s not 1950 anymore.