Food for Thought: The Latest Big Pharma Scam

Welcome back, Mafia! 🥩 ⚡️

I don’t know about you all, but we’re absolutely buzzing into this weekend! What a week it’s been at Meat Mafia HQ here in Austin, Texas. The weather took a turn for the best this week, and we took full advantage of it by whipping out the grill and cooking up some delicious steaks. PSA: If you’re reading this and coming to Austin anytime soon, we’d love to have you over to HQ and grill up some food with you all! Nothing gets us more excited than getting to prepare and share a great meal with friends and family. It’s truly a spiritual endeavor!

Alright, enough small talk. Let’s ride…

Calley Means versus Big Pharma: The New David versus Goliath

We’re undoubtedly living through crazy, crazy times. The reality is, whether we choose to admit it or not, America is in decline. Currently, 50% of American adults are pre-diabetic, a precipitous rise from just a generation prior. The sad truth is this is not a Democrat or Republican issue. Both parties are two sides to the same coin, and neither has been effective in decoupling the perverse incentives plaguing our medical system. To make matters worse, as the fabric of society is quite literally bursting at its seams, the media, the pharmaceutical companies, and the large multi-national food companies sleep like babies at night despite perpetuating corruption and scaling disease. Whether it’s nefarious or negligent, the outcome is still the same and if we don’t wake up from the deep, gas-lit induced slumber we’re currently in, America will implode from the overwhelming financial and physical burden of sickness and disease.

While many members of the media and public sphere are choosing not to participate in these types of conversations, Calley Means is doing the exact opposite. It’s been a little over a year since Calley came roaring onto the health scene, and he has come out swinging. He’s been on a war path going from media outlet to media outlet discussing the current state of America’s health and railing against the corruption-laden pharmaceutical industry. In his most recent interview with Tucker Carlson, Calley delivered his magnum opus: a full-blown dismantling of the newly released “weight loss” drug, Ozempic. Calley (the founder of TrueMed and co-author of Good Energy) has officially sounded the alarm as it relates to Ozempic, and it’s jarring how much the success of this drug exposes the corruption and failures of our medical system. Here’s what you need to know:

1. Novo Nordisk, the owner of Ozempic, just became the most valuable company in Europe. But, here’s the catch. The company’s #1 selling product, Ozempic, can’t even be sold in Europe. Why? It’s illegal. It has not passed the EU’s standards for a safe drug. Yet, for some reason, it’s still able to be sold into the American market purely for the profit potential! Almost all of Novo Nordisk’ revenue is predicated on taking advantage of the American medical debacle. The sad reality is that industry experts are expecting the obesity problem to continue to get worse and worse, making the market opportunity seem more and more like a gold mine.

2. ~80% of Americans are considered to be in the target market for Ozempic drug use, and the American Academy of Pediatrics have gone as far as to claim the drug is a first line of defense for teens with obesity. NOT DIET. NOT LIFESTYLE. OZEMPIC.

3. Unfortunately, doctors in the US are overlooking major health concerns relating to the drug particularly relating to the gut and brain. Since the drug affects the production of serotonin, it can lead to suicidal thoughts and depression. Not surprisingly, 30% of people come off the drug after only 3 months of use despite the drug being a lifelong prescription.

4. Unsurprisingly, the media has taken an affirmative stance on the matter without paying any attention to the potential downsides of the use of the drug to manage obesity. This should come as no surprise to people as nearly 50% of TV ad revenue comes from Big Pharma. Even people like Oprah and companies like Weight Watchers have come out in support of Ozempic.

5. Higher education has played a critical role in the mass popularization of the drug as well by seemingly lending it credibility through research. Not surprisingly, Novo Nordisk is the #1 funder of obesity research at universities, which shows how misaligned the medical industry’s incentives are to make the best decisions for consumers. For example, the trial testing for Ozempic only lasted for 68 weeks.

6. America currently spend more on healthcare than we do on any other line item including the defense budget - AND THIS IS ONLY GETTING WORSE!

If you haven’t already, I highly recommend taking an hour out of your day to check out this fantastic interview between Tucker and Calley!

 🔥 Weekly Challenge: Make Raw Milk Ice Cream

When it comes to traditional “junk food” it’s often the preparation that makes the poison. In most cases, flavor scientists have designed the perfect combination of sugar, salt, and fat, to hardwire the end consumer into becoming moderately to severely addicted to the food-like substances they’re creating. In addition, to make products more affordable, these “junk food” creators typically cut corners on ingredient quality, replacing healthy fats with garbage fats and adding sugar and flavorings in excess to manipulate flavor. Ice cream is the perfect example of the preparation making the poison. In its purest form, ice cream is cream, egg yolks, and some maple syrup. Not terrible, right? Yet, when you look at store-bought ice cream it’s often a list of sugars, flavorings, and vegetable oils. We try to approach the conversation around diet and nutrition through the lens of nutrient density, and frankly the homemade ice cream we just described is loaded with nutrient-dense foods. However, it’s a far cry from what you see in the grocery store.

While we strongly believe the center of any healthy diet comes from eating mostly animal protein (anywhere from 90-100% of your calories), we also understand the nature of wanting to enjoy life as well. Sweets can be problematic for a lot of people, so here’s our challenge to you: set the precedent to only consume sweets if you make them yourself. This effectively does two things: i) it raises the convenience factor for consuming junk food and ii) it allows you to control your inputs to avoid excess garbage. We want to realistically meet people where they’re at when it comes to diet. If you implement this change into your framework around nutrition, it will make the “worst foods” you eat much, much healthier. Give it a try with the Raw Milk Recipe below from Chef Kasey and let us know what you think! If you do end up making the recipe, be sure to tag Chef Kasey!

⏱ The Mafia Week in Review

Ajay Nwosu: A Masterclass in Mental Alchemy

We had the great fortune of speaking with our friend, Ajay Nwosu, the CEO of Teqball and successful serial entrepreneur & angel investor. As you’ll hear in the podcast, Ajay has an exceptional aptitude for learning and apply knowledge in his businesses. If you’re looking to steal some insights into how to become more successful, Ajay is your guy to learn from!

Brett & Harry: A Practical Guide on How to Eat Healthy

As part of a new series we’re doing on the podcast, we sat down to provide a simple framework to improve your health through nutrition. One of our goals with the show is to provide information to inspire better health outcomes in your life. In this episode, we analyze the emotional aspects of food, the guidelines of what to eat, and the simple game plan on how to implement these changes.

If you enjoyed our episode of the podcast on How to Eat Healthy, we really think you’ll enjoy our FREE GUIDE to complement the podcast episode. In the guide, you’ll find more context and information to chew on and it can serve as a simple blueprint for you to reference as you go about your day trying to implement some changes. If you do download the free guide, please shoot us an e-mail and let us know what you think!

 🔥 Weekly Favorites

Perennial Pastures has some of the tastiest grass-fed beef we’ve ever tried. We had the pleasure of speaking to the founder of the ranch, Kevin Muno Jr, on Episode 123. We discussed what makes his beef different and the importance of regenerative agriculture as it relates to improving soil health AND human health. We featured Perennial in a small part of last week’s newsletter as well, but we just really like what they’re doing. If you’re interested in checking out their beef, use code MEATMAFIA for 10% off your order.

Since we had Michael Bosstick on the podcast back in September, we’ve really turned up our consumption of the Him & Her Podcast, and we’ve been getting a ton of value out of it. They recently had one of our business inspirations on the podcast, Jesse Itzler, and all we have to say is WOW! Jesse’s perspective on leading a successful life and truly building a life of value left us speechless. We love how Michael and Lauryn can highlight guests in a unique light. Although I’ve consumed a great deal of Jesse’s content, I felt like this conversation was really different from the rest.

One of the most influential books we’ve ever read as it pertains to nutrition and human biology is The Dorito Effect by Mark Schatzker. Again, Mark was an old podcast guest (and honestly one of our favorite episodes of all time). In the book, Mark unpacks this concept called “nutritional wisdom” that draws a connection between our biological design and the food we eat. By the end of the book, you’ll understand the deep connection between our taste buds and our nutritional preferences, and you’ll see how Big Food has manipulated our taste buds through hyper-palatable foods.