The Internet Is The World's Worst Pharmacy w/ Paris Martineau & Ashwin Rodriguez

Summary

Podcast Summary: Better Offline

Episode: The Internet Is The World's Worst Pharmacy

Host: Ed Zitron

Guests: Paris Martineau (Consumer Reports), Ashwin Rodriguez (freelance writer)

Date: October 29, 2025

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Overview

This episode of Better Offline dives deep into the murky world of supplements, protein powders, and the “wellness” industry. Host Ed Zitron is joined by investigative reporter Paris Martineau and health writer Ashwin Rodriguez to dissect Paris’s big story on heavy metal contamination in popular protein powders, explore the wild frontier of supplement regulation, and reflect on the digitization and commodification of health advice. Through sharp wit and real talk, the trio exposes the predatory gaps in both online health ecosystems and the so-called “wellness” economy, showing how the Internet enables its worst actors to sell us ritualized hope in a bottle or a powder.

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Key Discussion Points

1. Heavy Metals in Protein Powders & Shakes

• Paris’s report found 69% of protein powders tested contained more lead in a single serving than experts recommend consuming in an entire day. (03:18)
  • "Some of the most contaminated powders we found were plant-based ones... plant-based powders... had just higher levels of lead." — Paris Martineau [03:39]
• Where’s it coming from?
  • Lead typically enters via soil contamination, which is more concentrated during the protein isolate process for plant-based products. (04:02)
• Popular, mainstream brands are not exempt. Consumer Reports conducted rigorous testing over months, sourcing multiple lots for accuracy. (04:35)

2. Why Isn’t This Regulated?

• Supplements fall into a regulatory grey zone due to the 1994 DSHEA Act, which classified them as foods, not drugs (thus less FDA oversight).
  • "These supplement manufacturers aren't required to prove their products are safe before they go to market... they're supposed to comply with good manufacturing practices, but..." — Paris Martineau [09:50]
• FDA Inspections:
  • Of 12,000 registered US supplement manufacturers, the FDA inspected only about 600 last year. Overseas factories saw just 90 inspections. (09:47)
• Supplement companies set their own limits for contaminants like lead and self-report results. (14:58)

3. The Culture & Pitfalls of Supplement Use

• Many turn to supplements out of distrust in the medical system or frustration with healthcare access; others are drawn by ritualistic optimization cultures online (think Andrew Huberman, “stack” obsessives). (12:17, 22:29)
  • "Who has the time? That's like a level of rich person brain I can't understand... I can't even regularly manage to take two pills a day." — Paris Martineau [12:17]
• Supplements are often used as substitutes for medical advice:
  • Real case: Iron deficiency self-treated with supplements, but underlying cause was colon cancer (missed due to lack of thorough medical evaluation). (13:20)

4. Health Halos, Rituals, and Self-Experimentation

• Products sold as “alloyed goods”: Because they’re presented like medicine—but aren’t subject to the same standards—people assume safety and efficacy. (13:54)
• Consumers are left self-experimenting, often without knowledge of actual dosages or purity, and sometimes facing harmful contaminations or dangerous supplement/drug interactions. (15:25, 20:49)
  • “...the concentration [of active ingredient] varies wildly, even pill to pill from the same bottle.” — Paris Martineau [20:49]

5. Online Communities, Radicalization, and Sense of Control

• Forums, Reddit threads, and influencers drive both helpful debunking and dangerous echo chambers.
  • "Communities [give] people a sense of control over something that feels uncontrollable." — Paris Martineau [22:29]
• Ritual and identity (“the stack,” supplement regimens, performance metrics) become cult-like, offering belonging—even suffering together—within online fitness/health cultures (31:14).

6. Protein Maximalism and Diet Culture

• Obsession with protein intake is now pervasive: “Protein” has replaced “low fat” as a health halo label, promoted beyond scientific need.
• For most people, current diets already provide sufficient protein without supplements or added “protein” products. (32:40)
  • “It’s the new low fat... but it’s the first diet trend that hasn’t had the bubble pop on it.” — Paris Martineau [34:49]

7. The Role of Technology & Wearables in Health

• Devices like Oura rings, sleep trackers, and fitness apps can lead to obsessive behaviors, data overload, or even disordered eating/exercising. (46:42, 48:16)
  • "I remember when I got one of the first Fitbits... it very quickly became an obsessive thing." — Ashwin Rodriguez [48:16]
• Tech companies’ growth/engagement incentives are at odds with promoting moderation or individualized, humane health advice. (49:25)

8. Advice, Consistency, and Wellness Fatigue

• The best advice is the least sexy and hardest to sell: sleep well, eat real foods, move consistently, create routines—NOT quick fixes.
  • “Eat whole foods, make healthy choices, take care of your body. Everyone falls asleep if you say that.” — Paris Martineau [42:25]
• Marketing and engagement flywheels encourage pushing “new hacks” or metrics, while ignoring (or gamifying) fundamentals.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On supplement regulation:
  "These supplement manufacturers aren't required to prove their products are safe before they go to market... they're supposed to comply with good manufacturing practices, but..." — Paris Martineau [09:50]

• On chronic lead exposure:
  "The fucked up thing about lead is that it lingers in your body... your body kind of thinks of it like calcium... puts it in your bones... it hangs out in there for years or decades." — Paris Martineau [05:41]

• On supplement labeling:
  "What it says on the label very often is very different than the concentration in the actual pill or powder." — Ashwin Rodriguez [16:37]

• On supplement culture and agency:
  "It gives them a sense of control over something that feels uncontrollable." — Paris Martineau [22:29]

• On “protein maximalism”: "People overwhelmingly think you need more protein than you actually do... for the average person, you’re probably getting more than enough protein through your food." — Paris Martineau [32:14]

• On the seduction of wearables and data:
  "I have data from my ring, I have stats from my bed... I couldn’t tell you a single fucking thing about my fitness other than I feel and look better than I have." — Ed Zitron [47:32]

• On the hard truths of health:
  "The best advice is just... eat whole foods, make healthy choices, take care of your body. Everyone falls asleep if you say that." — Paris Martineau [42:25]

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• 03:08 — Paris on heavy metals in protein powder study
• 04:02 — Where does lead contamination come from?
• 07:37 — Lax FDA oversight of supplements
• 09:47 — DSHEA Act and the supplement loophole
• 13:20 — Case study: Iron supplements & missed diagnosis
• 20:49 — Lack of consistency/purity in supplement dosages
• 22:29 — Supplements as control/coping amid failed healthcare
• 32:14 — Protein obsession and real daily needs
• 46:42 — Tech wearables, wellness gamification, and obsession
• 49:25 — Tech companies' incentives at odds with health goals
• 51:19 — Why advice like “consistency and routines” matters more than gadgets or hacks

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Tone & Style

The conversation is brisk, sardonic, relatable, and data-driven. The hosts and guests balance irreverence ("gas station boner pills", "protein slop bricks") with genuine empathy for people caught in dysfunctional health systems—grounding their critique with honesty about their own fitness journeys, frustrations, and missteps.

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Summary & Takeaways

• Supplements, especially protein powders, are poorly regulated. Many contain unhealthy levels of lead and other contaminants, even among top-selling brands.
• The wellness economy exploits both people’s search for health optimization and their frustration with mainstream medicine—with “regulation” often left to self-interested companies.
• Online communities and influencer cultures create both avenues for support and new rituals of self-experimentation—sometimes constructive, sometimes predatory.
• Quantified self/devices/apps often gamify health at the expense of intuition and moderation, aligning business growth with potentially unhealthy behaviors.
• Evidence-based health remains stubbornly “boring”: sleep, whole foods, routine, movement. But these basics are harder to sell—and less clickable—than hacks, quick fixes, and new metrics.
• Ultimately, informed skepticism, personalized advice, and moderation beat out ritualized stacking, number chasing, and blind faith in online or on-label claims.

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“Nobody wants to hear it, but just… eat whole foods, make healthy choices, take care of your body. Everyone falls asleep if you say that.”
— Paris Martineau [42:25]

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For more:

• Paris Martineau: @parisNYC on Bluesky / @parismartineau on Twitter; Consumer Reports
• Ashwin Rodriguez: ashwinrodriguez.com; Bluesky
• Ed Zitron: @edzitron; BetterOffline podcast and newsletter

Transcript

[Ed Zitron]

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[Paris Martineau]

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[Ashwin Rodriguez]

Good, thanks for having me.

[Ed Zitron]

And Paris Martineau of Consumer Reports.

[Ashwin Rodriguez]

Hello.

[Paris Martineau]

Should I do mouth noises too?

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah, they love that. But you had a huge story, Paris, in the last week, Week or so. It was like a week or two.

[Paris Martineau]

Yeah, like a week or two times. A bit of a blur, honestly.

[Ed Zitron]

So it was a story around 23 protein powders and ready to drink shakes and probably brands. And you found that heavy metal contamination was common. How common exactly?

[Paris Martineau]

Very common, actually like more than two thirds of them. Actually. This will be really important for you and your listeners. 69% of them.

[Ashwin Rodriguez]

Had.

[Paris Martineau]

69% of them had levels of lead in one serving that are more than what like our food safety experts say is safe to take in a day.

[Ashwin Rodriguez]

Jesus Christ.

[Paris Martineau]

And the more you kind of dig into the specifics, I feel like the more concerning it gets. Some of the most contaminated powders we found were plant based ones. And overwhelmingly plant based powders. Instead of, you know, versus like whey or dairy or like dairy based products like whey or beef based, they had just higher levels of lead.

[Ed Zitron]

Where is the lead getting in?

[Paris Martineau]

I mean the lead is getting in from a lot of different ways, but probably the most common is like the soil that plants are grown in. So basically like plants when they're grown, they suck up all the nutrients around them. But if those nutrients are also contaminants like lead from either industrial pollution or just lead being in the natural environment, it gets in there. And who would have guessed the process of making protein powder, which is called protein concentrate or protein isolate from stuff like plants, involves concentrating and isolating things in it. And if lead's one of those things to begin with, it might get more concentrated.

[Ed Zitron]

And all these like popular brands are these small brands.

[Paris Martineau]

These are popular brands. We basically worked with a market like analytics team and like trend reporters to figure out what are some of the best selling, like protein supplements. What are the most popular brands, most popular flavors? And we kind of did a general kind of sweep of the market and tested those. And to be clear, we didn't just test like a one off scoop of each. We had, I mean this was like a experiment designed by our laboratory scientists. Over a period of months they went out and bought different like samples of each product, tested multiple lots and then analyzed all the results.

[Ed Zitron]

Lead plant. Lovely. So is. And so it was. But it's more in plant protein ones.

[Paris Martineau]

Yeah. So plant protein powders overwhelmingly, like they had about nine, like lead levels that were nine times as much as dairy based ones and twice as much as beef based ones.

[Ed Zitron]

How the fuck are people not dying?

[Paris Martineau]

Well, that's the thing. The thing about lead is it's not like a. To be very clear, this is not like a. You need to panic. If you're eating these, you're gonna get lead poison.

[Ed Zitron]

That's kind of what I was getting at.

[Paris Martineau]

Yeah, it's like a lead there. If you ask like the FDA or the World Health Organization, the UN or anything, there's like no known safe level of lead. It's bad for you, but it's not like immediately you're going to die bad in these sort of quantities. These are low but concerning levels. And they're concerning because the kind of fucked up thing about lead. I didn't really think about lead that much until I started reporting on this, obviously. But the fucked up thing about lead is that it like kind of lingers in your body. So one of the ways people test for lead is like blood lead level tests. But that doesn't even give you a really full picture. That just shows you how much lead is in your blood. But the thing about lead is your body, this is a gross oversimplification. Your body kind of thinks of it like calcium because they kind of look similar. So it's like om nom nom and puts in your bones or in your teeth. And so it hangs out in there for like the blood in your, the lead in your blood kind of can come in and out of your body relatively quickly. The lead in your bones can stay there for a period of like years or decades. And then during periods where your bone, because your bones are always kind of repairing themselves and when that happens, then the lead leaches out and it goes bad for you. So the real issue with these products in particular is, is Consumer Reports has done a lot of like heavy metal testing and stuff. But it's. We've like tested things like chocolate or tuna or like things like that, but with protein powder. People who like protein powders take them every day, sometimes multiple times a day for periods of years. And that's kind of like a perfect storm to give yourself like low level chronic exposure to lead in a way that could in like years or decades, like, have measurable health effects.

[Ed Zitron]

And there's no regulation or testing that should have stopped this. Is there a thing that this breaks? Like, is this.

[Paris Martineau]

I mean, this is.

[Ed Zitron]

We kind of have an fda.

[Paris Martineau]

We kind of have an fda. This has been one of the most interesting things about this. The last time I was on your podcast I was a tech reporter. The information and I've been like focusing on like tech companies doing bad shit for like years. When I switched to Consumer Reports this summer, I'm mostly focusing on food safety, still doing some tech, but it's been fascinating for me to dive into things like the FDA and realize like the FDA historically has always come under criticism, like every government agency for whether or not it's doing the best with the F. Part of FDA food or drugs within that purview is dietary supplements, which due to some chicanery in the 90s, are regulated kind of totally different in a way that basically boils down to the FDA's like, well, we can't really do anything until it comes to market. And then when it comes to market, maybe we'll scrutinize it.

[Ed Zitron]

And you just did Ashwin, a big piece about supplements. Right. And you kind of remarked upon this to me a few times in the past.

[Ashwin Rodriguez]

Yeah. So my story in the Times was about how supplements to this point that I saw in the Consumer Reports story about protein is in the 1994 D. Shea Act.

[Paris Martineau]

Yes.

[Ed Zitron]

Which was.

[Ashwin Rodriguez]

Yes, it basically it classified all dietary supplements to be regulated as food and not drugs. And dietary supplements is like such a broad umbrella where, you know, it makes sense to me that protein is considered a food, you know, like a whey protein or whatever. But then there's also things that people are taking for purported like drug like effects like ashwagandha or you know, even like melatonin, what they call gas station heroin is a dietary supplement.

[Paris Martineau]

What is boner pill dietary supplement?

[Ed Zitron]

Also what horny goat weed is that?

[Ashwin Rodriguez]

No, there's a different. I believe it's kratom and something else.

[Ed Zitron]

Oh.

[Ashwin Rodriguez]

But this is the stuff that some people were using to wean themselves off of opiates and then other people, people who weren't on opiates, were to wean themselves.

[Paris Martineau]

It's really great that that classifies as something the FDA is like.

[Ashwin Rodriguez]

Yeah, I've always been fascinated that like the gas station is like at the cutting edge of pharmaceuticals for some reason. You can get things.

[Paris Martineau]

Yeah. And it's just, it's so.

[Ed Zitron]

Robert Evans would love this.

[Paris Martineau]

It's so interesting to me because these supplement manufacturers aren't required to prove their products are safe before they like go to market. They aren't required to prove that their products are effective and, and they're supposed to comply with like good manufacturing processes. But like for instance, one stat that really stood out to me while reporting this is like the FDA says there's 12,000 registered dietary supplement manufacturers. Last year they inspected 600 of them and like 510 of those inspections were domestic manufacturers. There's only 90 that were expected inspected abroad. And I suspect that's for a lot of the manufacturing of these products actually occurs.

[Ed Zitron]

Is there like a bleed over effect where they say, oh yeah, designed in America but manufactured in the global South.

[Ashwin Rodriguez]

However, I mean there's lots of misleading labeling issues. Not necessarily where it's manufactured, but more so what they're allowed to say these things can do. It's like structure of function claims where you can be like, because we know protein is healthy for you or you know, this compound is known to be involved in like whatever biological process they can say supports immune function or designed to help with brain health. And all these things where it's like mechanistically it might work, but this thing has not been proven to have the effect that people think it does. So like that is a larger problem than being like this has been designed in the US but it's actually here. And then the way that they aren't regulating these things for any possible like positive benefit. It's the same issue with negative where it's like unless there's either a class action lawsuit or someone proactively finding the people who are experiencing negative side effects, those aren't being reported in the same way that a pharmaceutical drug is required. They're required to.

[Ed Zitron]

Which is crazy because Amazon is full of the fucking things. Because I lift a decent amount. It's been a bad month for it, I guess. But I tried various sub and nothing changed anything. Like I was straight up, just like, oh, I'll try that. And nothing just completely. And I just, I would write down how I felt in the morning and I was the same. Like I Fairly good attachment to the body. But you can go on like the freak Andrew Huberman's Reddit if you want to see. Just like here's all the things that Andrew. And it's like 47 different pills.

[Ashwin Rodriguez]

Yeah.

[Ed Zitron]

And how do you even.

[Paris Martineau]

Who has the time is my question. Like how do you. That's like a level of rich person brain I can't understand. Once you get into like the hundreds or like multiple dozens of supplements, I'm like, I can't even even regularly manage to take two pills a day.

[Ashwin Rodriguez]

I think it's like, it's pseudo sometimes it's like pseudo. You feel like you're doing something scientific because there's a bunch of companies now where you can go. And even if you want to do it by yourself, you go to, you know, Quest Labs or one of these startups and get a blood test. And most of them will offer a doctor's evaluation of those numbers. But you can look and be like, okay, my iron is low. This was something that happened. A doctor relayed this story to me that they had with a patient where the patient was taking an iron supplement because they were low on iron, and a naturopath that they were seeing recommended that. And like, that makes sense. If you're low on iron, take iron. But what they didn't do is try and figure out why they were low on iron. And when the patient came to see this cardiologist, the cardiologist was concerned that they might have a reason for low iron. Thought it might be internal bleeding. Refers them to a GI doc. The GI doc did a colonoscopy and they had stage four colon cancer. So it's one of these things where it's like, if you don't understand the pathology as to why you might have a deficiency, even with the quote, unquote boring things like, I don't think people think iron supplements are sexy or calcium.

[Paris Martineau]

Or vitamin D, but they think quick shortcuts to health are sexy.

[Ashwin Rodriguez]

Yeah.

[Paris Martineau]

This is something I mean, I just found fascinating. Researching for the protein story is just like, I spoke to a food historian at length, and I'm sad I couldn't make it more into the article because obviously I had to focus on the other stuff. But she had, like, spent months researching how basically protein mania has been just a huge thing over the last two decades at the very least. But it's because people attach, like, a health halo to certain words. I think supplements are definitely one of those categories where people just assume they're an alloyed good because it's like medicine, but not medicine. And then they don't ever think of the fact that these companies, I mean, one of the most interesting details about, like, the supplement, like, regulation or lack thereof in comparison to other drugs is that supplement manufacturers are supposed to make sure their products aren't harmful. But basically they get to determine what counts as harmful and set their own, like, limits for that. So there's like, no saying, hey, you can't have this much amount of lead.

[Ed Zitron]

Give me an Example of a limit they'd set.

[Paris Martineau]

So for like heavy metal contamination for instance, the government might say like hey, you probably shouldn't have like contaminants like heavy metal or you know, foreign like metals and contaminants in your product. But they don't say like hey, you shouldn't have X amount of lead in there. The companies themselves get to decide how much of a contaminant is harmful and they get to do their own testing to make sure their products meet those self imposed limits.

[Ed Zitron]

This just feels like it's going to kill someone at some. I'm sure someone has already had a situation where they over. Over supplemented.

[Paris Martineau]

Well no, this was a real issue back in the day.

[Ashwin Rodriguez]

Yeah. And I mean I think what's fascinating scary about it is because of the way this is reported, you I think get a very underreported figure of when someone comes to the hospital and they triangulate that it was due to supplementation. Because there can be issues where whatever you're taking, even if it isn't contaminated, can interact with a prescription drug you're taking or another supplement that you're taking. And the doctors I spoke to said that it's not always clear what is causing the issue because it could be and one of the active ingredients in a supplement, it could be something that's a contaminant in a supplement. And like broadly speaking, liver damage is a huge issue in supplements. Broadly. Just because when you ingest something, part of the liver's job is, you know, filtering that out whether there's lead or whatever in it. Even if it's exactly what you're supposed to be taking, it's taxing on the liver. So like, what I found kind of scary in the literature is that even when they know that liver damage was caused by supplements, the reason why is not always clear. It could be because, yeah, because you don't know what dosage like what it says on the label very often is very different than the concentration of, you know, what's in the actual pill or powder.

[Paris Martineau]

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[Ed Zitron]

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[Paris Martineau]

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[Paris Martineau]

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[Paris Martineau]

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[Ashwin Rodriguez]

See, this is a thing.

[Ed Zitron]

I've seen on a lot of Amazon reviews because I've absolutely gone down this rabbit hole before. I and you'll read things and people on Reddit will argue it'll be like, actually the concentration of the main ingredient is different to the one they say. And it's just like, okay, but I.

[Paris Martineau]

Mean, then you can go even further. It's like, yeah, for that person, the concentration was different. Let's say it's like 200% more. That person, the next pill they took from that same bottle could be 100, could be like 50% less or 300% more. It's really difficult. And it also, it baffles me because I feel like a lot of people who turn towards supplements do so because they perhaps are skeptical about the medical establishment or pharmaceutical companies. So instead they're turning to a less regulated industry with fewer checks and no one seemingly checking or I guess on the same level of checking to make sure the products are what they say they are.

[Ed Zitron]

And I will say I have some sympathy to that. Don't worry, I'm not going that direction. Talking to when I used to be really overweight, it was like £350 as a kid. Crazy fact. And when I go to doctors, they pretty much go, yeah, you're fat. They'd be like, yeah, mate, I know. I'm told this every day at school, 17 times a day. I'm well aware. But any ideas like, you should eat less, I'm like sick. And then maybe 10, 15 years later put on a bit of weight. Not quite as much. Basically the same. You tried some walking. It's like, okay. But nutritionally, I could put you in touch with the nutritionist, like, it's like the base level knowledge isn't. Well, knowledge or basically advice isn't there. And then booking, especially in America, getting a doctor's appointment costs money, costs time. You wait an hour to get in. Like you have all of these things that are in the way. And then there are full of communities, full of people who will talk to you about supplements all day and be like, yeah, it changed my life. I can tell you which of these 19 pills I take an hour have changed my life. I feel really good. And I have a way of referencing that. It's the same way that people get radicalized.

[Paris Martineau]

It gives them a sense of control over something that feels uncontrollable.

[Ed Zitron]

And the reason I looked at the Huberman Lab stuff is not because I listen, but because there's a ranking of podcasts on Reddit and you're.

[Paris Martineau]

I assume every. I assume right now you have a window open. Just refreshing that to see if I.

[Ed Zitron]

Stopped doing that weeks ago. But it's. You can look and you can see. It is like a cult style thing where it's like, let's look at your stack. I think you may, Ashwin, you may. But it's like the pill stank.

[Paris Martineau]

And it's just, I'm sorry, stank stack. Oh, okay.

[Ed Zitron]

I was like, the pill stank is what you get when you poop.

[Ashwin Rodriguez]

When you kind of poop on supplement.

[Paris Martineau]

For that I was going to say.

[Ed Zitron]

But there's. And since I started like posting my workouts a few years ago, I get the most insane advertisements on Instagram. These new, like, oh, yeah, brain power. Like mind Brain Power. Every fitness influencer I've ever followed then Unfollowed has always had like, there's this really great one called like the Blind Lifter. He's just this guy who's blind and lifts insane amounts and his wife's like a very like normal looking woman, like really nice guy. And they'll be like, yeah, it's my favorite supplement. It's like Brain Fuse. It's Bright Brain. It's like, what the fuck? How do you know that this helps you? Does this. Do you feel smarter?

[Ashwin Rodriguez]

I think like going back to, you know, some people feel alienated or they don't feel like doctors are listening. I heard that from doctors themselves, where it's like, you know, depending on where you practice as a physician, you might have about 15 minutes to see each patient.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah.

[Ashwin Rodriguez]

So like you're trying to figure out the relevant symptoms, what you can do. Maybe it's a procedure, maybe it's a Medication. But like doctors themselves are telling me that either, you know, you don't get enough time to talk about lifestyle, proven lifestyle interventions you can make, talk about exercise, talk about nutrition and all these things. It's more like just putting fires out so people don't feel like they are have any space to talk to their doctor about things they could try, whether it's with exercise or whatever. So then you can find these people who will give you the time of day to walk through, you know, their spiel and their pitch. And then at that point is where poor decisions can be made. Because just someone makes you feel seen and heard doesn't mean you should take their bathtub pills that they made. But.

[Ed Zitron]

Exactly. Or like, oh, go get magnesium pills and picking a random one, there's like 70 options on Amazon. And to your point, Paris, it's like, how do you know pill to pill, how much magnesium is in it? Do you have no consistency to it?

[Ashwin Rodriguez]

I think there's two different kinds of people here, though. There's some people who are resorting to supplements because they haven't found something that works for them in the traditional system, either because they haven't been diagnosed properly or they haven't had access to an expert or whatever. And those are people who are very desperate to, who will admit. Like, I am lowering my threshold for evidence because I've tried everything else and if there's a chance. But on the Huberman side of things and like the stack where it becomes ritualized, like, I do this every day. I do this every day. I think that's more like the wealthy or well to do, like worried well is what they're called. Where it's like I have everything else dialed in.

[Paris Martineau]

I optimizers.

[Ed Zitron]

I eat The Brian Johnson's 8 ounces.

[Ashwin Rodriguez]

Of chicken breasts and X, Y and Z and I make sure I get enough sleep because I'm tracking it and I have a bed that works as long as AWB is up.

[Paris Martineau]

Yeah.

[Ashwin Rodriguez]

And you know all of these things and then the supplement is really like the icing on the cake is usually the term that they call it. Where it's like, if you have everything else dialed in, this might help. And if it works for you and if you're able to find things that are pure and there's so many ifs, then maybe. But there haven't been studies to show. We have 4,000 guys like you and we've run this as a test. And a point that I think is missed sometimes is if something works, there's a mechanism. So There's a trade off somewhere. And I think actually Dr. Cohen, who's an over in the middle of Dr.

[Paris Martineau]

Cohen, Dr. Peter Cohen, I think he was referred to as not the supplement king because it's the opposite of that. He's like the chief supplement, like skeptic. He's a great researcher. And Dr. Who we both spoke to for our articles that has been kind of tracking the same issue that we've been talking about, but for decades.

[Ashwin Rodriguez]

Yeah. And he was like, he's like, I'm not fully against supplements as a concept, but all of these issues we brought up where it's like before you even run one of these N of 1 studies on yourself, if you decide to, you can't guarantee that what you're testing yourself with is what it says on the label. And then asides from that, he was like, I think the main ones that he called out as being if his patients are using them, it's like, we need to have a conversation about stopping.

[Ed Zitron]

This is actually a question I had.

[Ashwin Rodriguez]

Like, yes, Stuff for weight loss, stuff for exercise, stuff for male sexual enhancement, which is another gas station genre.

[Ed Zitron]

Oh, yeah. So. So I want to admit, like, I take testosterone. I'm on weekly zyostat. I prescribed my doctor before I went and got that, I really looked into all of these weird testosterone things online.

[Paris Martineau]

You were doing the gas station boner pills.

[Ed Zitron]

No, no, no, no. Because like, there was like, it was a weird thing where I was like, I recognize this is a hormone and I've known enough woman in my life that like, I know hormones do more that you can like hormone up one day and it'll be fine. But it's interesting because when you go and look online, the amount of cons related to testosterone. Just the word. There's a whole supplement thing of like testosterone enhancer. And it's just like based on no science. And then there are websites you can go to where it's like, we'll speak to a doctor and then you'll send us blood and then we'll send you testosterone in the mail and you'll inject yourself in the butt.

[Paris Martineau]

I think I love to send someone blood and receive an injection.

[Ed Zitron]

No, there is a whole viome, I think, where you said like, poop, I'm pooping. Oh.

[Paris Martineau]

And then they. Yes, and then they. It was a couple that started this poop testing startup and now they're both on the lam from, I believe, fraud charges.

[Ed Zitron]

So that's why they didn't get back to me. I sent them a lot of poop? Yeah, some mine, some others. But it's just interesting how there's this whole predatory supplement testosterone protein powder thing online. There's 100 different companies that all doing weird shit. I get. I get targeted for the. The high protein foods now.

[Paris Martineau]

Yes, that was a.

[Ed Zitron]

Are any of those full of lead?

[Paris Martineau]

I don't know. We didn't test them.

[Ed Zitron]

God damn it.

[Paris Martineau]

But I'm fascinated by them. And it's all I was thinking about when I was reporting this out. I just put. Because every store has like a protein boosted pasta, protein croissant, protein popcorn. I've eaten a lot of them as well. But then you look in the back and it's like, what's one of the first ingredients? Like a whey protein? Yeah, it just says lead. It's like a whey protein concentrate or like a. The pea protein.

[Ed Zitron]

The plant ones, I'm staying the fuck away from. Those ones are really fun though, because you go and look, it's like, Yeah, I need 20 grams of protein and only 200 calories for the cookie. And the cookie is the size of a dime. It's like an ins. It's the insanity of these things as well. And it feels the Internet is just this, like this kind of abuse mechanism for it because there's the ton. Actually, I will say there's a ton of really good Reddit threads where they're just like, no, it's bullshit. No, it's bullshit. Which is awesome. But the amount of hoi polloi around, like, yeah, this supplement changed my life. And then another guy, I hate this. It g diarrhea. And it's like, okay.

[Paris Martineau]

I've been really fascinated. One of the responses I've gotten in my article from some of the people who take the supplements that are the most lead is being like, well, it's not that much lead. It's actually fine in comparison. I was like, why are we stumping for lead, guys? But second to your point earlier, I think just one of the things about this story that I find the most valuable is just people need to know should people should be able to figure out what is in their product and make an informed decision about whether or not they want that. If you like, read. Yeah, that Huel. One serving of Huel's black edition has like 6.3 micrograms of lead in it. And you're like, I'm into that. Good for you. Like, make your own decisions.

[Ed Zitron]

I've tried their food like that and what's great is they call it food product, which is what you really want from the thing you're eating. And it also tastes and looks like prison food. It's.

[Ashwin Rodriguez]

I like food product.

[Paris Martineau]

Back in the day was a Soylent. During a really deeply depressed time of my life.

[Ed Zitron]

No, I've had, I've had some depressing stuff.

[Paris Martineau]

Yeah. But there was like a time where Soylent was just selling like a. A neutral rectangle of basically food products.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah, it was just slop.

[Paris Martineau]

It was, it was slop but in a square shape.

[Ashwin Rodriguez]

A slop brick.

[Paris Martineau]

Yeah, it was a slop brick.

[Ed Zitron]

And just stuff.

[Paris Martineau]

Yeah, I mean that was giving me some sort of mental poisoning at the very.

[Ed Zitron]

Oh yes, there really is.

[Paris Martineau]

Based on vibes.

[Ed Zitron]

I do think you kind of said something Ashwin that goes. But it's like there is a faith based thing to it. It's a ritual. It's like I know when I've been in the throat gonna be very vulnerable. The throes of like depression around weight loss and working out and such. The I would eat and like the small amounts of food or like the weird insulting products I'd eat and you'd go online and other people doing it too. It's like, yeah, I. I am the penitent man. I shall pass like an Indiana Jones. And I. I suffer like you do. And everyone's kind of suffering together. And at the time I was like, oh, this is great. Other people, I'm like, like we all are very unhappy. And it's. But the amount of.

[Paris Martineau]

But it's forming a community around being unhappy and that's addictive.

[Ed Zitron]

It's the predatory nature. It's radicalization, but in a different form. And weirdly enough, I haven't seen it around. The fitness things. Like all the fight camp people I've talked to are just like kind of crazy. Like we just enjoy punching the bag.

[Paris Martineau]

I mean, but there is like such a cult around protein maximalization, like protein maxing that I mean.

[Ed Zitron]

Well, actually tell me a little bit about this.

[Paris Martineau]

It's. Well, people overwhelmingly think you need more protein than you actually do. Like, I was definitely one of these people before I started like researching this story. I thought I was like similarly in my pits of depression, like and micromanaging the food I ate. I was like, oh, I'm woefully protein deficient. I need to be making sure I'm having like seven chicken breasts a day or something crazy like that because that'll be great with my working out.

[Ed Zitron]

I thought it was actually really helpful on this for me. Keep going. Sorry.

[Paris Martineau]

And it's just like for the average person, you're probably getting more than enough protein through your food. And unless you fall into some specific categories or have like a specific type of like workout need that you have, like, you don't need to be having way over the recommended daily allowance of protein, which is 0.8 grams per kilogram body weight.

[Ed Zitron]

Thank you. I'm glad you know this. I was actually going to ask, but Ashwin, you've been quite transformative with my weight loss because you're the one who mostly advocated for doing less weird shit. Just like try and get like work on consistency and eating enough protein.

[Paris Martineau]

Yeah, who would have guessed? Doing things regularly is useful, I feel.

[Ashwin Rodriguez]

Like, because I definitely fall into the index, maybe over indexing for protein, but in like, I think part of the reason that it's having a moment, sustain moment is that. But when people like if you're trying to have a rubric for how to assemble a plate and the largest things are protein and veg, those are the most filling things with fiber and how satiating protein is. And it's like if you do that, there's not many other rules that you have to kind of abide by without getting into. Otherwise you can get kind of a little bit disordered depending on how you think about this stuff. But then I think what became an issue is that there's research and you know, an emphasis on protein. And then it's like, okay, we need to put protein in water, we need to put it in chips. We need to put.

[Paris Martineau]

It was protein beer. We need to calm down, folks.

[Ed Zitron]

I like the protein chips.

[Ashwin Rodriguez]

It's fine.

[Paris Martineau]

Listen, the protein chips taste significantly better than you'd expect.

[Ed Zitron]

Yes, but that's always with protein stuff. It's like, it's better than you'd expect.

[Ashwin Rodriguez]

It seems like it's a. Like we're just whoever is trying to solve like a much bigger problem with just a consumption. Yeah.

[Paris Martineau]

And I think there was like some interesting research I came upon which is like people if they looked at like two identical like cereal brands, that one had the word protein on it and one didn't, they'd be like, oh, the protein one is healthier. And if you actually looked at the ingredients in the back, the protein 1 was like less healthy.

[Ed Zitron]

It's the new low fat.

[Paris Martineau]

It is the new low fat. But it's been like it's the first of these diet trends that we've had go on for a long time without ever having the bubble pop on it. Like there's no people being like, oh, protein is Bad for you. And I don't think, like, that's. Protein isn't bad for you. It's totally fine to have, but you don't need to be obsessed with it. It doesn't need to be the end.

[Ed Zitron]

All we both say this is people who have obsessed over.

[Paris Martineau]

Yes.

[Ashwin Rodriguez]

Yes. I think it's like the old trope was, you know, how in, you know, like, women's fitness magazines, they'd be like, I'm worried about lifting weights because as soon as I pick up a dumbbell, I'm going to be like, you know, jacked bodybuilder. And I'm worried about that. That's something that happens to people.

[Paris Martineau]

Yeah.

[Ashwin Rodriguez]

And I think now.

[Ed Zitron]

And that is categorically untrue, just to be clear.

[Ashwin Rodriguez]

Yeah. No, it's completely false.

[Ed Zitron]

Only it was that easy.

[Ashwin Rodriguez]

It's like, you know, you trip and fall, and if you pick up something by accident, I don't know about you.

[Paris Martineau]

Guys, every time I accidentally touch a weight, I just get ripped.

[Ed Zitron]

Just like a Rob Lee feel.

[Paris Martineau]

I can't even, like, wear sleeved shirts.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah. Just like, pop out.

[Ashwin Rodriguez]

But I think it's the same thing now where, you know, I've been like this. I've had friends like this, where it's like, they go to the gym twice and they're like, I don't think I'm getting enough protein.

[Ed Zitron]

Like, why?

[Ashwin Rodriguez]

You're like, I just. I don't feel like I'm getting the results. And you're like, how long have you been doing whatever? And then they're like, two days. Like, okay, you're trying to solve a much bigger problem with a consumption, you know, solution. Yeah.

[Ed Zitron]

And I think it's all taking advantage of a really shitty, sad thing, which is. Yeah, if you're putting on weight, you might be eating too much food. If you're not putting on muscle, maybe you're not doing enough consistently.

[Paris Martineau]

Yeah.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah, maybe. If you're not. If you're not feeling healthy, are you doing things that. It's like.

[Paris Martineau]

It's like a really easy shortcut to feeling better about your choices. You're like, oh, I'm not. It's not bad that I'm having a Pop Tart. It's a protein Pop Tartar.

[Ed Zitron]

I'm not changing my. I'm not changing my life in any way, but my life will change somehow. And it's not my fault. It's not changing. It's something else.

[Paris Martineau]

Yeah. It's like, it's not bad that I had a whole bowl of pasta Tonight because it's protein.

[Ed Zitron]

The protein pop tarts are pretty good. I've tried. I feel like, I do feel like we're in the golden age of like low calorie, high protein things. I love it. But at the same time it's like, yeah, you can just eat as much food as you used to in protein and you're just gonna, you're not, you're gonna plateau.

[Paris Martineau]

Yeah.

[Ed Zitron]

And it sucks. And it sucks a lot because, I don't know, this all gets back to the core Internet thing of everyone wants the easy choices. Hey, it's like the radicalization of young men. Oh, it's because women won't speak to you. Maybe you're rude, maybe you don't bring much to the concert. Maybe you've got bad vibes, maybe you have bad breath. Like maybe you have a bad something. Maybe you have.

[Paris Martineau]

Maybe all that protein you're eating. You stank.

[Ashwin Rodriguez]

Yeah, protein farts are real.

[Ed Zitron]

No, they really are. It's really bad.

[Paris Martineau]

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[Ed Zitron]

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[Paris Martineau]

You know what?

[Ashwin Rodriguez]

I can see you as Mr. Darcy.

[Paris Martineau]

You got a little call. And first.

[Ed Zitron]

Okay, that's really sweet. I appreciate that, but are you sure I'm not the dad? I'm not Mr. Bennett here, listen to earsay the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club on the iHeartradio app or wherever you get your podcasts. But it's like you can't find an easy way out, so you blame something. And in this case, it's, I didn't have enough pills. I didn't have all of the many pills.

[Paris Martineau]

My stack needs to be higher.

[Ed Zitron]

No, it really, the stack stuff is crazy.

[Ashwin Rodriguez]

Well, that's actually to that point. Like, I've spoken to, like, health influencers who have and ones who I consider, like, pretty responsible, and they're like, we're trying to make boring Things sexy. Whether it's like, because otherwise you can't have a health podcast that comes out twice a week with just established stuff. Because it would be like, hey, did you get enough sleep? How much have you exercised this week? How is your mental health and how is your nutrition? And that would be it, you know, like. But they can be like, oh, there's a promising new rat study done on 1, 2 rats. One of them exploded, but the other, you know, looks pretty good. As long as you don't explode.

[Paris Martineau]

You'll be so hot.

[Ed Zitron]

Only two out of the seven rats.

[Ashwin Rodriguez]

Exploded and they had bad vibes and.

[Ed Zitron]

The others were jacked.

[Paris Martineau]

Yeah, no, this is the problem. Whenever I spoke to, like, fitness or performance experts in the research field of protein and muscle, I was like, oh, well, what's the best advice for you? But he's like, nobody wants to hear it. But just like, eat whole foods, make healthy choices, take care of your body. Everyone falls asleep if you say that.

[Ed Zitron]

No, it's. I like, my big secret is that I sleep seven and a half to eight hours a night. I mandate this. And it's like, doing that changed my life more than any pill I've taken in my goddamn life. Other than like maybe my methylphenidate for my adh. It's insane how much that helped. But the problem is, is once you've got into the routine of sleep, it's great. Making yourself get into a routine of sleeping that much is actually very difficult, nightmarish. And you need like, I sleep with like, the blackout thing.

[Paris Martineau]

Like, I. I'm just imagining you in a coffin.

[Ed Zitron]

No, I really, like, it's super cold. Like, I like, have like the full blackout eye mask. I take a. But I take like melatonin and trazodone sometimes if I'm having trouble sleeping, I sleep like a baby. And it's great. But it's like, to your point, Ashmud's like, yeah, that would really help. I don't know how the fuck a parent does that. Like, I don't know how, like, someone with like three kids would possibly ever fucking do that.

[Paris Martineau]

Someone who works nights.

[Ed Zitron]

Someone who works nights. Someone who just has a stressful job that comes up in their mind when they close their eyes.

[Paris Martineau]

Someone who's housing insecure.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah, exactly. Any number of things could change. Or just anyone with a decent amount of stress in their life. It's difficult. And even like the. I feel like some of these fitness influencers or the fitness communities, there is a degree of pressure. There's not really much Empathy at all. Like, Asher, I've definitely messaged you with just like, I feel that shit about my. Most of the time you just say, you doing all right. Like, it could be maybe you got knocked off your routine. And I think that the grisly fact of all this is, yeah, it's routine consistency, actually having good advice. Like, I took me years to find someone who could actually tell me a routine that would work. I was lifting and literally hurting myself for years because everything I read was like, you need to do the big three core lifts, you fucking moron. You can't bend.

[Ashwin Rodriguez]

You can't.

[Ed Zitron]

You can't bench your way. Like, I'm like a buck 65 bucks 70, right? Bucks, yeah. Buck 70, maybe. And I can't bench my body weight, but I'm healthier and stronger than I've ever been. But just like, on one core lift, I can't. And it's like, can squat 300, though. And it's fucking strange because there's so much literature that says that's bad. Even the bmi, which is by, like a.

[Paris Martineau]

By like health insurance company, not health insurance.

[Ed Zitron]

I thought the BMI is by, like, an anthropologist.

[Paris Martineau]

No, it's by some corporate figure. Perhaps life insurance.

[Ed Zitron]

No, no, that's steps. Steps were the one. I'm sorry, anyone who talks about steps. That was a Japanese life insurance company. It was like. Well, like a Japanese health insurance company. I'm pretty sure the bmi. I'm going to look this up live on the show.

[Paris Martineau]

I was going to say, you have the technology here.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah, there we go. Who invented this? Adolphe Quetelet, a Belgian astronomer. Said that word flawlessly. Mathematician, statistician, devised the basis of the BMI between 1830 and 1850.

[Paris Martineau]

Hey, that's when they really knew their stuff.

[Ed Zitron]

That's when they really knew science, for example. It's just fucking stupid. There's so much bad. Like, the steps thing is the thing that frustrates me as well, because you can do so many steps without anything happening. Like, I've fallen into this trap myself, and I feel. I hope that it's clear. Anyone listening to this, this is not a shame thing. This is a thing that I have done many. He's like, oh, I got 10,000 steps. That means shit.

[Ashwin Rodriguez]

It's like, what's that based on? Like, the Japanese pedometer?

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah, yeah, that's exactly it. It's like the insurance company. And it's. It sucks because that was the earliest version of this supplement fitness kind of scam thing.

[Ashwin Rodriguez]

Well, I feel like, you know, 10,000 steps was kind of like the prototype for a bunch of things we've seen since, where all of these devices have come up with some kind of proprietary metric where it's like you got a million Google points for your activity.

[Paris Martineau]

The one I'm seeing so much now is like your body's age, your biological age is 18 or something like that. And it's like, sir, you are a 39 year old man. Just feel good about yourself.

[Ashwin Rodriguez]

But you have boy blood.

[Paris Martineau]

You've got boy blood.

[Ed Zitron]

I should also be clear, by the way, if you're doing steps, moving is important. It's good if you're trying, if you're.

[Paris Martineau]

Doing any of these things. If you're walking, great, makes you happy. And you're an adult with free will. Live your truth.

[Ed Zitron]

But I have an OURA ring and I do have an eight sleep mattress.

[Paris Martineau]

Did it break during the.

[Ed Zitron]

No, I was. And I'm a baby. I need like cold, cold. Like I have it in like minus 10. I'm. I am like an actual creature. But it's. I have stats from my ring, I have stats from my bed. I've got this thing called Somni that does like tax electrical things. It's great, really helps. And like my REM sleep is up and I think, I feel it's just like, I don't really have any frame of reference what any of this does. Knowing how much I sleep is useful because it's like, yeah, if I have less than eight, I don't feel as good. But it's like I have data for years, years and years.

[Ashwin Rodriguez]

He is.

[Ed Zitron]

And he is. I could not tell you a single fucking thing about my fitness other than I feel and look better than I have. Like, I can't tell you shit. But there's this guilt factor about it as well. With like, Strava loves to inform me, like, oh, you moved things down, your numbers are low. It's like, thank you, Strava. What am I meant to do at this? Oh, I forgot to work out. That's what happened. I need guilt trips.

[Ashwin Rodriguez]

Yeah. I think, like, it takes a lot of discipline and perspective to not, not go nuts from, you know, having all this information in front of you. Like, I remember when I got one of the first Fitbits and it very quickly became like a obsessive thing that I had to stop using where it's like, oh, I could get to a nice round number if I go for another run. Or like, you know, like the.

[Paris Martineau]

My Fitness Pal trap.

[Ashwin Rodriguez]

Yeah, that was When I, When I once I signed up for a gym and they had to, like, as part of the package, you could get a session with a personal trainer. And I got this guy who's like, oh, you got to start tracking what you eat. And I. He was like, use my fitness palette. I tried it for a day. I was like, this is going to drive me insane and give me a new type of eating disorder that I don't want. And, you know, it's just one of those things where, you know, some people are able to do that and make it part of their lifestyle and other people, it drives them fucking nuts.

[Ed Zitron]

I do think we need some degree of, like, tonal. For example, I did injure myself using it. It was my fault. I just overtrained. It feels like it should be able to tell you, like, hey, man, you've done four heavy lifts in the last five days. Maybe not. Maybe you should think about it for a second. Peloton. I mean, I've overtrained on it. When I used to do it years ago. You got on the Reddit. Tons of people over train on it. You get obsessive. They have the. The medals you can get. And there's absolutely no, like, coaching aspect. It's not like a, hey, you've done a lot of heavy stuff. Maybe do some like. There's no real guidance. And there's so much.

[Paris Martineau]

It's because all of these companies now operate like tech companies where increasing user engagement is one of the end goals. Of course you want engaged users. Of course you want your users that are moderately engaged to become highly engaged. Why would you ever want to slow down that ramp? But it gets more complicated when you're talking about people and their bodies and habits and actual human things.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah. And it's also just, just. It gets back to the thing of there's not much qualified advice. There's a lot of seemingly qualified, but it's hard to tell what the actual. Oh, there's a hundred million different people will be like, I'll build you a plan. There's none. None of them have worked. Other than the guy called Ben, the PC guy on. On Twitter and as in personal computer. Used to work Microsoft. Lovely guy. He's the only person, other than Ashwin, I think, who's given me, like, any, like, useful, reliable fitness advice. A lot of it's just.

[Ashwin Rodriguez]

Yeah.

[Ed Zitron]

Mixing a bit of cardio. Volume's good and it. But you read a bunch of other stuff. No, dude. Starting strength 5x5. You fucking pig. Yeah. If you don't have 1.5x by the.

[Paris Martineau]

End of the year, I'm come to your house and kick you in balls.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah. I'm gonna squat you in half.

[Paris Martineau]

Yeah.

[Ed Zitron]

I'm gonna do to what Bane did to Batman and I'm gonna log that in Strava. Strava's also shit. A lot of these things are also shit for logging fitness. Like it's just like the Apple watch also doesn't stay on my. There's a lot of just times when I use the stuff I'm like, do people who do fitness use this thing or is this just to your point? Paris, just another tech company I like to. I will go to bat for tonal in that I've used it for years and I think it's one of the best ones because it does actually really hound you about form. But like things like peloton, they don't give me.

[Paris Martineau]

I was gonna say, I think any of these products, if you use them in moderation, if they bring some sort of joy to your life, they bring consistency. That's great. But it's hard when you mix kind of habit forming products and the kind of flywheel of engagement with something like exercise.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah. And I feel like it's almost antithetical to the what makes exercise successful, which is you kind of need to learn how your body feels, which is a very woo woo thing. But it's true. Like.

[Ashwin Rodriguez]

Yeah.

[Ed Zitron]

You know, when your body, like some weeks you may do four exercises, sometimes you may do two because you're. I don't know, speaking for space, you hurt your cough and you hurt your elbow in the same week. Yeah. You probably shouldn't push yourself to box or lift even if your brain's saying you get fat if you do. But nevertheless it's like that. It runs completely contrary to a product. That's the goal is to keep you using it. Like the. You must log in every day. If you don't do that, you're a peer gonna happen.

[Paris Martineau]

The duolingo owl is gonna beat you up.

[Ed Zitron]

You'll kill the duolingo owl. I will.

[Ashwin Rodriguez]

I do my duolingo every day. And like that Lily will be like, hey, you haven't done it would be a shame if you lose your streak and I take all of my sleeping pills tonight. You're like, chill out, I'll do it in the garage. Like the incentive for these, you know, the companies, you know, obviously they act like tech companies where they're trying to keep things as sticky as possible and you know, have things on subscription basis instead of just being able to buy stuff outright. And I found like, it's antithetical to a proper business model. But a lot of this stuff is useful for a period of time. Like I tried whoop and some of it I found useful, some of it, it was annoying to me that it doesn't track weightlifting as well as cardio. And because I lost the forest for the trees, I would do more cardio because that would get counted, which is idiotic. If you step back and be like, I'm doing it because of my bracelet that I'm paying for. But some people, you use something to collect some data and then you kind of pair that with your intuition and what works or what you're feeling. Cause I found whoop would tell me I had a great sleep and I felt like shit and vice versa. And you realize you have to know yourself well enough to maybe make a overriding decision that it's not accurately capturing how you feel. And then once you spend a period of time doing whatever training, you don't necessarily need a gizmo or gadget to tell you what you feel intuitively. But that's not something that they're going to say like, oh, try this and then throw it in the garbage.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah, you're only going to need this a minute, mate. Don't worry, just pay us for a month. Who gives a shit? They love all the growth. People are yelling at me, but you just fucking get rid of. Sucks. But I, I do love, I really, I love.

[Paris Martineau]

You are the most. I feel like metrics obsessed person. I know. In just terms of you're always posting your fitness metrics.

[Ed Zitron]

I love it. No, I actually like, it's just also like good to. For me to just do and be like, okay, I did that. I forgot whether I did or not.

[Paris Martineau]

Yeah, no, it seems like I don't.

[Ed Zitron]

Know and it's fun. No, I just run to a local basketball court and I just run around for 45 minutes missing.

[Paris Martineau]

I'm just imagining you by yourself. There's not even a basketball.

[Ed Zitron]

You're just shooting, just air shooting. I admit I went on Amazon and there was a tech enabled basketball.

[Paris Martineau]

Imagine that your basketball can like degrade you while you're.

[Ed Zitron]

You're not doing like claptrap from Borderlands. Like, ah, that was a bad shot. That's a good. No, it's like a conversion.

[Paris Martineau]

Guys, we should stop this podcast right now.

[Ed Zitron]

If you're one of the companies with a connected basketball, send it to me. I would love to play the basketball. You could. And send all my data to China. Just like there's a pig butchering operation that starts in on me because I can't shoot.

[Paris Martineau]

If you shoot the basketball well enough, then a hole opens in it and it shoots the protein supplement right into your mouth.

[Ed Zitron]

Like a fish biscuit. Lost. No. Or just like if you shoot really badly, you have to keep playing, the ball starts getting heavier. It was $250. 250. I guess, like, I mean, I sort of.

[Paris Martineau]

This is a dumb person thought. But my thought is, wouldn't it be kind of hard to make a tech product that works well that you also throw at the ground?

[Ed Zitron]

That's the thing. I'm like, I'm oddly curious about it and I guess now I've talked about it on the show, I could tax deduct it. But there was also a $5,000 basketball hoop, which fucking. No. It's like, it's so cool. I definitely went down. I'm like not would never.

[Paris Martineau]

What about it is.

[Ed Zitron]

What it is is the backboard of it is a screen. So it's like peloton and it's like, shoot the ball. Shoot the ball.

[Paris Martineau]

Why are you making Nerf guns? Complicated tech product that is expensive that you throw something really hard at.

[Ed Zitron]

Well, that I can understand because that's how basketball works. It's more. I'm just like, who the fuck is this for? Because five grand for that, you can just. You can probably just go to a local court where people play it and they'll just tell you why you're trash. They'll screaming at you and like, if anyone in New York wants to get together, shoot hoops, absolute ash win. I know it would be meaning, but it's like the most joy I've got out of any of this isn't the tech enabled stuff. It's shooting the shit with people. Once you get over the initial hoop of exercise sucking, and I wish like it sucks because the supplement stuff online is very noxious, the kind of predatory stuff. But the communities online with fitness have been very good. Like there's actually like when you get away from the very negative ones and it's just the people having fun, it's great. But there's such a war within them of like the. The stat maxes or the cheats. Of course, the people who just cheat. Yeah, the peloton cheats are great. You can, you can.

[Paris Martineau]

There is that website that will allow you to cheat your Strava.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah, that's the peloton ones. You can change the magnets. You can unscrew it, change them? No, because when I used to do peloton a lot, I used to get really pissed off because I'd really, like. I knew my stats and I'd see a guy doing like 500 watts for like 45 minutes. I'm like, you are fucked up.

[Paris Martineau]

What is this for?

[Ashwin Rodriguez]

Yeah, it's like doping in the nerd Olympics.

[Ed Zitron]

No, it's straight up broke. It's why I stopped using peloton, because I'm like, the whole reason I do this is to get better. And this is a measurement of my strength. This number no longer means anything. Like, this number is meaningless. Now I can't even tell.

[Paris Martineau]

Especially because it's obviously a competitive aspect.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah, exactly.

[Paris Martineau]

It's like you're like, I'm always being lapped by this person who clearly just.

[Ed Zitron]

Has, like, their magnets look and the line is just at the top of the graph.

[Paris Martineau]

I don't know, maybe the strongest guy in the world.

[Ed Zitron]

Yes.

[Ashwin Rodriguez]

Just the guy with, like, terminator like.

[Ed Zitron]

Thighs, 3ft wide thighs, just like, he has to get a special pedal, but tiny feet.

[Ashwin Rodriguez]

Yeah.

[Ed Zitron]

All right, I think we're going to wrap it there now we've talked about the tiny footed peloton person. Paris, where people find you.

[Paris Martineau]

You can find me on bluesky@paris nyc or twitter @ Paris Martineau and follow my work at Consumer Reports.

[Ed Zitron]

Ashwin.

[Ashwin Rodriguez]

Yeah, you can find me at bluesky as well. I think I'm the only Ashwin Rodriguez on there. And my website is ashwinrodriguez.com and I am Ed Zerchon.

[Ed Zitron]

You can find me on the podcast Better Offline. I nearly missed the name of the podcast there, but I recovered flawlessly. I took a week off my fucking premium newsletter last week, so please subscribe so that I can feel better about myself. Should be a fun, fun week coming up. I think I'm just going to do a very simplified monologue this week and just really run through the basics because I. I've had requests that we need the basics of the AI bubble done, which is crazy because I've done like 100 episodes on it. Anyway, I love you all. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you to be he. We're out here in New York City. We've kicked ass out here.

[Paris Martineau]

And.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah, catch you next week. And actually on the monologue as well. Thank you for listening to Better Offline. The editor and composer of the Better Offline theme song is Matt Osawski. You can check out more of his music and audio [e-mail] M A T T O S O W S K-I dot com. You can email me at ezeteroffline.com or visit betteroffline.com to find more podcast links and of course my newsletter. I also really recommend you go to chat. Where's your ed at? To visit the Discord and go to R betteroffline to check out our Reddit. Thank you so much for listening. Better Offline is a production of Cool Zone Media.

[Paris Martineau]

For more from Cool Zone Media, Visit.

[Ed Zitron]

Our website coolzonemedia.com or check us out.

[Paris Martineau]

On the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or.

[Ed Zitron]

Wherever you get your podcast. This podcast is brought to you by FedEx the new power Move hey, you know those people in your office who are always pulling old school corporate power moves? Like the guy who weaponizes eye contact. He's confident, he's engaged. He's often creepy. It's an old school power move, but this alpha dog laser gaze won't keep your supply chain moving across borders. The real power move? Having a smart platform that keeps up with the changing trade landscape. That's why smart businesses partner with FedEx and use the power of digital intelligence to navigate around supply chain issues before they happen. Set your sights on something that will actually improve your business. FedEx the new power Move get ready to power up your play with Nintendo Switch 2. Power up the visuals with 4K support and a bigger, more vivid screen. Power up the fun with exclusive new games like Mario Kart World and Donkey Kong bonanza. Nintendo Switch 2 all together, anytime anywhere. Games rated E to E. 10 games and systems sold separately. Compatible TV required for 4K display.

[Ashwin Rodriguez]

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[Ed Zitron]

News terms apply. Thursday Night Football is on, and it's only on Prime Video.

[Ashwin Rodriguez]

A game of inches.

[Ed Zitron]

This week it's an AFC clash as the Baltimore Ravens meet the Miami Dolphin. Coverage begins at 7pm Eastern with Football's Best Party TNF tonight presented by Verizon.

[Paris Martineau]

Not a Prime member?

[Ed Zitron]

Not a problem. Simply sign up for a 30 day free trial. It's the Ravens and Dolphins Thursday at 7pm Eastern only on Prime Video.

[Paris Martineau]

Restrictions apply. See Amazon.com Amazon prime for teachers. This is an iHeart podcast.