Ray Peat was a confusing sort of guy… he wrote about his ideas in “books” and articles. You literally have to navigate to a “website” to read some of his stuff. He often wrote words, arranged left-to-right in what are called “paragraphs.” Hard guy to pin down.

A big reason why Peat’s work was so different (besides the comprehensive bird’s eye view thing) was that a lot of it was written for people with complex metabolic and hormonal problems. He had to zoom in a lot. He had to connect some dots. If you’ve ever been very sick and come back from it, you know how bad things can get. Small things do start to matter. A lot. Being sick was a very dark time in my life. Some of my orthorexia was rooted in reality. But a lot of it wasn’t. A lot of it was pathological—a trauma response to not feeling safe in my own body for a long time. Many prominent and rapidly-growing health accounts have never been through anything resembling a desperate state. They view health as a game of accruing Esoteric Points (EPs) by being the most extreme in their beliefs. Is there perhaps evidence that nylon is less optimal than cotton? Absolutely. But don’t let some asshole make you afraid of your socks. Post-2022 “Peating” is not about health. The primal diet is not about health. These are social clubs for the neurotic and mentally ill, and the people at the top are siphoning resources from them. The really talented ones don’t even know they’re doing it. People see post-COVID holistic health as rapidly growing, and as a good thing overall. And in many ways it is. There’s a lot of good stuff happening behind the scenes. It’s people you haven’t heard of doing real work to change things that will impact you and your loved ones. But this place… this place is beyond dead. Shoehorned affiliate links under stolen posts. Endless mood boards cycling the same 15 images. “Dick-Maxxing.” Eating ice cream to “boost serotonin.” I can’t use my microwave or have some polyester in my pants but you’re smoking a Marlboro because the pack is aesthetic? Fuck you. Nobody has had a new idea here in years. Nobody has read a single Peat article all the way through, and the followers now don’t even expect you to. They’re following because this is Christian Mingle, you’re Holistic Sundress Gal #413, you’ve got an ice-cold take about girlboss gelatin, and a big ol’ wave of DMs coming your way. Or they’re following because your profile picture is Alain Delon and your parents have a beach house you can LARP in. Maybe you can write us a poem on human suffering after you finish up your grocery haul video. I believe it was Friedrich Nietzsche who said that we are all stardust. Well, buddy, I’m here to tell you: not everyone. Some of you guys are poop dust. Nigga. We’re at a point now where healthy kids are growing their brands by making the sick much sicker, in some perverse inversion of the original project. Maybe this was the original project all along. Anyway. When you heal, go get a burger and fries somewhere. Not because it’s tasty. It’s a psychological thing. You need to remember that this is just something you can do.