Better Offline - The Internet Is The World's Worst Pharmacy w/ Paris Martineau & Ashwin Rodrigues

Episode Date: October 29, 2025

Welcome to Radio Better Offline, a tech talk radio show recorded out of iHeartRadio's studio in New York City. Ed is joined in-studio by Paris Martineau of Consumer Reports and freelance writer Ashwin Rodrigues to talk about the amount of lead in protein shakes, why people turn to the internet for medical advice, and how supplements are the wild west of e-commerce.  Paris Martineauhttps://www.consumerreports.org/about-us/our-people/our-experts/paris-martineau/ https://bsky.app/profile/paris.nyc Protein Powders story: https://www.consumerreports.org/lead/protein-powders-and-shakes-contain-high-levels-of-lead-a4206364640/ Ashwin Rodrigueshttps://bsky.app/profile/ashwinrodrigues.com Supplements Story: https://archive.ph/L6OZz/again?url=https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/07/well/doctors-supplements.html Want to support me? Get $10 off a year’s subscription to my premium newsletter: https://edzitronswheresyouredatghostio.outpost.pub/public/promo-subscription/w08jbm4jwg YOU CAN NOW BUY BETTER OFFLINE MERCH! Go to https://cottonbureau.com/people/better-offline and use code FREE99 for free shipping on orders of $99 or more. --- LINKS: https://www.tinyurl.com/betterofflinelinks Newsletter: https://www.wheresyoured.at/ Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/BetterOffline/  Discord: chat.wheresyoured.at Ed's Socials: https://twitter.com/edzitron https://www.instagram.com/edzitron  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHart Women's Sports. Hey, I'm Deanna Maria Riva, and on my new podcast, How Hard Can It Be? I call on my Gen X squad from Ohio to Hollywood as we navigate midlife's most fantastic BS. Unfiltered conversations from night sweats to futas to scheduling sex. Wait, what sex? Is it just me or does every woman my age want to look at Pinterest instead of having sex sometimes?

They say we can't polish a turn, but we're sure going to try. So let's get blunt with laughs, tears, or tears of laughter. Listen to How Hard Can It Be with Diana Maria Riva on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello and welcome to Better Offline. I'm your host, Ed Zittron. Now, the other day someone suggested I shouldn't do ASMR-style voices, and I'm still not sure what that means, but does it mean I shouldn't be this close and being like, you're in the bathtub? Either way, I'm never listening to a single bit of feedback I've ever received, but today I'm in studio in New York goddamn city, and I'm joined by the incredible freelance writer Ashwin Rodriguez. Hey, doing Ashwin.

Good, thanks for having me. And Paris Mardonnoy of Consumer Reports. Hello, should I do mouth noises too? Yeah, they love them. But you had a huge story, Paris, in the last week or so. It was like a week or two times a bit of a blur, honestly. So it was a story around 23 protein powders and ready to drink shakes and properly brands. And you found that heavy metal contamination was common?

How common exactly? Yeah, very common, actually. Like more than two-thirds of them. Actually, this will be really important for. And your listers, 69% of them had 69% of them had levels of lead in one serving that are more than what our food safety experts say is safe to take in a day. Jesus Christ. 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 way or dairy or like dairy-based products like way or beef-based they had just higher levels of lead. Why is the lead getting in? 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? 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 it leads one of those things to begin with, it might get more concentrated. And all these, like, popular brands, are these small brands? 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

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 samples of each product, tested multiple lots, and then analyzed all the results. Led Plaint. Lovely. So is, and so it was, but it's more in plant protein ones. Yeah. So plant protein powders, overwhelmingly. They had about nine lead levels that were nine times as much as dairy-based ones and twice as much as

beef-based ones. How the fuck are people not dying? 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 not going to get lead poisoning. That's kind of what I was getting it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like a lead.

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 test. 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 it 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 it 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.

Right. And when that happens, then the lead leeches out and it goes bad for you. So the real issue with these products in particular is consumer reports has done a lot of like heavy metal testing and stuff. Right. Right. 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 or 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. And there's no regulation or testing that should have stopped this? Is there a thing that this breaks? Like, is— I mean, this is— We kind of have an FDA. We kind of have an FDA. This has been one of the most interesting things about this.

So 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 shows. it 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. Right. 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. 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. Yeah. So my story in the Times was about how supplements to this point that I saw in the Consumer Report's story about protein is in the 1994 D. Shea Act.

Yes. Which was? 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 way protein or whatever. But then there's also things that people are taking for purported, like drug-like effects like Ashwaganda or, you know. Or even like melatonin, what they call gas station heroin is a dietary. supplement.

Boner pills, dietary supplement also. What, horny goat weed is that? No, there's a different, I believe it's cratum and something else. Oh. But this is the stuff that some people were using to wean themselves off of opiates, and then other people who weren't on opiates were taking it. To win themselves onto opiates.

Really great that that classifies as something the FDA is like, yeah. I've always been fascinated that like the gas station is like the cutting edge of pharmaceuticals for some reason. I mean, yeah, and it's just, it's so. Robert Evans will. love this. 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 they're supposed to comply with, like, good manufacturing processes. But, like, for

instance, one stat that really stood out to me all reporting this is, like, the FDA says there's 12,000 registered dietary supplement manufacturers. Last year, they inspected 600 of them. And, like, 5010 of those inspections were domestic manufacturers. There was only 90 that were inspected abroad. And I suspect that's for a lot of the manufacturing of these products actually occurs. Is there like a bleedover effect where they say, oh yeah, designed in America but manufactured in the global south, 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 right 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 is a larger problem than being like, this has been designed in the US, but it's actually here. Right. And then the way that they aren't regulating these things for any possible 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. Which is crazy because Amazon is full of the fucking things.

Because I lifted these amounts. It's been a bad month for it, I guess. But I tried various supplements 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'm 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. Yeah. And how do you even know? 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 regularly manage to take two pills a day.

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, 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 like the quote, unquote, boring things.

Like, you know, I don't think people think iron supplements are sexy or, like, calcium or vitamin D. No, but they think, like, quick shortcuts to health are sexy. Yeah. 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. I'm sad I couldn't make it more into the article because I was going 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 unalloyed 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 and other drugs is that supplement manufacturers are supposed to make sure their products aren't harmful. But basically they get to determine what counts is 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. They set their own. Give me an example of a limit they'd set. 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 like 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.

This just feels like it's going to kill someone. I'm sure someone has already had a situation when they over-supplemented. Well, no, this was a real issue back in the day. Yeah, and I mean, I think what's fascinating slash 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 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 the 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. Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guide, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Jim Gaffigan to Bob Odenkirk

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Life throws hurdles big and small. The question is, how do you conquer them? On Hurtle with Emily Abadi, we sit down with the most inspiring women in sports and wellness, professional athletes, coaches, and Olympic champions, to talk about the challenges that shaped them and the mindset. that keeps them going. From the WNBA standout, Kate Martin, and rising hockey star, Layla Edwards.

If a boy can do it, I don't see why a girl can't. Like, I've never understood that. Like, it didn't make sense in my brain. It's hard to be in spaces that no one looks like you, but don't ever feel like you don't belong. Don't let that be the reason you don't do it. An Olympic champs, Gabby Thomas, and Katie Ledecki. The ability to show a gold medal to someone

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Listen to Hurtle with Emily Abadi on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHeart Women's Sports. A win is a win. A win is a win. I don't care what you're saying. Yep, that's me. Cliver Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits, the reactions, my journey from basketball to college football, or my career in sports media.

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follow at Clifford and at TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok. See, this is a thing I've seen on a lot of Amazon reviews because I've absolutely gone down this rabbit hole, for. 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 mean, then you 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. And I will say, I have some sympathy to that. Don't worry, I'm not going that direction. Talking to a, when I used to be really overweight, It was like 350 pounds as a kid. Crazy fact. And when I'd go to doctors, they pretty much go, yeah, you're fat.

And you'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 idea is 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 can put you in touch with the nutritionist. It's like the base level knowledge isn't, well, knowledge or advice isn't there. and then booking, especially in America, getting a doctor's appointment, costs money, cost 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, change 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. It gives them a sense of control over something that feels uncontrollable. And the reason I looked at the Huberman lab stuff is not because I listen, but because there's a way. a ranking of podcasts on Reddit. And you're, I assume every, I assume right now you have a window open just refreshing that to see if you're going out. I stopped doing that weeks ago. I, 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 stank. I think you may, as you may, but it's like the pill stack and it's just. I'm sorry, stank. Stank. Oh, okay. I was like, the pill. The pill, stank is what you get when you put when you kind of poop. There's supplement for that.

I was what to say it. Yeah. But there's, and since I started like posting my work out. a few years ago, I get the most insane advertisements on Instagram. These new, like, oh, yeah, brain power. Like, mine, 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. And, like, really nice guy. And they'll be like, yes, my favorite something. It's like, brain fuse. It's bright green. It's like, what the fuck? How do you know that this helps you?

Does this, do you feel smarter? 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. Yeah. 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. Exactly.

Or like, I'll 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? I think there's two different kinds of people here, though. Like, 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. Oh, for sure. 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.

It's the optimizers. I eat, you know, eight ounces of chicken breasts and X, Y, and Z, and I make sure I get enough sleep because I'm tracking it. And I have in bed that works as long as AWS is up. Yeah. 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, you know, if it works for you and if you're able to find things that are pure and, like, there's so many ifs, like, there's so many ifs, like, there's. maybe, but there haven't been studies to show like we have like 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 like there's a tradeoff somewhere. And I think actually Dr. Cohen, who's an over in the middle of him. Who is Dr. Peter Cohen? I think he was referred to as now the supplement king because it's the opposite of that. He's like the chief supplement, like, skeptic. He's a great researcher and doctor who we both spoke to for our articles that has been kind of tracking this same issue that we've been talking about, but for decades. 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, you know, before you even run one of these N of one 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 aside 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 that. This is actually a question I had like. Stuff for weight loss, stuff for exercise, stuff for male sexual enhancement, which is another gas station genre. Oh, yeah.

So I want to admit, like, I take testosterone. I'm on weekly ziastat, a prescribed. my doctor. Before I went and got that, I really looked into all of these weird testosterone things online. You were doing the gas station boner bills? 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't just like hormone up one day and it'll be fine. But it's, it's interesting because when you go and look online, the amount of cons related to testosterone, just the word, test, test, 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 bar, I think. I love to send someone blood and receive an injection. No, there is a whole comment. Viom, I think, where you said like poop.

Oh, and then they, yes. And then they, it was a couple that started this poop testing startup. And now they're both on the lamb from, I believe, fraud charges. That's why they didn't get back to me. I sent 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 are all doing weird share. I get targeted for the high protein foods now. Yes. That was a. Are any of those full of lead? I don't know. We didn't test them. God damn it.

But I'm fascinated by them. And it's all I was thinking about. I was reporting this out, I just put, because every store has like a protein-boasted 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, uh, way protein. Yeah, yeah, it just has lead.

It's like a way protein concentrate or like a pea protein ice cream. 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 in 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 hoiploie around like yeah this supplement changed my life and then another guy I hate this it gave me diarrhea and it's like okay 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 have 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, like, 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, like, 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 Hewle, one serving of Hewels, Black. 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. I've tried their food. Like, 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. I love food product. Back in the day was a Soylent girlie during a really deeply depressed time of my life. Oh, yeah. No, I've had some depressing. Yeah, yeah. But there was like a time where Soylent was just selling like a neutral. rectangle of basically food product.

It was slop, it was slop, but in a square shape. A slop brick? Yeah, it was a slop brick. Just stuff. Yeah. I mean, that was giving me some sort of mental poisoning at the very least. Just based on vibes. I do think, you kind of said something actually.

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, I'm going to be very vulnerable. The throes of like depression around weight loss and working out and such. the shit I would eat and like the small amounts of food or like the weird insulting products I'd eat. And you go online and other people doing it too. It's like, yeah, I am the penitent man. I shall pass like in Indiana Jones.

And 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, we all are very unhappy. And it's, but the amount of. But it's forming a community around being unhappy. And that's addictive. It's the predatory nature.

It's radicalization 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. I mean, but there is, like, such a cult around protein maximization, like protein maxing. Yeah. That I mean. Well, actually, tell me a little bit about this.

It's, well, people overwhelmingly think you need more protein than you actually do. Like, I was definitely one of these people. Oh, yeah. Before I started, like, researching this story, I thought I was, like, similarly, in my pits of depression, 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. Ashok was actually really helpful on this for me.

Keep going, sorry. 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. 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. Yeah. Who would have guessed? Doing things regularly is useful. Well, I feel 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 slash sustain moment is that when people, like, if you're trying to have a rubric for, you know, how to assemble a plate and, you know, the largest things are protein and veg, like those are the most filling things, right, 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 like, you know, otherwise you can get kind of a little bit disordered depending on how you think about this stuff. Yeah. 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 it. It was protein beer. Like we need to calm down, folks. I like the protein chips. It's fine. Listen, the protein chips taste significantly better than you'd expect.

Yes, but that's always with proteins. It's like it's better than you'd expect. It seems like it's a, we're just whoever is trying to solve like a much bigger problem with just a consumption. Yeah. 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 then if you actually looked at the ingredients in the back, the protein one was like less healthy. It's the new low fat. 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 of all of your life. And we both say this is people who have obsessed over. Yes. I think it's like the old 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. Yeah and I think now and that is categorically untrue just to be clear. Yeah no it's completely if only it was that easy. It's like you know you trip and fall and if you pick up something by I don't know about you guys every time I accidentally touch away I just get ripped Just like a Rob Lee feel like. I can't even like wear sleeved shirts. Yeah, just to pop out. 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. You're like, why? 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. They're like, okay, you're trying to solve a much bigger problem with a consumption, you know, solution. Yeah. 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. Yeah. Yeah, maybe if you're not feeling healthy, are you doing things that I... It's like, there are... 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-tart. 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. Yeah, it's like, it's not bad that I had a whole bowl of pasta tonight because it's The protein pop-tops 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 use to in protein and you're just going to, you're not, you're going to plateau. Yeah. 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. It's like the radicalization of young men. Oh, it's because one won't speak to. Maybe you're rude.

Maybe you don't bring much to the conversation. You've got bad vibes. Maybe you have bad breath. Like, maybe you have a bad something. Maybe all that protein you're eating. You don't you stink. Yeah, protein farts are real. No, they really are.

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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. My stack needs to be hot. No, really. The stack stuff is crazy. 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 of you exercise 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 one, two rats. One of them exploded, but the other, you know, looks pretty good. So long as you don't explode, you'll be so hot. Only two out of the seven rats exploded. And they had bad vibes. And the others were jacked. Yeah. No, this is the problem.

Whenever I spoke to, like, fitness or performance, like, experts in, like, the research field of, like, protein and muscle, I was like, oh, what's, like, the best advice for you? And he's like, nobody wants to hear, but just, like, eat whole foods, make healthy choices, take care of your body. Everyone falls asleep if you say that. 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 done. taken in my goddamn life other than like maybe my methylphenidate for my ADHD. 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. I'm just imagining you in a coffin. No, I really, like, it's super cold. Oh, yeah. I like have like the full blackout eye mask. I take a, I take like melatonin and tracadone sometimes if I'm having trouble sleeping.

I sleep like a baby and it's great. But it's like to your point, Ashmir, it'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. Someone who works nights.

Someone who works nights. Someone who just has a stressful job that comes up in their mind when they close their eyes. Someone who's housing and security. Yeah, exactly like 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 influences or the fitness communities, there is a degree of pressure. There's not really much empathy at all.

Like, I definitely messaged you with just like, I feel like shit about it. Most of the time you just say, you're 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 in red was like, you need to do the big three core lifts, you fucking moron.

You can't bend your weight. I'm like a buck 65, buck 70, right? 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, squat 300 though. And it's it's fucking strange because. There's so much literature that says that's bad.

Even the BMI, which is by like a... By like health insurance. Not health insurance. I thought BMI is by like an anthropologist. No, it's by some corporate figure. Perhaps life insurance? 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 a Japanese health insurance company. I'm pretty sure the BMI I'm going to look this up live on the show. I was going to say, you have the technology here. Yeah, there we go. Who invented this? Adolf Quetolette, a Belgian astronomer, said that word flawlessly.

Mathematician, statistic. Devise the basis of the BMI between 1830 and 1850. Hey, that's when they really knew their stuff. 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. Yeah.

Like, I've fallen into this trap myself, and I feel, I hope. It's clear anyone listening to this. This is not a shame thing. This is a thing that I have done. He's like, oh, I got 10,000 steps. That means shit. What is that based on, like, the Japanese pedometer? Yeah, yeah, that's exactly.

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

But you have boy blood. You've got boy blood. I should also be clear, by the way. If you're doing steps, moving is important. It's good. If you're doing any of these things, if you're walking great. If something makes you happy and you're an adult with free will, live your truth. But I have an aura ring and I do have an eight sleep mattress.

Did it break during the? I was, and I'm a baby. I need like cold cold. Like I have it like minus 10. I'm 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. It really helps. And like my REM sleep is up and I think I. I feel. It's just but like, I don't really have any frame of reference for 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, years and years. 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 move things down. Your numbers are low. It's like, thank you, Strava. I meant to do with this? Oh, I forgot to work out. That's what happened. I need guilt trips. Yeah, I think, like, it takes a lot of discipline and perspective to not go nuts from, you know, having all this information in front of you. Like, I remember what 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. We're like, you know, it's like the My Fitness pal trap. Yeah, that was 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 used like, use my fitness palette. I tried it for a day. I was like, this is going to drive me.

Yes. 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. people, it drives them fucking nuts. I do think we need some degree of, like, tonal, for example. I did injure myself using it. It was my thought. 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 go on the Reddit, tons of people overtrain on it. You get obsessive. They have 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. There's no real guidance and there's so much. 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, you 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. Yeah. And it's also just, just it gets back to the thing. think of there's not much qualified advice that there's a lot of seemingly qualified but it's hard to tell what the actual go. Oh, there's 100 million different people would be like, I'll build you a plan. There's none of them have worked other than the guy called Ben the PC guy on Twitter and

as in personal computer. 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, yeah, makes in a bit of cardio, volume's good. and it but you read a bunch of other things no dude starting strength 5x5 you fucking pick

if you don't have 1.5x by the end of the you're gonna come to your house and kick you the balls yeah I'm gonna squat you in half yeah I'm gonna do to what Bain 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 room 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, 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 us. I was to 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. Yeah, and I feel like it's almost antithetical to 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, you know when your body, like some weeks you may do four exercises. Sometimes you may do too because you're, I don't know, speaking for experience, 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 pig and a half. The duolingo owl is going to beat you up. I will kill the duolingo owl.

I will. 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. But I'm 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. Right. I tried whoop and some of it I found useful. Some of it, it was annoying to me that it doesn't track weight. 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, you know, 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, you know, because 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. Yeah, you're only going to need this a minute, mate. Don't worry. You just pass for a month. Who gives a shit?

They love the, all the growth people are yelling at me, but you just fucking get rid of you. It sucks, but I do love it. I really love it. You are the most, I feel, like, metrics obsessed person I know. In just terms of you're always posting your fitness metrics. I love it. No, actually, it's just also like good for me to just do and be like, okay, I did that. I forgot whether I did it or not.

Yeah, no, it seems like, I don't know. It's fun. No, I just run to a local basketball court and I just run around for 45 minutes missing. I'm just imagining you by yourself. There's not even a basketball. You're just shooting and hollering. Just air shooting. No, I met I went on Amazon and there was a tech-enabled basketball.

I don't know. I imagine that your basketball can, like, degrade you while you're doing. Yeah, it's like clap trapped from borderlands. Like, that was a match. That's a good fucking, no, it's like you can measure your shoe. Guys, we should stop this podcast right now. We have a ball to design. If you're one of the companies with a connected basketball, send it to me.

I would love to play the basketball. You can send all my data to China. Just like there's a pig butchering operation that starts in on me because I can't shoot. If you shoot the basketball well enough, then a hole opens in it and it shoots a protein supplement right in your mouth. Like a fish biscuit from lost. No, or just like it, if you shoot really badly, you have to keep playing. Again. The ball starts getting heavier.

It was $250. $250. I guess, like. I mean, I sort of. This is a dumb person thought for me. 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 repeatedly? 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 it's, there was also a $5,000 basketball hoop, which fucking, no. No, it's like, it's so cool. I definitely went down. I'm like not, would never. What about it? What it is, is the hook, the backboard of it is a screen.

So it's like Peloton. And it's like, shoot the ball. Shoot the ball. Why are you? A complicated tech product that is expensive that you throw something really hard at. 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, absolutely Ashwin, I know it would be meaning. But it's like, the most joy I've got out of any of this isn't the, 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, it's just the people having fun, it's great. But there's such a war within them of, like the stat maxes. Or the cheats, of course. The people who just cheat. Yeah. The Peloton cheats are fucking great. you can you can

there's that a website that will allow you to cheat your Strava yeah that's the Peloton ones you can change the magnets you can unscure it and change the magnets hacking your Pelotone 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 fucking for it's like yeah it's like doping in the nerd Olympics 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. Especially because it's obviously a competitive aspect. Yeah, exactly. It's like, you're like, I'm always being lapped by this person who clearly just has like their

magnets. And you look and the line is just at the top of the graph. I don't know. Maybe the strongest guy in the world. Yes, just the guy would like in Terminator. Like thighs, like three feet wide thighs. is just like he has to get a special pedal, but tiny feet. Yeah.

All right. I think we're going to wrap it then. We've talked about the tiny, footed peloton person. Paris, where people find you? You can find me on Blue Sky at Paris. com or Twitter at Paris Martino. And follow my work at Consumer Reports. Ashwin?

Yeah, you can find me at Blue Sky as well. I think I'm the only Ashwin Rodriguez on there. And my website is ushwin Rodriguez.com. And I am Ed Zerichon. can find me on the podcast better offline. I nearly misset 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 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've had requests that we need the basics of the AI bubble done, which is crazy, except on like 100 episodes on it. Anyway, I love you all. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you to Baheed. We're out here in New York City. We've kicked us. out here. And 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 Rosowski. You can check out more of his music and audio projects at Matersowski.com. M-A-T-T-O-S-O-S-K-I.com. You can email me at easy at betteroffline.com or visit Better Offline.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 our slash better offline to check out our Reddit. Thank you so much for listening. Better Offline is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Another podcast from some SNL, late-night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smigel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. week, my guest, S&L's Mikey Day and headwriter, Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform?

We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Life is full of hurdles. So how do you keep going? On Hurtle with Emily Abadi, we're talking with the most inspiring women in sports and wellness from professional athletes, coaches, and Olympic champions.

about the challenges that shape them and the mindset that keeps them moving forward. At our level, at this scale, being able to fail in front of the entire world. Like, I can do anything. I can do anything. Listen to Hurtle with Emily Abadi on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHart Women's Sports. Hey, I'm Deanna Maria Riva, and on my new podcast, How Hard Can It Be? I call on my Gen X squad from Ohio to Hollywood as we navigate Midlife's most fantastic BS.

Unfiltered conversations from night sweats to futas to scheduling sex. Wait, what sex? Is it just me or does every woman my age want to look at Pinterest instead of having sex sometimes? They say we can't polish a turd, but we're sure going to try. So let's get blunt with laughs, tears, or tears of laughter. Listen to How Hard Can It Be with Diana Maria Riva on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. There are times when the mind becomes a difficult place to live. David Eagleman with the Inner Cosmos podcast, and for Mental Health Awareness Month,

we'll talk with singer-songwriter Jewel about anxiety. I started living in my car, and then my car got stolen. I was having panic attacks. I was agoraphobic. This is a month of deeply personal and honest conversations about what happens when the brain goes off course. Listen to Inner Cosmos on the I-Heart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed human.