So I decided to get the book by the guy who started the craze, and of course he’s from Silicon Valley, because they all are, and I lived there for two years. He pontificates ad nauseum about biohacking and tells the reader over and over how smart he is for having figured this stuff out.
If I compare it to other, more researched books I’ve read before, I can definitely see the value in some of the stuff he talks about. Obviously, like everybody, he talks about the dangers of too much sugar and how it can really zap your energy and make you die young. Like, of course. And there’s some other science I can somewhat buy based on the citations. Mold and other trace amounts of bad things certainly sounds like something to avoid. And there have been studies proving that organic foods do retain more of their nutrients than pesticide- and antibiotic-filled foods.
I’ve now made a version of buttered coffee, just without Asprey’s beloved MCT oil, since I don’t tolerate coconut very well and also because it’s about a billion dollars. Buttered coffee does taste pretty delicious, and at least in my experience, the time in my life that I’ve put on more muscle and become more cardiovascularly fit is the same time of my life that I’ve upped my butter intake by probably 300%, so I’m fine with it. Butter is great, and it makes everything taste great. I highly recommend that you try making buttered coffee, even without Asprey’s special oil (which, conveniently, you can only buy from him if you want the exact, perfect type), since a human diet that is the perfect human diet is actually not truly perfect if you can only achieve it through a proprietary, manufactured thing that wasn’t in existence until three years ago.
Another thing I don’t like is that Asprey claims that exercise is a waste of your time. I’ve been seeing more studies that say that diet helps you lose weight more than exercise, so if you want to lose weight and want to focus on your diet, go for it. I’m not you, so I don’t care. But exercise has about a million benefits beyond weight loss, so to say it’s irrelevant to health strikes me as unsound advice. Especially since he’s claiming that his diet is the perfect, One True Human Diet, and humans for centuries have had to do physical labor just to get by in life, and it’s as we’ve become more sedentary that we’ve developed more chronic disease, so let’s ring the bullshit bell there.
Anyway, the real problem with this book is that it’s a book at all, not that everything in it is a lie. Asprey suffers from a severe case of white male privilege, and his constant patting himself on the back for figuring everything out is insufferable, not to mention his classic, Silicon Valley forgetfulness that most human beings in the United States, not to mention the planet, have money to burn and a lifestyle where they’re welcome to focus on “health” because somebody else is cleaning their house and watching their children. If you want to read it, go for it, and there are links for you below, but your better bet is probably just spending half an hour on his website, downloading a few things.
Get the book @ iTunes | iBooks | Amazon | IndieBound | your library
bookish girl fit 