Dr Shawn Baker 🥩

Turning 60 soon, why not learn to pole vault too!

Diet tribes of North America

Fitness tribes of North America!

10 eggs, 10 strips of bacon! Is anyone else into “balanced diets?”

Not all vegans are this dumb, but man some of them are next level

True Story!

The Forest Laws Never Ended After 1066, William the Conqueror and the Norman kings turned vast stretches of England into royal forest. Inside those bounds the red deer and fallow deer belonged to the crown. A peasant who killed one to feed his family could lose his eyes, his hands, his manhood, or his life. The laws were written so that, as one chronicler put it, the English would have “nothing but their eyes to weep with.” The meat of the wild was reserved for the ruling class. Everyone else was expected to live on what the land under the plow could produce: grain, pottage, the occasional chicken or pig if they were lucky. When the Charter of the Forest finally arrived in 1217 it removed the worst mutilations and the death penalty, but the underlying idea stayed intact: the best animal protein was a privilege, not a right. That idea never really died. It simply changed costume. Today the same hierarchy reappears in softer language. Elite tables still feature steak, lamb, and game. Private jets still carry foie gras and dry-aged beef to conferences where the speakers tell everyone else that livestock are the problem. The recommended diet for the rest of the population is heavy on “whole” grains, legumes, and plant protein—foods that historically filled the peasant bowl while the lords kept the animals. The rhetoric is climate, health, or equity. The practical result is the same as the old forest law: the high-quality meat stays upstream. The punishments are no longer blinding and castration. They are subsidies, guidelines, school menus, and social pressure. But the direction of the flow has not changed. The deer still belongs to the people who write the rules. The rest are told the grain is good for them.

In February 2021, while in the Democratic Republic of the Congo with researchers tracking endangered bonobos, Ashley Judd was walking in the rainforest in low light when she tripped over a fallen tree. The impact shattered her plant based tibia in multiple places—described in contemporary accounts as a catastrophic break that put the leg at immediate risk. She spent roughly 55 hours being carried out of the remote jungle by local teams before reaching advanced care. Recovery involved surgery, prolonged immobilization, and extensive rehabilitation. Months later she shared video of herself walking again, emphasizing the near-loss of the limb and the role of the people who extracted her. In 2022, after the death of her mother Naomi Judd, she once again sustained a second, less severe fracture to the other leg. She publicly attributed it to a “freak accident” tied to grief-related clumsiness rather than any high-impact event. That break healed more quickly, and she has since discussed functional training as part of returning to activity. Judd is a longtime animal-rights and conservation advocate; the Congo trip itself was research-related. Numerous scientific papers have now shown that plant based, and particularly vegan diet are associated with much higher rates of fracture. Whether this was the underlying reason for her fractures is hard to say for sure, but undoubtedly one has to wonder if eating a diet based on emotion is a good idea.

So I’m in the elevator today, heading down to the grill on the ninth floor with my steaks on a cutting board. Old guy on elevator with a dog that has his tongue perpetually hanging bizarrely out of the side of his mouth because all his teeth rotted out and had to be pulled. I suggested that the dog might like to gum on my steaks . His said the dog has never had “human food” before I suggested that steak was also “wolf food” and I bet he’d love it He looked mortified that I’d suggest something so absurd as feeding a dog meat rather than kibble!

Tom Brady is not a vegan. He’s said it plainly: “When people ask if I’m a vegan or a vegetarian, I tell them no, decidedly not.” His TB12 approach is an 80/20 split — mostly plants (vegetables, fruits, grains, nuts, seeds, legumes) with about 20% high-quality lean animal protein. That means wild-caught fish (especially salmon), organic/grass-fed chicken or turkey, occasional steak or bison, and pasture-raised eggs in palm-sized portions at meals. He also uses protein powders. It’s a flexitarian, performance-focused pattern — not vegan. This is a recurring pattern: vegans and plant-based advocates often claim high-profile people as fully vegan when they’re not. Plant-heavy, temporary challenges, or “mostly plants” diets get upgraded to full vegan status for marketing and influence. Reality is usually more flexible. Other clear examples: • Bill Clinton was widely labeled the “world’s most famous vegan” after shifting to a near-plant-based diet for heart health. His doctor recommended (and he ate) occasional organic salmon or lean protein for iron, zinc, and muscle. He is mostly plant-based, not strictly vegan. • Gisele Bündchen (Brady’s ex) tried vegetarian and vegan approaches but developed anemia and nutrient issues. She reintroduced animal protein (fish, chicken, some meat, eggs) and now follows a similar ~80/20 pattern. She has been open that strict veganism didn’t work for her. • Miley Cyrus, Lizzo, Anne Hathaway, Beyoncé, and Serena Williams have all been claimed or promoted as vegan (or long-term vegan) at various points. Most either quit for health/energy/brain function reasons, did short challenges, or never went fully strict. They still get listed in “vegan celebrities” roundups. The pattern is consistent: claim the celebrity for the cause, downplay or ignore the animal foods, then move on when the details come out. Brady’s actual diet (high-quality animal protein in moderation + mostly plants, no processed junk) is closer to what many high-performing athletes do than pure veganism. High-quality meat, fish, and eggs are part of the picture for a lot of people who get results — Brady included.

In 2018, Spanish vegan YouTuber and animal-rights activist Sonia Sae (Barcelona) put her pet fennec fox, Jumanji, on a fully plant-based diet. She claimed she had “rescued” him from a breeder in 2014 and fed him primarily vegan cat food plus supplements (taurine, lysine, etc.). Photos and videos she posted showed a thin animal with hair loss, reported partial blindness, spontaneous convulsions, and lethargy. Critics (including other animal lovers, exotic-animal people, and even some vegans) called it cruelty. Fennec foxes are desert canids whose wild diet is ~90% animal matter: insects, small rodents, reptiles, birds, eggs, and occasional plants they dig up. They are not designed for a purely plant-based diet. Taurine, certain amino acids, and bioavailable nutrients from animal tissues are important; synthetic supplements do not always match what a carnivorous gut extracts from real prey. Heavy plant matter can also stress their digestive system. Sae defended the diet, said bloodwork was fine, blamed the appearance on a pollen allergy he already had, and argued that feeding any animal food was the real abuse because “no animal had to die.” She posted some videos of the fox moving around and said she would release more evidence. A petition circulated, police were reportedly looking into it, and PETA weighed in that fennec foxes are unsuitable as pets and should go to a sanctuary. No widely reported official seizure or final medical outcome followed in public coverage. This fits a broader pattern: ideology applied to animals whose biology does not match it. Carnivores (cats, foxes, ferrets, many reptiles, etc.) require animal-sourced nutrients. Forcing the opposite and then dismissing visible problems as “allergy” or “bias against veganism” prioritizes the owner’s beliefs over the animal’s physiology. Biology does not care about the politics of the person holding the bowl. Healthy fennec foxes in proper care (or in the wild) are compact, energetic, and maintained on appropriate protein and prey items—not plant-only menus with synthetic add-ins.

The Battle Creek Sanitarium, 1908 Mr. Horace Langley arrived in a state of what the intake form called “nervous dyspepsia and moral debility.” He had eaten beefsteak the week before. That, the nurse informed him while confiscating his trunk of clothing, was almost certainly the root of the problem. By the second morning he was already on the table. The enema apparatus was wheeled in without ceremony. Warm water first, then a second course of yogurt culture “to repopulate the bowel with wholesome germs,” the attendant explained. Langley was told the colon must be cleansed of the putrefying residues left by years of flesh foods. Red meat, he was instructed, produced toxins that inflamed the system, clouded the mind, and excited the lower passions. The yogurt, by contrast, was pure. Between sessions he was assigned to the mechanical vibrator—a heavy machine that shook his abdomen while an orderly read aloud from Dr. Kellogg’s writings on the dangers of animal protein. Lunch was zwieback, stewed prunes, and a nut cream that tasted faintly of sawdust. When he asked about the steak the other patients whispered about in the night, he was given a pamphlet titled “The Poison in the Pot.” In the afternoon came the electric light bath. He sat naked under banks of bulbs until he sweated freely, then was plunged into a cold shower while an attendant checked his pulse and noted “improved elimination.” That evening another enema. The nurse remarked that men who had previously lived on chops and roasts often required several weeks of this regimen before the craving for flesh subsided and the bowels regained their natural tone. Langley lasted nine days. On the tenth he slipped out after breakfast, found a diner two blocks from the sanitarium, and ordered a rare sirloin. He ate it slowly, then walked to the station. The yogurt, he later wrote to a friend, had done nothing a decent piece of meat and a night’s sleep could not accomplish more simply. The sanitarium records listed him as “discharged against advice—continued meat addiction.”