Building the NRA for Health - The Next #61

Plus chicken sourcing, capitalizing on MAHA, and more

Hi there, and welcome to The Next - my take on health, wellness, and company building.

In the last few years I’ve founded 3 brands (Kettle & Fire, Perfect Keto, Surely non-alc wine). I’m now working on Truemed, which allows health and wellness brands to accept HSA/FSA funds. Previously, I worked in tech and had no experience in CPG, DTC, or any other 3-letter industries.

If you missed past episodes, I recommend checking out The Great American Poisoning, my manifesto on what’s going on with our chronic disease crisis. Otherwise, let’s dive in!

🆕 What’s new

For the first time in my lifetime, health has become a voting issue. Coalitions of people on both sides are voting, acting, and thinking politically all through the lens of health.

This is totally unprecedented and presents a huge political opportunity: to build the NRA for health.

The National Rifle Association holds outsize power relative to its 3-5 million members. Though small in number, the NRA exerts outsize influence on politics because its membership is fully united around a single topic: gun rights. It’s a real tyranny of the minority situation.

The NRA’s political strategy looks something like this:

1. Build a coalition whose top issue is gun rights.

2. Organize those voters to exert pressure on politicians and lawmakers.

3. Use that political leverage to influence politicians, and threaten to have their coalition vote a certain way if a candidate does not respect gun rights and the NRA’s wishes.

I believe a similar opportunity exists within the health space. As more and more Americans look at policy through the health lens, there’s an opportunity to build a coalition that cares about all things MAHA. And such a coalition could make huge amounts of progress by applying pressure to federal and state legislatures, as states compete to become more and more health-focused.

This is basically what we’re trying to do at our non-profit End Chronic Disease. We’re starting by building a grassroots coalition of people who care about all things MAHA, and then work with state legislatures to support bills and regulations that lead to a healthier country. We’re currently engaging with multiple states on MAHA stuff: if you’re interested in supporting (either as a volunteer or donor), I’d love to hear from you.

💪 Health stuff

For several years now, I’ve mostly avoided chicken.

Chicken is the most consumed protein in the US, yet most Americans don’t know much about it. Consumers understand the merits of grass-fed vs grain-fed beef, yet few know anything about chicken breeds, chicken feed, or chicken’s nutritional profile. This guide can help (as can this longer one)!

Today’s domesticated chicken descends from the Red Junglefowl, a small but mighty bird that spent its days hunting insects, foraging seeds, and living that sweet jungle life. Think less "factory farm" and more "tiny velociraptor."

In 1948, everything changed. A&P (the grocery chain) sponsored the "Chicken of Tomorrow" contest with one goal: create a chicken breed that grew faster and cheaper. The Cornish Cross breed won, as its ability to grow quickly with relatively little feed made it the favored breed of American poultry farmers.

Today, the Cornish Cross makes up 98%+ of all chickens raised in the US. But like many things in our food system, what started as a healthy, nutrient-dense food has been industrialized into something that would shock our ancestors.

These animals are often raised in an indoor warehouse, fed a conventional GMO diet of corn, soy, and wheat meant to help them grow exceptionally quickly. The faster they grow, the more profitable they are.

These animals are not healthy. Because they grow so rapidly, their legs are not strong enough to support their breast-heavy body composition. Because of their fattening feed and genetics optimized for fast growth, the average bird is lives just 5 weeks. From hatch to harvest, just 5 weeks!

While this has been great for making chicken cheap and accessible, today’s chickens are the epitome of quantity over quality. And because your average chicken is raised indoors, on a diet of GMO feed, and harvested before they develop proper bone structure or immune systems, they aren’t all that good for you!

When chickens live on processed feed alone (versus foraging and a diverse diet), their meat reflects it. Research shows that pastured chickens have more protein, better omega-3 to omega-6 ratios, higher levels of vitamins, and more flavor-producing compounds.

You see, we are what we eat eats. This is especially true of chickens, who (like humans) are monogastric: when they eat a diet high in PUFAs or other unhealthy fats, it translates directly to their tissue composition. Pre-1950, average chicken omega-6:3 ratios were 2:1 or 3:1. Today, that ratio is between 15 and 20:1. Today’s chicken is a completely different food product!

So what should you look for in actually healthy chicken? Here's my checklist:

1. Diet - look for animals fed an organic diet, and (ideally) are actually foraging.

2. Breed - avoid Cornish Cross, and look for slower-growth (and thus more nutrient-dense) breeds like Pioneers or Freedom Rangers 🤘

3. Age - ideally animals harvested 8-10 weeks (at a minimum)

4. Processing - and ask for chickens that are air-chilled after harvest. Water-chilling (most common) leaches out nutrients, and is just kinda gross.

Some good brands online are Pasturebird, White Oaks, and Greener Pastures. Though your local farmers market will also have some good options, as will Radius in ATX.

Yes, chicken meeting these standards will cost more. But you're paying for actual nutrition, humane treatment, and frankly, better tasting meat. The alternative is supporting a system that creates sick birds and worse nutrition.

I'm increasingly convinced that one of the biggest lies we're told is that food has to be cheap above all else. Just like with the environmental toxins I wrote about previously, we're creating massive downstream health costs by optimizing solely for cheap calories. Improving America’s top source of protein is a great place to start fixing the food system.

For more on chicken, check out Radius and their guide to chicken sourcing.

🤑 Biz stuff

With RFK’s confirmation, the American people have voted to clean up our food supply.

For those still skeptical of RFK’s positions on vaccines, I’d recommend you read my earlier piece The Vaccine Question. In a world where the vaccine schedule has expanded 5x in the last 40 years (and we are using entirely new vaccines), what does it even mean to be anti-vax? If I believe that certain foods, dyes, or chemicals in today’s food system are harming Americans, does that make me anti-food?

Anyway. As it looks increasingly likely that RFK will be confirmed, I think a ton of business opportunities crop up. The MAHA movement is real and gathering steam, and I suspect that many of the dyes, preservatives, and other chemical compounds the US allows (but the EU bans) will come under intense scrutiny.

As Big Food may have to re-evaluate the pesticides, dyes, and other additives that make their Frankenfoods so addictive, I suspect it will create opportunities for smaller food companies using better ingredients to come to the forefront. And, rather than reinventing every product in their portfolio, my guess is that Big Food is about to go on a rampant buying spree acquiring better-for-you brands.

Last year, I went on Invest Like the Best and discussed just how challenging it is to build a healthy food brand. Now, for the first time in my career, I hope this dynamic is about to change.

😌 Dope stuff on the internet

Some of my favorite things since the last newsletter (note: I don’t get paid to recommend anything here):

• 📰 Article - Like many, I’ve been thinking more and more about AI. It feels inevitable at this point that in the next 3-5 years, AI agents will be responsible for more and more thinking, reasoning, and discovery than humans. In the wake of this intelligence explosion, the way we work and build companies will completely change. I agree with this post: we are likely to see fully automated firms, with AI agents running many aspects of our current economy.
  Good or bad, we’ll see. I tend to be an optimist, and am hopeful that AI ends up wildly positive for humanity. One thing is certain, we are in for a wild few years!
  

• 📚 Book rec - Every 2ish years, I re-read Living from a Place of Surrender. It’s easy for me to get caught up in work, in life, in the thousand things that don’t actually matter, that disrupt my sense of peace and equanimity. This book helps me put things back in perspective, and is likely a top 5 book I’ve ever read.
  

• ⌚ Cool product - I’ve been enjoying OMNI1 lately: it’s like an animal-based Athletic Greens. I invested in the company, mainly because I think nutrient deficiencies are among the biggest health issues of our time. If you pick some up, let me know what you think - would love feedback as the company is in very early stages!
  

• 🎵 Music - James Blake is back at it with his latest set in Bali. Enjoy!
  

• 🏀 Random - In a few weeks I’ll be running the health track at Edge Austin (just before SXSW). It’s going to be awesome, and a great way to meet others in Austin (or in town for SXSW) who are into health, longevity, frontier tech, and a bunch of other interesting things. Use code ECJUSTIN10 for the first 20 of you that want to come!
  

• 🔥Hot take - I recently learned that pharma companies can selectively decide not to publish data or trials that make their drugs look ineffective or harmful (1). With RFK at the helm of HHS, I think there’s a good chance that he will start enforcing *already existing laws* that require the publication of clinical trial results. And that as a result, we’ll understand more the severe downsides that come with many commonly prescribed drugs like SSRIs, statins, and others.

  • Also, community note - Ozempic tied to increased risk in thyroid cancer.
    

• 🙋‍♂️ Ask - An exciting development in the Truemed world is that we're launching a podcast. The goal of the podcast, "True Medicine" (I know we're creative geniuses) is to share simple ways you can improve your health in the core areas that matter. Would love if you follow along.

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Thanks for tuning in for another newsletter. I’m really, really hopeful that America is going to get helpful in the next year, and grateful that you all are along for the ride.

• Justin