Mark's Daily Apple

Grok the High Schooler

My name is Christy and I’m an 18 year old high school student. I’m an athlete, primal fitness enthusiast and have been paleo for over a year now. I’m pretty much your standard high school Grok. I do my best to sleep when the sun goes down and move slowly many times throughout the day. It can be hard when you go to school, work, play sports…but I love everything about the paleo life. I enjoy long walks in my Vibrams and have been known to eat chicken and sweet potatoes multiple times a day…

I’ve always loved the outdoors. My earliest memories consist of afternoons in the park and endless trips to the zoo; you could find me swinging in the trees and splashing in the mud while the other kids clung to the jungle gym. My parents never complained…

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Posted By: Mark Sisson

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The Stigma of Obesity

One of the things I love about positive-focused healthy lifestyle communities (like but not limited to MDA) is the genuine support that exists for people to take charge of their well-being. It’s the collective excitement when others transform their bodies and health. It’s the willingness to offer help and advice, personal anecdotes and perspective to those beginning their journeys or struggling with the process. In the bigger framework of society, and even occasionally in these positive communities, however, weight-related stigma still holds sway. In these more subtle demonstrations, it becomes a sort of “if you’d only do X” assumption, a looking down one’s nose at someone else’s grocery cart or an unconscious judging that faintly influences impressions and interactions.

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Posted By: Mark Sisson

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The “Inevitabilities” of Aging: How Inevitable Are They?

How many times have you heard some old timer attribute the dysfunction of a body part or physiological attribute to “gettin’ old”? Or how about that time you tweaked your back and everyone was quick to tell you to get used to it because it’s never going to get any better? “It’s all downhill after 30!” The funny thing is that this is somehow supposed to make you feel better about your prospects. Some people, I guess, prefer to have control over their health wrested out of their hands and distributed to the fates. Some people like the idea of letting “nature take its course.” At least that way nothing that goes wrong is your fault, because you never had a chance anyway. You were always destined to get all soft and flabby, lose your hearing, get brittle bones, and be unable to go to the toilet by yourself. Right?

Wrong. Age isn’t “just” a number, and we can’t maintain Dorian Gray-esque vigor all through life, but that doesn’t mean we’re destined to be frail, brittle things relegated to chairs and walkers and homes and doctor’s offices.

Today, let’s take a look at some common “inevitabilities” of aging and why they may not be so inevitable after all.

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Posted By: Mark Sisson

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What You Should Know About Poultry Production Claims

I’m grateful to have our friend David Maren of Tendergrass Farms pen today’s guest post. This is the first post in a three part series on the assertions that retailers make about the way their poultry, pork, and beef is raised. And don’t miss the coupon code that he’s generously provided at the end of the post!

Every year in the United States the average person eats about 66 pounds of poultry, comprised of about 53 pounds of chicken and 13 pounds of turkey.¹ Nearly every pound of poultry sold in the US is raised in confined animal feeding operations (CAFO’s) but the poultry industry is very aware of the growing demand for naturally raised alternatives. Americans spend more than $50 Billion on chicken and turkey annually² so the financial incentive for them to cater to this shifting demand is gigantic. A few independent farms have opted to actually change the way they raise their birds but improving poultry production practices, especially raising poultry outdoors on pasture, raises the labor costs of production dramatically. For this reason many companies have decided to turn to clever marketing techniques to meet the demand for alternatives instead of actually changing the highly profitable CAFO-style system in which their birds are raised. Today, poultry production claims that boast about the superiority of certain brands’ “organic,” “cage free,” “hormone free,” or “free range” poultry can be seen almost everywhere from poultry labels in grocery stores to restaurant menus and even online meat shops’ product descriptions. Tragically, these poultry production claims are often relatively meaningless. They’re designed to paint a picture of what the customer wants to buy without requiring significant changes in the old CAFO poultry production model.

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Posted By: Mark Sisson

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Dear Mark: Gallbladder-less, CrossFit on Hiking, and Gluten Cutter

We’ve got a three parter for today’s edition of Dear Mark. First up is a question about gallbladders and a Primal way of eating. Or, more specifically, the lack of a gallbladder, and how one can make Primal work without one. Just because your ability to digest fat is a bit impaired doesn’t mean you can’t eat this way. Next, I explore what CrossFit really thinks (or doesn’t) about walking, hiking, and other sorts of frequent slow moving. After all the anaerobic WODs, is there room for a relaxing walk with your significant other? And finally, I discuss the usefulness – or not – of Gluten Cutter and other gluten digestive aids. These products claim to help even sensitive people digest and detoxify gluten safely, but are they legit?

Let’s go:

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Posted By: Mark Sisson

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