From time to time I’ll get an email from a Mark’s Daily Apple reader that just throws me for a loop. It might be esoteric, simply outside of my core knowledge, or just downright strange. Still other questions are best answered by consensus.

When enough of these spill into my inbox I’ll crowdsource the questions, opening them up to the infinite wisdom of the MDA community. This has resulted in some great discussions in the past (Dear Readers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5).

Well, it’s that time again. Help out a fellow MDAer with a response in the comment board. Thanks, everyone!

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Question 1

I’ve been reading your blog for some time, but looked at it in a new light after hearing you on The Art of Manliness podcast.

I have to say, the Primal Blueprint is basically a very exact way to spell out how I’ve thought about food for a while – what would a caveman do? I love the anecdotes about Grok, and have been following your eating plan for 2 weeks now.

So, I want to ask you something related to health, but not exactly diet and exercise. I have tried (and failed) to quit smoking too many times to count. Is there any way something like this would fit into the Blueprint? If we assume Grok was addicted to smoking (perhaps he threw tobacco on the fire one night) and knew it was bad, how would he stop doing it?

Aaron

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Question 2

I’ve been following a primal/paleo style of eating for three months now, and have no complaints. I was curious, these days, I notice there’s more and more guys losing their hair at a resonably early age, guys as young as me (I’m 22 btw). Even though I don’t exhibit any signs of hair loss myself, the ideal scenario would be to keep my hair for a very long time. I was wondering maybe if our increasingly poor eating habits may have anything to do with this?  I notice both you and Art DeVany (who’s blog I also follow) both have full heads of hair, and eat similar diets. In your opinion, is there any correlation between diet and hair loss? Thanks in advance.

Brandon

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Question 3

I’m very curious to find out your thoughts on toothpaste. It is obviously made up of many chemicals grok would never have had access to. When I was a child I used to swallow the stuff after brushing much to the horror of my parents. Then I found an article that said that flouride attacks and damages glass and I got to wondering what it was doing to my insides, my toothpaste swallowing days were over. Anyway is toothpaste that great? What did grok use? Is it really that necessary to brush your teeth if you’re consuming a low suger diet? Thanks!

Steve

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Question 4

A trainer at my gym once told me that when doing pull-ups, one shouldn’t go all the way down because that will put unnecessary stain on your rotator cuffs, which would weaken it over time and create problems later. Is there any truth in that?

Jibby

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Question 5

I did a search around your site and read all the articles concerning barefoot running/living and footwear, however, I found nothing about callus maintenance of the feet. I take care of the calluses on my hands because they tend to tear off during lengthy workouts with deadlifts or pullups, but I seldom read something about maintenance of the feet. Since I have some pain on the outer part of my right foot, which I assumed was callus-related, I began thinking about this. From an evolutionary standpoint, it might be beneficial (extra cushions), but since we aren’t able to wear out the unnecessary parts of cushioning, perhaps we should cut them away?

Bert

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