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News topic du jour:
Podcast Questions:
1. Comment on air travel and risk of infection for your reference. [12:23]
Marti says:
Hi Robb,
Just listened to the latest podcast, great stuff that you and Nikki are doing! You had mentioned that there should have been a study done regarding air travel and I believe the main reason there wasn’t one done is because from previous tuberculosis studies they already knew the possibility of transmission was very low on airplanes. I can’t seem to find the study I wanted to share, but here is a link to get you started on the research if you are so inclined: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20185096/. There is also this: https://www.cdc.gov/tb/topic/populations/travelers/default.htm. If you aren’t familiar with TB, it is highly contagious, and the leading infectious disease killer in the world. So, for them to not be concerned about TB patients on airplanes, but concerned about covid, well………. You see where I am going with this, and as you know the masks are useless.
Again, great podcast, cheers!
Marti R
2. Kidney stones [14:43]
Brian says:
Hi Robb and Nicki – I recently had a stone (ow!!) and my tests came back showing high uric acid. My doctor recommended that I cut back dramatically on my (admittedly) high meat consumption and other paleo-friendly foods. Any suggestions for lowering uric acid levels while maintaining current food consumption? I consume minimal alcohol and sugary foods and intermittent fast. Thank you!!
3. Diet and or supplements for sun allergy (photosensitivity) AKA Polymorphous Light Eruption (PMLE)? [18:41]
Joe says:
Hi Robb and Nicki,
Thanks for all of your great content!
Do you know of any supplements, food options, or other treatments to help with a sun allergy, also known as photosensitivity and Polymorphous Light Eruption (PMLE)?
This article describes the condition pretty well, based on my experience:
https://www.health.harvard.edu/a_to_z/sun-allergy-photosensitivity-a-to-z
I’m pretty sure I’m now on my third year of PMLE. Last year when it started, I spoke to my doctor on the phone (due to no face-to-face appointments during covid) and sent her a photo and she said it was probably photosensitivity. I was prescribed an antihistamine called fexofenadine (180 mg) which I’m not sure helped either way. I was also referred to a dermatologist but by the time the appointment came through, some months later, it had already cleared up, so I canceled the appointment as there was nothing to see.
The red, sore, itchy rash only appears on my face (so far). We’ve just had our first good week of sun here in the UK and after some time at the beach, I now have it on my face. Last year it went away after about a month and then didn’t really come back for the rest of the summer. I had to stay out of the sun a lot for that first month though, which was a pain.
I see beta carotene is recommended on some sites as a treatment or preventative but in doses of 180 mg a day. I’ve seen it on sale at 15 mg doses. Would 180 mg a day be safe (or turn me orange)?
From what I’ve read, photosensitivity or PMLE is potentially a histamine issue. Are there diet changes that could help? I also get hayfever and eczema, which I think are in the same family.
Thanks again for all the great content you two put out there.
Joe
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Transcript:
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Nicki: It’s time to make your health an act of rebellion. We’re tackling personalized nutrition, metabolic flexibility, resilient aging and answering your diet and lifestyle questions. This is the only show with the bold aim to help one million people liberate themselves from the sick care system. You’re listening to The Healthy Rebellion Radio. The contents of this show are for entertainment and educational purposes only. Nothing in this podcast should be considered medical advice. Please consult your licensed and credentialed functional medicine practitioner before embarking on any health, dietary, or fitness change. Warning: When Robb gets passionate he’s been known to use the occasional expletive. If foul language is not your thing, if it gets your britches in a bunch, well, there’s always Disney+.
Robb: Better as it is.
Nicki: We’re recording.
Robb: We’re recording.
Nicki: All right, you pushed that button a little early. Hello everybody. Welcome to another episode of The Healthy Rebellion Radio. This is episode 108. Are you going to click onto our document so we can see where we’re going?
Robb: Sure. Why not?
Nicki: Why not? And scroll up please. Maybe I should run the mouse. You’re a little agitated.
Robb: Only a little.
Nicki: Well, we might go into that a smidge when we get down to our news topic.
Robb: Well a little bit.
Nicki: Because it pertains. But before we get there, well, we’re wrapping up our first week of the 30 Day Rebel Reset inside the Healthy Rebellion community. This is our food week. And got over 400 people participating this go around. Super exciting to see everybody coming together and jumping on board and changes being made. I did want to share a comment from one of our members, Jody, who it’s just… So many times when we do these resets people get different insights. And when they share them it just is like a light bulb moment for the rest of the community, the rest of the people participating in the reset. And Jody’s comment struck like this and there were a lot of members who commented in agreement.
Nicki: So she says, “As well as tracking the usual weight loss and strength gains, et cetera, I’d really like to focus on little things I noticed throughout this reset. My Rebel Reset rewards if you will. My first RRR is noticing how much time I have when I don’t eat all the crap. I’d usually get in from picking up my daughter from school, eat a load of rubbish, then spend the next few hours full of guilt, annoyed at myself and too full and lethargic to do anything worthwhile. Today, we arrived home and I just made a drink, no snacks. And instead of sitting on my backside, I did a strength workout. We ran an errand for my sister to help her out. I chatted and laughed with my daughter. I made contact with a friend I haven’t seen for ages. Watched the video for day two of the THR pelvic floor program, and sorted dinner. I’m now feeling chilled and pretty chuffed with myself.”
Nicki: That’s super awesome. And like I said there were many members that commented with similar when you make some of these changes. Like somebody made a comment their morning is just wide open now because they’re in this routine and things flow better. It’s cool to see the non, I guess you would say non-food scale body comp wins, excuse me, that people see throughout these resets.
Robb: Which oftentimes ends up being the bigger hooks that maybe keep people in long-term change. Because shitty food always tastes good. It’s always there, it’s always a draw. But if you really notice some changes that just really improve the quality of your life or just change the way it functions, that that could make the difference between sticking and not sticking.
Nicki: Right. Like in Jody’s case you feel super productive and accomplished when all the things that she did when she normally would have just been sitting around and maybe on her phone or whatever.
Robb: Right.
Nicki: So I think that’s a huge win. All right hubs, now you get to talk about out your news topic, and Jody was feeling chuffed, but I think you’re feeling chaffed.
Robb: I’m feeling somewhat chaffed.
Nicki: Without naming names of course.
Robb: Yeah, I won’t name names. But I’m part of this, at least until pretty recently was part of a low carb practitioner group. And in the group folks will share research pieces and sometimes little funny things that pop up. This thing wasn’t really particularly funny. It’s a link to tropicanacrunch.com and it’s still the site appears to be down. But this is a cereal designed to be eaten with orange juice.
Nicki: So instead of pouring milk in your cereal you pour orange juice in your cereal.
Robb: Yeah. And apparently some people do this with some cereals anyway.
Nicki: People do this anyway. I used to do this with Grape Nuts when I was in high school.
Robb: Well, and the site was actually pithy. It was like, “The first cereal designed to be eaten with OJ.” And then it had a subline, “And maybe the last one.” So there was actually some silly shit in there. So I was just appalled. It’s appalling. So this thing is-
Nicki: You really need to design a cereal for orange juice?
Robb: Right.
Nicki: How is that design process different than a cereal for milk?
Robb: Well, I think you just find something that flavor-wise compliments orange juice to some degree.
Nicki: Grape Nuts worked pretty well.
Robb: I’ll take that as… Yeah, I don’t know how I would take that.
Nicki: So as a vegan, when I was vegan in, let’s see, I met a friend in junior college who was vegan and I went vegan probably a year after that. And I was vegan for two years until I met Robb. And you don’t drink milk, so orange juice on cereal is good for the planet because you don’t eat animal products.
Robb: Yeah. So as part of this low carb community, I posted back, “And in each box a free insulin pump,” because out of my childhood I remember I would get things.
Nicki: Prizes.
Robb: Prizes. One of them was that it was this little gem box thing where you could grow a plant. Do you remember getting those?
Nicki: No.
Robb: So it was little plastic gem boxes, basically a tiny terrarium. And it had a little bit of foam on it and it had a seed and you’d water the seed and the plant would grow and all this stuff. There was actually some cool shit. And then you would end up eating the cereal too. And there were-
Nicki: Well, those prizes in the box were designed so that the kid’s like, “Mom, mom, can I get…”
Robb: Absolutely because any and all of the cereal would have been intriguing just because it was a bunch to sugar and it tastes amazing and it’s hyper palatable. But I would buy this stuff. So there was this backstory of I thought some pithy humor. But one of the members of this low carb group absolutely read me the Riot Act IV because she is a type 1 diabetic, and then there’s even deeper backstory on this stuff, which I guess speaks to… I don’t know what the fuck it speaks to. Maybe you can have some commentary on. But she was basically like, “Don’t be a fucking asshole making fun of-“
Nicki: Type 1 diabetics.
Robb: … type 1 diabetics. And I said, “Well doctor, by all means why don’t you detail what else I can’t talk about?” Turns out-
Nicki: Because it’s dark humor.
Robb: … she was… Because it’s dark humor.
Nicki: And Robb’s just being himself and being funny. And it turns out this woman, her sister recently died due to complications from type 1 diabetes and has left behind children. So obviously it’s a horrible story and heartbreaking and all of that. So she’s clearly in an emotional space because of what has transpired. But it’s also still illustrative of where we are as a society. And this has been going on throughout COVID too. It’s like there’s no space for people to see when something is done in… It’s always an offense. It seems like society we take offense to everything even if the person is coming from a place of humor and not malice. And this is where all of the comedians get censored first. You can’t make a joke because somebody’s going to be offended by your joke. And again, our hearts go out to this woman and these children, knew nothing of that. But I don’t know.
Robb: I may be a horrible human being. And if I am then maybe this is where I fucking bow out of the interwebs entirely, but I have no possibility of knowing this. And any reasonable person, okay, maybe it would sting on her side. I am actually being empathetic and it’d be like, “Ugh, fucking great timing.”
Nicki: But you could also recognize the humor of like, yes, people are now going to be eating cereal with loads of sugary orange juice on it. And yes, their blood sugar is going to elevate for that. So it is funny that cereal historically has come with prizes, especially sugary cereals and-
Robb: Why not an insulin pump as one of the prizes?
Nicki: Yeah. So anyway.
Robb: Anyway, I had put this link into the news topic du jour. And the funny thing is the site is still down. So I don’t know if the thing is… Yeah, it’s still down.
Nicki: Sometimes when I get that if you go to an incognito window, I don’t know.
Robb: No, this is not the issue.
Nicki: Okay. Oh, just throwing out suggestions babe, being my normal helpful self.
Robb: Well, your suggestions anger me so you should stop them and quit being an asshole.
Nicki: Okay. No more suggestions for me. All right. The Healthy Rebellion Radio is sponsored by our salty AF electrolyte company Element. As you all know, as we just mentioned, we’re in the middle of our 30 day reset and that means for our resetters no alcohol for 30 days. Many people do this in January or other months. Many people string this along and are trying to alcohol free for ever, which is great. But thankfully there’s no need to feel left out because Element makes a simple and tasty mocktail. And it’s simple. What you got to do is grab your Element flavor of choice, add some sparkling water slowly so you don’t create a kitchen volcano experiment, and enjoy over ice. You can also add some fresh squeeze lime juice if you’re feeling sassy. And even one of those little cute drink umbrellas.
Nicki: I love mango chili over ice with sparkling water. Midday, by the lake, by the pool in the summertime. It’s amazing. And I have a verified buyer, Megan, who wrote a review. She says, “I love the lime flavor. It reminds me of a margarita. And as I am currently pregnant, it is a great replacement.” So you can grab your Element at drinklmnt.com/robb and keep your eyes pill because the end of May, we’re getting close. Only a couple more weeks. We will be releasing great fruit salt again as our limited time flavor. Just like last year. So you want to get your hands on that if you have been missing it. Again, that’s drinklmnt.com/robb. Okay.
Robb: You want to do this thing?
Nicki: Let’s do this thing. We had a comment from our previous episode that I’m going to read regarding the air travel and risk of infection. This one’s from Marty. He says, “Hey Robb, I just listened to the latest podcast. Great stuff that you and Nicki are doing. You had mentioned that there should have been a study done regarding air travel. And I believe the main reason there wasn’t one done is because from previous tuberculosis studies, they already knew the possibility of transmission was very low on airplanes. I can’t seem to find the study I wanted to share, but here’s a link to get you started if you are so inclined.”
Nicki: And there’s a link to a PubMed piece. There’s also this, which is a CDC link and we’ll put both of these in the show notes of course. If you aren’t familiar with tuberculosis, it is highly contagious and the leading infectious disease killer in the world. So for them not to be concerned about TB patients on airplanes, but concerned about COVID, well, you see where I’m going with this. And as you know, the masks are useless. Again, great podcast. Marty. So thanks Marty for sending that in.
Robb: It is interesting, but certainly this is where the hive mind is so powerful. I had not thought of this. And clearly the folks in public health maybe could have leaned on this pretty strongly for support. It certainly makes sense especially when you dig into the research citations that Marty had provided there. But this was nowhere. This easily could have been held up as-
Nicki: Might have been.
Robb: … we don’t need to be that concerned. But I think again, in the…
Nicki: It might have been somewhere and it just got censored. It just wasn’t allowed to see. People might have been sharing things like this and it just got…
Robb: It’s possible. I’m just saying it at a public health level, this could have been something that was leaned into pretty easily to mitigate terror and instead nothing of the sort happened. And I’m part of what I’m leaning on is that Vinay Prasad made the case that there could have been… He detailed what studies should have been done and were not done and that it’s egregious that they weren’t done. I’m actually going to forward this onto him and get his thoughts on that. But Marty, thank you. Super helpful.
Nicki: Cool. Okay. Onto our two questions for today. The first one is from Brian on kidney stones. Hi Robb and Nicki, I recently had a stone. And my test came back showing high uric acid. My doctor recommended that I cut back dramatically on my admittedly high meat consumption and other paleo-friendly foods. Any suggestions for lowering uric acid levels while maintaining current food consumption? I consume minimal alcohol and sugary foods and I intermittent fast. Thank you.
Robb: It’s interesting on this. So the purines and pyrimidines that make up the DNA basically in cells are the problem here. This is where things like beer, like yeast is really problematic. And beer ends up being problematic from a uric acid perspective because each yeast cell contains a similar amount of DNA as a really large piece of meat comparatively, because there’s just a nucleus of the meat and within the cell of the meat and everything. So yeast and things like that could be really problematic. Doesn’t sound like Brian would be consuming a lot of that. And generally also the elevated uric levels are a consequence of insulin resistance, which doesn’t sound like that’s a thing. There may just be a little bit of a genetic polymorphism at play here where Brian is particularly sensitive to high uric acid levels.
Robb: I know Dr. Perlmutter’s current book digs into tracking uric acid and also offers some mitigating strategies. It may be a deal where Brian needs to tinker with protein intake and find a level that’s a little bit more, jives with his situation as genetics could be some gut microbiome considerations here. But I’m noodling on are there other sources? Like mushrooms or something that is introducing a high purine and pyrimidine load to a system that is exacerbating what he’s getting from the meat basically.
Nicki: Got you. Okay. And you were saying high insulin levels can be problematic.
Robb: Insulin resistance is a-
Nicki: Insulin.
Robb: … biggie here, but I’m just not, I’m not.
Nicki: From what he’s explained it’s not obvious that he’s-
Robb: It’s not sounding like that. Yeah.
Nicki: … eating things that would lead to insulin resistance. Okay.
Robb: Yeah. And this is something that when folks first start on paleo or low carb and they are insulin resistant. Sometimes they will experience a significant gout flare because they are still insulin resistant, but they’re increasing their protein intake, their purine and pyrimidine intake. So transiently they can get into a tough situation where their uric acid levels really elevate. And in that case, again, just a lower protein intake taken a more gradual approach to that whole process can usually mitigate that. I’m still trying to remember if some of the liver support like silymarin, milk thistle extract, antecedal cystine, alpha-lipoic acid. If any of that could be helpful in a situation like this. I just don’t remember and it just occurred to me and once the show is done I will look that up and if anything worthwhile pops up we’ll just stick something in the show notes on that.
Nicki: Okay. Next question is from Joe. Diet and or supplements for photo sensitivity, sun allergy, AKA polymorphous light eruption. He says, “Hi Robb and Nicki, thanks for all of your great content. Do you know of any supplements, food options or other treatments to help with a sun allergy? Also known as photo sensitivity and polymorphous light eruption? This article describes the condition pretty well based on my experience.” There’s a link here. “I’m pretty sure I’m now in my third year of PMLE. Last year when it started I spoke to my doctor on the phone due to no face to face appointments during COVID, and sent her a photo and she said it was probably photos sensitivity. I was prescribed an antihistamine called fexofenadine, 180 milligrams, which I’m not sure helped either way. I was also referred to a dermatologist, but by the time the appointment came some months later, it had already cleared up.
Nicki: So I canceled the appointment as there was nothing to see. The red sore itchy rash only appears on my face so far. We’ve just had our first good week of sun here in the UK and after some time at the beach, I now have it on my face. Last year it went away after about a month, and then didn’t really come back for the rest of the summer. I had to stay out of the sun a lot for that first month though, which was a pain. I see beta-carotene is recommended on some sites as a treatment or preventative, but in doses of 80 milligrams a day. I’ve seen it on sale at 15 milligram doses. Would 180 milligrams a day be safe or turn me orange? From what I’ve read photosensitivity or PMLE is potentially a histamine issue. Are there diet changes that could help? I also get hay fever and eczema, which I think are in the same family.”
Robb: Yeah, this stuff is all definitely related. I think Joe was onto a pretty good angle here. The challenge, and again this is where the phone in show would be nice, because I’m like, “Okay Joe, exactly what do you eat?” It’s different, but the porphyria cutanea tarda, we’ve talked about that over the years. This is actually an autoimmune photo sensitivity where it in quite severe the person burns upon sun exposure, UV exposure, and they can burn all the way down to the periosteum of the bone. It’s crazy intense. And we’ve worked with folks that we got them gluten free as a baseline line and they ended up being able to tolerate sun exposure just fine.
Robb: So I would almost guarantee that there’s something diet related that is a factor here. It’s interesting that this just started very recently. So there might be some gut microbiome shifts, maybe an illness or something. Definitely it seems like something probably changed. Either dietarily or microbiome or something like that that is leading into this heightened sensitivity, maybe something, environmental change. Our oldest daughter Zoe when we were in Reno had a pretty minimal allergies. She got a little bit of allergies in the spring.
Nicki: Very little.
Robb: And she was around animals.
Nicki: Barely noticeable.
Robb: Barely noticeable. And then we landed in Texas and she was allergic to everything like cats and dogs and horses-
Nicki: Horses.
Robb: … in particular. And now that we’re in Montana and we’re just getting into the spring where things will start blooming, but during the winter, her…
Nicki: She has nothing. Zero allergy.
Robb: Yeah. Unless she gets around horses, which is ironic. Because she really, really loves horses.
Nicki: Heartbreaking.
Robb: That is definitely the thing that she is the most reactive to, but she can play with the cat, she can play with the dog. So I think that it’s this total load of environment, which includes food, but then also anything that might be blooming in the environment. And we were told in Texas, like the Cedar fever was this big deal and then ragweed was a big deal. So fortunately those seem to be much less of a problem here, but I don’t know if maybe Joe, if you moved, if you bought a new plant, if a neighbor planted something. I would definitely look at all of these environmental considerations and then looking at histamine mitigation via diet. There are definitely some different strategies to that. I have to say it starts looking as crazy and involved as it’s-
Nicki: It’s extensive. There’s a lot to omit if you suspect a histamine issue. Strawberries, chocolate.
Robb: Bone broth.
Nicki: Yeah. If you look online there’s-
Robb: Slow cooked meats.
Nicki: … some lists of things that you can check out. Any thoughts on the beta-carotene?
Robb: Oh gosh. It will probably turn them a little orange, but what’s interesting about that is I’m wondering if it’s just anti-inflammatory and I’m wondering if it’s the beta-carotene itself or if it’s more of the vitamin A that’s a consequence of the beta-carotene that is at play there. We definitely have noticed for different skin issues inadequate vitamin A ends up being a big deal. So yeah.
Nicki: Would vitamin D have any role?
Robb: It’s all a factor in this.
Nicki: So Joe, I think this is a good thing for anyone to do because vitamin D levels are so important when it comes to just immune health. So you might want to get your vitamin D levels checked and just see if you haven’t already and just see where they’re at and if they are low, that would be another area to consider supplementing.
Robb: For sure. Yeah.
Nicki: Okay. That is the end of our show today. Do you have any other things you want to… Are you still chaffed? Is it wound down?
Robb: Yeah. Fuck, it just sucks. It’s like definitely did not want to like hurt this person’s feelings or anything like that, but it is also there’s an ironic feature of this. Because I asked the list owner just remove me, I’m clearly a bad fit here. I had pissed off Gary Taubes and I’ve been after him because he basically refused to read…
Nicki: Sacred Cow.
Robb: … Sacred Cow and there’s a whole really odd deal with that, where he would communicate to Diana and I directly, but not to the list basically saying, “I don’t really trust your research and I’ve got to do the research myself.” Which is just all kinds of weird. So I’ve just had odd interactions there, but this woman clearly is experienced to tramautic deal. She’s been dealing with type 1 diabetes her whole life. So I can see where some of this stuff is raw and I’m looking back. But goddamn, what topic then is like… Somebody knows somebody who died in a car accident. Somebody knows somebody who drowned. And there’s a reality. I’m not a first responder. I’m not in the military, but I’ve done a lot of work in and around those groups. And my mindset is I guess similar in a lot of ways. And the way that many people cope with difficulty is with dark humor. And that dark humor is oftentimes the only line that ends up being the line that you don’t put around your neck and hanging yourself. So there’s, I don’t know man. The world’s just something else.
Nicki: Yeah. The world has definitely changed a lot. I guess I’m trying to think. 10 years ago or even five years ago would that have even been a thing? Are people more sensitive now? Have people become more fragile?
Robb: I definitely feel like people are more sensitive, more fragile.
Nicki: Have people become more fragile, less resilient, less… The thick skin. When I was a kid I had lots of cousins and uncles and it was always like you got to have thick skin if you’re going to make it. So that was you prided yourself on having thick skin. That doesn’t mean that you don’t get your feelings hurt and it doesn’t that you… But you learn how to shake some stuff off. But again, this is a very raw situation. This apparently just happened to this woman. So I want to be very sensitive to her current… Maybe if this was two months from this event, she wouldn’t have been so offended.
Robb: I doubt it. There’s this interesting phenomena where people just cruise around waiting for the excuse to unload on somebody. And that’s the other side of this. What’s interesting to me is when I was a kid I remember that it was the really religious kids and really religious people that I was nervous and uptight around. That oh, don’t say something wrong. You’ll get jumped on with both feet and everything in my life. The most tough resilient people I know are religious now. I’m unfortunately not religious. And I say unfortunately because for me it’s the sun explodes, it consumes the earth, the heat death of the universe. My mind goes there and not in frequent amount of times.
Robb: So having a religious basis mitigates that the night is long and full of terrors. When you really embrace the heat death of the universe, it is fucking long and absolutely full of terrors. But I’m going to say thin skin and I don’t know. Well, and this is where for folks listening, and I don’t know how important this is to anybody at this point, but I’m probably being insensitive, but the just part of me that is like, “Holy shit.” Commenting on a joke about cereal. And now this is extrapolated to be some sort of… I wasn’t even. Yeah, I don’t know. I guess I’m good.
Nicki: I think we just got to take it back to just she’s in a…
Robb: Bad spot.
Nicki: In a rough spot.
Robb: And I feel terrible for her but at the same time I’m just…
Nicki: Yeah. But you had no way of knowing that and you were just making a joke.
Robb: And I’m just not in a spot anymore where it sucks, it’s terrible, and also I was not deserving of lashing out like that.
Nicki: Well, and it’s interesting because I was just listening to, I haven’t finished yet because it’s a long conversation, but Mike Rowe has a podcast called The Way I Heard It, which I really, really enjoy. And he had Dan Carlin on recently and during the course of the conversation they were talking about tearing down statues in particular Thomas Jefferson and Dan made the comment that throughout history statues have been torn down and replaced when we’ve got new information or new rulers have come into power.
Nicki: So he’s like this is a historical thing that happens again and again, it’s nothing new. But then they went on to talk about how some of the amazing things that Thomas Jefferson did and how we’re in a spot where… And you’ve talked about this before. There’s no room for nuance, there’s no room for people to say, “Gosh, look at all the things that Thomas Jefferson did and the amazing things and what he contributed to democratic societies.” Then look, he owned slaves. There’s some things that we can reflect back on that were really positive.
Robb: You mentioned in Haiti and a bunch of other places used the Jeffersonian template to form their democracy.
Nicki: Right. So his work has contributed to lots of amazing things, but yes, he owned people. So can we not see that all humans we have good things and we have some not so good things. And in that lens of that time that was a normal thing. So Dan Carlin made the point or maybe it was Mike. 100 years from now or even 50 years from now people look back at us now, what are we doing now that people are going to consider so completely appalling that they’re going to want to just deface all of us for what we’re doing. 200 years ago that was a very common place thing. Right or wrong as disgusting and ugly as it was, it was what happened. Throughout history people have been involuntarily forced to do work for others in all countries on all continents.
Nicki: So I don’t know, just an interesting thing where we’re in a spot currently where a person does one thing that other people view as being a not good thing and then now that person is a not good person. You make one bad joke and you’re a not good person despite the rest of, and I know I’m going off on a tangent, but it reminded me of that particular episode which is great. And I know many of you listen to Dan Carlin and personally I think Mike Rowe is just amazing. So it’s a good show.
Robb: I think you would leave me in a heartbeat for Mike Rowe.
Nicki: No. No, no, No.
Robb: If he got in better shape. He’s a little chubby.
Nicki: He apparently is going carnivore. Apparently is going carnivore. He even has butcher box as an ad. He’s moving in the right direction. He’s not going vegan, that’s for sure.
Robb: Not going vegan. So yeah. Again, I don’t know, maybe I’m just justifying this stuff because I fucked up and so I’m trying to fix that. But I really don’t think that’s it, we’re just in this really-
Nicki: It would be highly insensitive if you knew her circumstances and then you jumped in with that joke.
Robb: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Nicki: You had no way of knowing those circumstances so I understand where she’s coming from. I think her response was a little, I get it, but humor is the thing that glues us all together as…
Robb: The interesting thing again is it is the weather vein of Fascism. And maybe that’s why I’m sensitive to this stuff because at a more macro level, we have people that in theory we’ve been close with and that they got their career started largely working with us. And they did an absolute witch hunt after JP Sears. And these are people who run the witch hunt side of great Glassman and CrossFit going after them.
Nicki: So they experienced the witch hunt and then they became a witch hunter.
Robb: They fucking experienced it and then they did it themselves. And I am still just like… People say, “I’m disappointed in you.” It’s not disappointment, it’s disgust. It’s just like, I can’t believe this. And the main thing that I can’t believe. I guess I’m in this spot where humor is just this sacrosanct thing, it almost doesn’t matter what the topic is, to your point though like had I known-
Nicki: Right. Right.
Robb: … this poor woman’s situation.
Nicki: Right. You wouldn’t have gone there.
Robb: Absolutely would have never, but I have no way of knowing that. And I guess that’s the reason why I didn’t put this thing down and if anybody is still listening and gives some shit about this, if the reason why I’m still motoring forward on this is that when people are able to laugh about things and they end up not killing each other, they end up making up and you take really high emotional moments and things are on edge, and then you can deescalate it in an instant with humor. And it’s-
Nicki: I think society is… How many people have had just on the floor pee your pants, belly aching laughs over the last couple of years.
Robb: I haven’t.
Nicki: Probably not many. Right?
Robb: Yeah.
Nicki: I think people desperately need that. And we’ve got a dearth of laughter in the world.
Robb: Let’s leave it there, and I’m definitely interested in you all’s thoughts on this. Did I fuck up? How did I fuck up and all the rest of that.
Nicki: All right folks, thank you for tuning into another episode of The Healthy Rebellion Radio. Be sure to check out our show sponsor, drink Element for all of your hydration needs and the occasional mocktail or cocktail. Go to drinklmnt.com/robb and hope you have a fabulous weekend. Can’t believe it’s almost May. We’ll see you next week.
Robb: Bye everybody.
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Hey Robb – I found your joke very funny! It points out the idiocy of our current food system and the negative effects it has on our health while at the same time being considered completely normal.
There was no way of knowing how this person would perceive your comment. You didn’t do it on purpose to hurt her feelings so I would go easy on yourself.