Saturday 7

Published: Sat, 01/13/24

Good morning!

Here's your Saturday 7 roundup!

🥩 What is the healthiest food:

If you evaluate most people's diets, you'll find...

The problem is most people's "hamburger" is this:

This is a plant-based meal full of sugar, grains, and vegetable oils.

A tiny fraction of this meal is actually meat, and that's the healthiest part...by far.

🤔 What they want you to think is healthy:

If you pull back the curtain on studies that associate red meat with disease, you'll often find that the "meat" they associate with disease is consumed with tons of junk.

But they'll point the finger at the meat.

And it looks like that is what Big Food has up their sleeves...

According to the Wall Street Journal this week, Big Food is planning to fight back, defending ultra-processed foods.

These 10 companies control 80% of food purchased in the US.

Their incentive is to maximize profits via:

cheap ingredients + long shelf life = bigger margins
high palatability + addiction = repeat customers

They'll pay off scientists. They'll fund fraudulent studies. They'll market their products to falsely portray health. They'll target children.

They don't care about your health.

Instead give your business to local farms.

Win for you. Not Big Food.
Win for farms. Not Pharm.

😴 What I'm reading:

My 2024 Challenge is to use AI to do more, faster, better.

Last week I used AI to "read" Dr. Peter Diamandis's blog.

It piqued my interest enough to pickup his latest book, The Future is Faster Than You Think.

I'm interested in learning about how technology like AI is going to impact the future of healthcare, longevity, and food — 3 topics covered in the book.

Like most advancements, it's probably a double-edged sword.

Here's 2 recent examples of what I mean.

The Bad

When ChatGPT first went live, I asked it: "What is unhealthy fat?" and it responded "Saturated Fat."

Now, months later, ChatGPT has advanced to GPT4. I asked the latest version the same question.

The AI is sticking to it's guns:

If AI is just regurgitating the prevailing bias that got us into this health predicament, I don't see how that helps get us out of it.

Junk (training data) in : Junk (answers) out

The Good

One year ago I slipped on ice and hurt my knee.

A couple of weeks ago, I finally got an MRI. The radiologist said it was negative.

Perplexed how I could have knee pain for a year without structural damage, I asked my brother, an MD, and he sent the MRI to another radiologist for a second opinion.

This second opinion revealed a tear in my quad tendon.

Turns out misdiagnoses like this happen ALL THE TIME.

The initial radiologist read who-knows-how-many MRI's that day, was probably tired, and just missed it.

Would AI make this mistake?

A big part of my MRI bill is paying the radiologist for the (mis)diagnosis.

How much cheaper and more accurate would it be to have an AI read it?

Further, based on the diagnosis, what if the AI could then recommend the list of potential treatment options, risks and benefits, while evaluating my insurance coverage, and recommending local providers?

So much potential time and money savings — all with technology we have today.

Takeaway:

I believe AI is going to provide a boon to healthcare. But, at least in the short term, I worry about poor nutrition training data leading us down a continued sick path, because as Mark Twain said:

It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.

💡How to stack the deck in your favor:

According to a study, New Year's Resolutions have a 91% fail rate.

Here's 7 tips to stack the deck in your favor and join the 9%:

Write out what this change would mean to you (benefits)
Write out what not making this change would mean (consequence of failing)
Make it measurable (clear end goal)
Make it actionable (clear steps to take)
Public announcement (family / friends / newsletter readers :)
Private accountability (i.e. coach)
Put skin in the game (upfront investment or cost of not following through)

Takeaway:

Have an important goal (large gap between #1 and #2) where you know what you're aiming for and you know the necessary steps to take, and have people hold you to taking those steps with steep consequences if you don't.

🧠 What quote I've been thinking about:

If we don't change, we don't grow. If we don't grow, we are not really living.

Growth demands a temporary surrender of security. It may mean a giving up of familiar but limiting patterns, safe but unrewarding work, values no longer believed in, relationships that have lost their meaning.

As Dostoevsky put it, "Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most."

The real fear should be of the opposite course.

– Gail Sheehy, on growth

📊 What launched a new era:

On Wednesday, the Bitcoin ETF was approved, starting a new era for bitcoin adoption.

I'm excited.

For the last 10 years, I've been talking about this weird internet money, and everyone just thought I was crazy.

If you're an OG reader of this newsletter, you know. For example, 5 years ago when bitcoin was under $4k, I wrote in the Saturday 7 that I thought it was a great price/time to think about this asset.

Response from a former Saturday 7 reader:

But with an ETF, bitcoin is in the Big Leagues, and licensed stockbrokers with Masters in Accounting will have to leave me alone :)

Not only will they now have to leave me alone, but they're in it now.

According to data from Cerulli Associates, financial advisors manage around $30 trillion on behalf of retail investors, but many have not been able to allocate to bitcoin on behalf of their clients. Now they can.

With financial advisors and large institutions having an onramp into bitcoin (⬆️ demand) and the bitcoin halving just a few months away (⬇️ supply) 2024/2025 is shaping up to be an exciting ride.

P.S.

Since we're talking about bitcoin and financial advisors, there is one financial advisor that I know who gets bitcoin, my brother Joe. I know because I've been talking to him about it for over 10 years. His firm, Lake Street, just crossed a major milestone: over $1B under management! It's a testament to their knowledge and hard work. He'd be mad at me for putting this here, but if you're looking for an advisor, I'd start here.