Probably no health communicator has disappointed me more than Peter Attia (and trust me there’s a lot of people in the space to be disappointed by)

From writing a sensible, practical, reasonable, grounded guide to health with OUTLIVE to becoming a straight shill and lending his good name to over the top luxury longevity clinics for tech/finance bros and worse going in on that chemical soup David bar business

The Farcaster formerly known as Kchamp. Books, beats, bodybuilding, bright ideas and beautiful things.

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Just looked at David bar ingredients. Where are these chemicals you're referring to?

The big red flag synthetic in there (that David just bought, natch) is EPG 

This — and to some degree the sugar alcohols — are why they disclaim they may cause gi distress

Fun havoooooooor | Co-creator of the universe | FuckANiche.com | prev @forefront

It’s total food science and barely better than a candy bar to me. I am camp Whole Foods whenever possible, but I understand the dose makes the poison and there are times when these bars are the best choice. 

Still, there are plenty of options for bars that are simply not as processed as David that still offer benefits like easy on the go protein 

They are a gut bomb. Like sugar alcohols, EPG has studied adverse gi effects at higher concentrations (hence the disclaimer) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0273230014002840 

But mostly No one knows anything about what a lot of this stuff does to you, not that it is benign. 

And More and more red flags are coming out about sugar alcohols all the time https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/erythritol-cardiovascular-events

Sure these products have a place in the diet but they are not something I think a longevity and wellness expert should be endorsing

Do candy bars have high protein and low sugar? No, it's the opposite. So how's that a comparison?

You acknowledge that dose makes the poison, if at all. The EPG in the David bar is 6-7 grams. Even those who have issues with it could eat 2-3 safely. In the same vein, for sugar alcohols and artificial sweeteners in general, it's been established that we couldn't even possibly consume the volume of drinks that research shows could be problematic. 

I'm not simping for David bars. I like Quest better. But curious which other bars don't have these issues? Is there plenty? 

Re your last point about Attia: He always says that adherence is far and away the single most important factor for any health intervention. Whole foods are of course ideal (if you ignore that they may not as easily fit your macros, which would actually make them non-ideal) but if someone needs more protein in an adherable, macro-optimized way, protein bars may be ideal.

Oh and that Erythritol study is BS: https://youtu.be/Ad8_scQtHFM?si=xrsFN8KdTgokkNn5

One ingredient is not the same as "chemical soup" though is it? And it's not as if EPG has any known major adverse health effects either, other than the fact that it's synthetic.

And imo, it's kinda ridiculous to object to sugar alcohols in protein bars. All the good ones (including Quest) have them as they should. The alternative is added sugar which is worse.

Caveat: Those who really can't tolerate sugar alcohols. Idk how big this population is. 

But I can personally eat 6 to 8 of these sugar alcohol bars in a day and have no issues. 

Protein bars aren't perfect. But they fill a specific need with minor trafeoffs (i.e., processing). Every protein source has tradeoffs. You have to appreciate the use case they're for.