Dear Paleo

The rather fatalistic and sardonic proverb, “Nothing is certain but death and taxes”, needs a transformation of its own.  I propose we add ‘Bad Advice’.  Let me tell you where to find it…

Like death and taxes, Bad Advice is inevitable and omnipresent.  I mean, its more prevalent than death or taxes.  The only difference between ‘death and taxes’ and ‘bad advice’ is that the former hits you in the face like a kettle bell gone wild.  The later, BAD ADVICE, sneaks up on you like a back-stabbin’ putz.  Problem is that back-stabbin putz is usually long down the road before you found out about what ever it was he told you.

Bad Advice does not come from where you first think it might.  Friends, neighbors, that freak at work you have to listen to, your spouse, are all top contenders.  However, the Bad Advice I bring to light comes to you more than 5,000 times a day, and it comes in the form of advertising.

From promises of fat literally melting off while you sleep, to touting ‘No Trans Fats’ on a food label, its ADVERTISING that serves up more Bad Advice than you can possibly comprehend.  Don’t get me wrong.  There is advertising that is Good, Great, Life-Saving at times, but in the land of advertising – specifically Food Advertising – Bad Advice comes at you in images, text, sound and motion.  You’re lulled into a trance like Hypnotists’ volunteer because these marketers know your hot buttons.

When it says, “Tastes Just Like…”  you need to run and hide!

If it reads, “Same calcium as…” turn the other cheek.  No.  The other one.

“As Good As…” is setting you up.

These magical word tool sets make you think things without much work.  They look good, smell good, and gawd they feel great on your tongue.  But guess what.  They’re bad advice.

Here’s how to thwart bad advice in marketing:

Look for these phrases, and then eat whatever their product “Tastes Just Like”, is “the Same As”, or is “As Good As.”  Simple.

Again, eat what they say they taste like.

“Tastes like fresh eggs” means “Eat fresh eggs.”

This easy way to cut through the bad advice served up about foodstuffs occurred to me the first time I made a Paleo Breakfast cereal, No Oat Oatmeal, that I found on A Paleo Recipe A Day.  I giggled when I first tasted it.  It was delicious, and I thought to myself, “Tastes just like nuts, fruits and berries.”  I recalled that raskly rabbit telling me the same thing a few thousand times during Speed Racer as a kid too.  I was sucker punched and nobody even knew it.  So were you.

Of course this is why Paleo Lifestyle Design is so highly regarded these days.  With more information available on the things that are marketed and advertised to us, its those advertisers and marketers that feed that desire to know more that really get our business.

For example, Max Muscle Sports Nutrition makes one of the greatest supplements I’ve ever enjoyed, and it’s called Max Green Synergy.  I love it with chia seeds, a splash of lime juice, and ice in the morning as a tasty Fresca.  Want to see why this business is bigger than ever and made Entrepreneur Magazine #1 In Category this year.  Truth in advertising.  Everything’s disclosed if you want it from these guys.  If you want to know what you’re supplementing with, they tell you and their marketing is based on that platform.

MSN Money recently highlighted a service called “Test My Message” and touted to marketers they ‘no longer have to second guess themselves’ if they used Test My Message…a group of professional writers, bloggers, and marketers that serve as a ‘watch dog’ agency for the written word as it applies to marketing.  You send them what you’re about to tell the public in whatever media you’re going to do it in, and experts from across the globe give you feedback almost instantly!  It’s like marketing CYA!  Anybody selling anything to anybody should use it.

Then there’s Blogs’ Bad Advice.  Blogs are easy to start, and often start out with passionate fervor, but then dwindle off into the dreaded ‘hanging post’…that Search Result that comes up, you click on it, and then you find out it was last updated when you ate your first Zot as a kid.

Timothy Ferris wrote something very wise in that he reads non-fiction books only if they have titles like “How I did this…”  In other words, he doesn’t read some guy’s take on a situation, he reads the guy who actually did whatever he is interested in.  In the blogosphere, one of my favorites is Nell Stephenson, co-author of The Paleo Diet cookbook.  Her site, PALEOISTA, is good advice.  She’s all that and more.

I just read in the latest itsPALEO Exclusive an interview with Nell.  It is about her book PALEOISTA and it reminds me why I love her work so much.  Because she’s good advice.  She doesn’t have cheat days, and she, like Mark Sisson, The Whole Kitchen, Well Fed and others are Featured Content on itsPALEO…they’ve done that, are doing that, and haven’t wavered from that.  I love her take on Paleo Lifestyle Design:

“The purpose of the book is to convey that ‘Paleo’ doesn’t mean ‘cavey’.  I always put that this caveat out there…there’s nothing wrong with the ‘cavey’ approach, its the same foods.  It’s just that that approach doesn’t work for everybody.  I certainly work with clients who are more super into Crossfit, or strength training, or body building, as well as being into barefoot running, and Super Primal, that type of thing which is awesome.” said Stephenson.

Good advice is hard to find, but easier with direction.  The proverb now reads, “Nothing is certain but death, taxes and bad advice”.  And because you’re a dear reader, bad advice will come at you less often.