Mike Israetel
speaker
1,094 appearances
5 recordings
5 series
first heard Dec 2024
last heard May 2025
Mike Israetel’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Um, and, and so on down the line, also their bar culture is like just tied completely into junk food of the most despicable quality. Like the Japanese exclusively like oil fried, uh, uh, uh, breaded meats, uh, When they get drunk and like I had a basically stomach collapse when I tried doing that in Japan recently, but they seem to be thing is just fine.
The plenty of junk food and tasty treats, but they just don't seem to have a high food drive on average. And this is also reflected in the fact that while Japanese people in other countries, especially the United States tend to be fatter on average.
They're not fatter by nearly as much as you would expect if the obesogenic environment of the United States was really the thing causing all of us to be super fat versus just tasty foods around. And some of us like it a lot more than others. I mean, there's all kinds of subpopulation differences that present like this.
For example, if you look at the Indian subcontinent, then you tend to notice that the average Indian person just does not hold as much skeletal muscle as naturally as the average human in the world, and nor are they particularly prone to rapid obesity.
But what you have is a situation where many folks who are genetically Indian or from related region of that world, South Asians, they tend to exhibit higher than expected rates of simultaneously low muscle mass. and relatively high body fat levels.
So like in clothing, they present as totally normal, but then you do a body fat exam and they're like at 33% and they're 32 years old and pre-diabetic, which is quite rare for most folks. And so we can say like, so what is it about Indian food? I mean, fundamentally Indian food is only one scientifically confirmed thing to do with this. It's like maybe the tastiest food in the world.
It's just better. Indian food is just better. If you've never had Indian food, you'd never really eaten until you've had it. And so, but like, you know, it's not just the food that's doing that. That's a lot of that's genetics because if you fed, you know, Northern Europeans, a ton of Indian food, they would have lots of muscle mass and body weight.
They would be gigantic way over fat, but they wouldn't be skinny fat to that same extent. And so if we over index on the differences between nations or peoples and thinking, oh, it's the social and cultural factors, which do play a role, say a minor role relative to genetics, genetic genetics plays by far the biggest role in that.
The best in the world of processed food.
Now, Drew, to the point of cultural differences, and some of these are genetic differences expressing themselves as culture, some of these are purely cultural. Let's take a quick think, you and I, as about how different that is. Could you imagine an American corporation coming up to Linda, the overweight secretary, and going, Linda, the corporation needs you to lose weight. Lawsuit! National news!
frigging billions down the drain. That's fat abuse. It's fat shaming. How dare you? Are you serious? I work for a corporation. My output is what I type into this computer. How dare you tell me about anything else about me? The response is 360 degrees different from anything that would occur in Japan.
Whereas in Japan, if someone's like, Hey, like the corporation cares about you, they're like, Oh, okay. Okay. Just try not to disappoint the corporation. trying to do what I'm supposed to be. I'm a big team player here, and I got to rein in my stuff, and they're instantly cooperative nine times out of 10. We're Americans.
I mean, 50-50 may be an exaggeration for how much cooperation you're going to get. Because if you are a middle manager, and your boss told you, hey, we have this health initiative. Let's say you work for General Motors or something. And you go, yep, sure, boss, we do. That's okay. So you see Jameson and your staff are like, Jameson, he does great work. He does.
It's your job tomorrow to go talk to him about the fact that he's too over fat. You got to tell him about we have a gym in the workplace and about he's getting some food vouchers to get healthy food or whole foods. It's your job. Drew, are you looking forward to that conversation?
So when people say we need more education... They have a really good point, but then actually doing it and actually imposing these rules and ideas requires people's buy-in at a deep level. And before we get that, all the stuff about education is kind of like, is there anyone listening? Does anyone care? Is anyone actually going to do this?
And those are kind of the bigger questions I've been asking recently, not facetiously, but in the honest attempt to say, I think most people have a giving a shit problem. And I'm not saying that's a bad thing. Look, if I had to make a list of all the things you could do with your life that are better than just trying to eat lean and get skinnier or whatever, I think that's all of them.
Spending time with your children, walking your dogs, loving your grandmother more, dancing at the club all night. This is all the stuff of life. So I'm not saying that folks that just don't really care much about their health are bad people. They're awesome people. But then they have a certain health and you look because you don't really care.
Like a Japanese person tends to look a little bit more ahead. Like if I eat five Twinkies today and I do this tomorrow and the day after, where's that going to lead to? Nothing good. Some of us are more YOLO. Like I like Twinkies. They're going in my mouth and there's nothing wrong with that. the consequences will be different. And we already know the primary cause, human choice.
So as a society, we should probably look towards people to be like, listen, how can we empower you, if you'd like, to eat differently and to exercise and to do all these things that are better for you But it has to be a question because, thank God, we don't live in a totalitarian society where we just tell people to stop eating.
It has to be a gentle invitation that we have some answers and we can help. And it can't be you do this because if you say you do this, the probability you'll get traction with most Americans and most people in the world is very, very low.
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