Maintenance Phase - Paul Bragg & The Rise of Apple Cider Vinegar

00:00:00.000 welcome to maintenance phase the show that turns your hippie parents into mean weirdos

00:00:18.740 is that what the show is about today that's like not quite it but like definitely hippie

00:00:25.420 parents territory that's what i was told about this i'm michael hobbs i'm aubrey gordon if you

00:00:31.700 would like to support the show you can do that at patreon.com slash maintenance phase or you can buy

00:00:35.720 t-shirts mugs tote bags whatever you like at t public both of those are linked for you in the

00:00:40.340 show notes also fun update i have written another book and it's coming out in january

00:00:47.180 go buy it go buy aubrey's book what's it called aubrey it's called you just need to lose weight

00:00:54.460 and 19 other myths about fat people the idea is that it's organizing a bunch of prompts for deeper

00:01:01.340 thinking and research and history and a bunch of other things you can get that at aubreygordon.net

00:01:07.900 slash myths and we will link it for you in the show notes and we're gonna talk about it a lot

00:01:13.760 when it comes out and are you gonna read the audiobook this time this is like the number one

00:01:18.620 comment we get from listeners i it's the number one comment we get from listeners it's the number

00:01:23.360 one comment i get in my email inbox it's the number one comment that my publisher gets yes i

00:01:28.000 am reading the audiobook i start recording tomorrow so you have aubrey in your ears

00:01:32.920 different ways starting in january maybe more than you want we'll find out

00:01:37.960 and today michael you sort of alluded to it we are talking about a topic near and dear to many 0.98

00:01:46.800 a hippie vegan heart and that is brags i am the fresh maker on this episode i have no fucking 0.94

00:01:56.240 idea what we're talking about you're rolling around in a suit on a wet paint bench giving it 0.97

00:02:01.180 pinstripes you told me this a couple weeks ago that we were doing this i've never heard of this

00:02:05.760 brand i've never heard of this story so i'm ready to be taken in your arms and pulled along on a on

00:02:12.660 a path of information. Okay. So Bragg Live Foods is a natural foods company based in Santa Barbara

00:02:20.460 in California. They are all told a pretty small company, but they have a fairly big impact. Like

00:02:28.220 people who know them and love them, extremely know them and love them. Okay. I'm going to send you

00:02:34.660 an image of their nutritional yeast just so that you can see, oh, that's the bag. Click through and

00:02:40.760 see the little picture of the canister nutritional yeast packed with protein and b vitamins brag 0.97

00:02:46.080 nutritional oh fuck off there's pop-ups i don't want your newsletter the main reason i'm sending 0.97

00:02:52.080 this to you is to look at the packaging this the apple cider vinegar the liquid aminos all come 0.99

00:02:58.500 with this bright yellow label right it's got the two sort of leaders of the company in portrait

00:03:04.980 on the label and there's a big red banner that says bragg nutritious grace today's vegetarian

00:03:10.740 gluten-free salt-free sugar it's just like claiming a lot of stuff at me sodium-free

00:03:17.080 delicious flavor added to foods and recipes like that is ideally the goal of most foods is to add

00:03:23.500 flavor oh and then it's got more information on the founder so it says patricia bragg n d

00:03:29.900 yeah naturopathic oh naturopathic doctor phd pioneer health crusader health educator author

00:03:37.300 and it's got paul c bragg originator health spores it's making claims i can't read that

00:03:46.860 originator of health stores okay and then life extension specialist oh no okay on this packaging

00:03:55.480 It has those kind of like spiky bubbles that show up on kind of sensationalized packaging for foods.

00:04:05.080 Yeah, it's like the Batman POW sign.

00:04:08.180 Yes, there you go.

00:04:09.240 That's exactly it.

00:04:10.400 It's like BAP.

00:04:10.780 The things they have chosen to highlight in those big green bubbles are sodium-free and shaker top.

00:04:18.140 Yeah, it's these.

00:04:18.940 Okay.

00:04:19.820 These are weird choices.

00:04:21.260 Lots of seasonings come with a shaker top, Paula and Patricia.

00:04:24.400 It's like how when they used to list special features on DVDs, it would always say interactive

00:04:29.160 menu. It's like, yeah, that's my expectation. So Bragg's has made its name selling nutritional

00:04:36.180 yeast, sometimes called brewer's yeast. It really is a good source of B vitamins. I think it's

00:04:42.180 fucking delicious. Yeah. They also have their liquid aminos, which are billed as sort of a 0.99

00:04:47.040 healthier alternative to soy sauce. Okay. And then the last one is good old fashioned apple cider

00:04:53.580 vinegar, which has about 1 million health claims. Yeah. In 2007, according to Hoover's corporate

00:05:00.360 database, they did about $3.1 million in sales and they employed about 25 people. So it is a

00:05:06.160 small company. Yeah, pretty small. The company was founded by Paul Bragg and then later run by

00:05:11.160 his daughter, Patricia Bragg. Paul and Patricia have written a lot of books about health and

00:05:17.320 wellness i am going to send you some of the titles of these books some of the words are in all caps

00:05:25.780 that's because that's how they're stylized on the cover of the book okay and because i think it

00:05:31.400 makes it funnier to leave those in water the shocking truth the water you're drinking may

00:05:36.980 look safe but is it oh no yeah healthy heart learn the facts building building powerful nerve force

00:05:48.200 and positive energy the miracle of fasting proven throughout history for physical mental and

00:05:56.520 spiritual rejuvenation okay so we're in like gerson therapy adjacent like here's the secret

00:06:05.500 to health stuff and how our yeasts are gonna solve it i was thinking about like knowing that

00:06:11.760 you didn't know a ton about this company or their products i was like how do i shorthand the vibe

00:06:17.940 here to mike and then i looked at their list of books and i was like thank you for doing it for

00:06:22.700 me i'm dealing with a lot of unforceful nerves right now this might actually be helpful for me

00:06:27.100 my nerves lack force so their most popular books are one about apple cider vinegar unsurprisingly

00:06:34.440 and this the miracle of fasting book i did read the miracle of fasting i think it may be due for

00:06:42.620 a diet book deep dive at some point because every single page is bananas at one point paul writes

00:06:49.380 that quote you have nine doctors at your command dr sunshine dr fresh air pure water

00:06:56.160 Dr. Muscles, Dr. Stretching, Dr. Fruits, Dr. Good Natural Food, Dr. Fasting, Dr. Exercise,

00:07:11.940 Dr. Rest, Dr. Good Posture, and Dr. Human Mind.

00:07:20.880 Not how doctors work, but thank you, Paul.

00:07:23.560 I like how he has a doctor of foods and a doctor of how not to eat.

00:07:28.500 In the introduction, there are these phrases that appear as sort of like

00:07:32.800 subheads. And one that appears a couple of times in this book is

00:07:37.280 sickness is a crime. Don't be a criminal.

00:07:41.700 It's just like weird marketing stuff. They're just reframing these extremely banal

00:07:47.260 points of like, try not to be sick, which like most of us are kind of already doing.

00:07:52.600 yes but then they're reframing it in these like weirdly stigmatizing but also just kind of like

00:07:58.680 overly elaborate ways don't read the sickness bible be a sickness atheist i feel like what

00:08:07.780 you just said about like they have this weirdly sort of baroque and like needlessly complicated

00:08:12.440 way of talking about like pretty basic things and then just throw in some wild cards in there

00:08:18.220 they have a plan called the bragg's healthy lifestyle okay these are some of the do's and

00:08:26.140 don'ts that paul bragg created and that patricia bragg follows and sort of champions i picked a

00:08:34.080 few of those and i'm gonna send those along to you oh okay do fast one day a week to detoxify

00:08:40.540 your system don't eat refined sugar distilled vinegar salty foods white rice or flour fried

00:08:47.260 foods saturated fats or hydrogenated oils coffee or caffeinated teas pork smoked fish and meat

00:08:53.300 canned soups or food preserved with chemicals jesus christ okay lot don't don't eat or drink

00:09:00.260 foods uh-huh don't drink cow's milk do go out in the sun regularly sun has healing and germ

00:09:09.580 killing energy uh-huh sun has it don't eat meat more than twice a week or fish more than several

00:09:15.600 times a week more than several don't do it don't do it get your protein from vegetable sources

00:09:24.660 instead sure don't rely on enemas or high colonics unless you're sick or have extreme constipation 0.96

00:09:32.340 that's that sounds like reasonable advice to me yes don't wash out your butt unless there's a 0.90

00:09:37.380 reason for you to wash out your butt also unusual advice from this particular sector right like this 0.97

00:09:42.540 is the colonic sector right it's like when you're talking to a conspiracy theorist and they tell you 0.97

00:09:47.340 about like the one that they don't believe yes moon landing is baked princess diana was killed

00:09:53.380 by mi6 and then you're like what about bigfoot they're like you know what i don't see the

00:09:56.860 evidence like well what it is also worth noting that the company is sort of proud to report

00:10:03.480 that it has a paul and patricia bragg foundation where they do charitable giving and if you go to

00:10:09.760 that website most of that money goes to rescue missions and wildlife centers and that sort of

00:10:15.760 thing okay they also have given a couple of times to gmo free campaigns and anti-gmo like organizations

00:10:25.720 okay we're nearing the gwyneth verse the gravity is pulling us closer i spent some quality time i

00:10:33.140 remembered a skill that i have for my previous job which is navigating a bunch of political

00:10:38.200 contribution databases and i spent a solid hour last night just like searching for people that

00:10:44.060 we've covered on the show in their respective states and being like what did they give money

00:10:47.760 to politically one of the things that came out of that is that braggs gave to a gmo free mendocino

00:10:54.340 campaign okay that our lady of goop gwyneth paltrow gave a personal fifteen thousand dollar

00:11:00.300 contribution to which you texted me about and now i'm prompting you to talk about thank you

00:11:04.740 thank you so much giving you a reason you love it um the story of bragg live foods

00:11:14.160 is for all intents and purposes the story of paul and patricia bragg paul bragg was born in 1881

00:11:23.800 we're getting in the way back machine yeah we're in 1881 to farmers in virginia he was raised on

00:11:30.160 that farm he talks a lot about growing up on a farm and how that sort of formed his relationship

00:11:34.360 to food. He says he had two brothers and a sister named Louise in the miracle of fasting. He talks

00:11:43.160 about teaching Louise about sort of clean, healthy living and tutoring her to good health after she

00:11:52.080 had some kind of sickness that he doesn't really specify. So like as a child, he's already into

00:11:56.800 this stuff. Absolutely. He also talks about this kind of pivotal moment in his own life. He says

00:12:03.560 that when he was 16 he was diagnosed with tuberculosis okay he says he was sent to a

00:12:08.780 sanitarium where he was treated by a swiss nurse who recommended a swiss doctor bragg went to see

00:12:16.180 that doctor who treated tuberculosis quote with natural foods and exercise oh no okay this is the

00:12:24.480 origin story i fixed myself here is a little quote from an archived version of the bragg's website

00:12:34.560 it says crippled by tuberculosis as a teenager bragg developed his own eating breathing and

00:12:40.800 exercising program to rebuild his body into an ageless tireless pain-free citadel of glowing

00:12:47.340 super health he excelled in running swimming biking progressive weight training and mountain

00:12:53.100 climbing he made an early pledge to god in return for his renewed health to spend the rest of his

00:12:58.080 life showing others the road to super health right uh so he like appointed himself as like

00:13:04.820 god's messenger to just like mansplain like this is what worked for me to other people his whole

00:13:11.080 life so by age 18 it's 1899 paul bragg is tuberculosis free he comes back to the u.s from

00:13:19.800 his Swiss doctor. When he returns to the U.S., he meets a figure who will prove really, really

00:13:26.900 formative for him in that pursuit of a health and wellness career. Blake Lively. Do you have

00:13:32.480 any predictions about who it is? Wait, when are we now? We're in 1899? 1899. We have talked about

00:13:39.060 this person before on the show. Oh, is it the diaper guy? Is it the fighting diaper guy? I love

00:13:45.760 that you remembered yes he meets bernard mcfadden we had one or a couple photos of him i think we

00:13:52.820 looked at in the keto episode he's just like a small ropey man in this like boxing pose of like

00:14:01.860 put up your dukes like that's how i imagine everybody talking back then um yes a couple

00:14:10.100 more little color details for bernard mcfadden he changed his name from bernard to bernard with

00:14:17.120 two r's because he thought it sounded like a lion roaring he was also i think most notably was the

00:14:24.660 publisher of physical culture which was the first big bodybuilding and sort of fitness magazine in

00:14:32.200 the united states these two as far as i could tell like lock eyes the music swells fireworks go off

00:14:39.440 like they are just sort of meant to be and they start collaborating on all sorts of health and

00:14:45.120 wellness projects most notably bernard mcfadden hires paul bragg as an editor at physical culture

00:14:53.220 oh they're doing a collab while those two are working together bragg accomplishes something

00:14:58.700 truly remarkable he becomes an olympian what oh and like ping pong like one of the sports

00:15:05.780 no wrestling he competes with the u.s olympic team in wrestling in the 1908 and 1912 olympics

00:15:13.180 wow the same year that he's in the olympics he says he opens the country's first health food

00:15:21.020 store okay probably not true but fine so around this time sort of the outgrowth of the health

00:15:26.660 food store is brag live food products that's where the company starts right he talks around

00:15:33.880 this time about how he's worried about the refinement and processing of American food.

00:15:39.860 It's fascinating that the term processed was around that long ago. And that like the same

00:15:45.220 sort of arguments were being made that like we have these natural things that come out of the

00:15:48.960 earth, but then we've like processed them into something unhealthy. Yeah. There was a whole

00:15:52.540 piece that I read about the history of health claims around apple cider vinegar and how it's

00:15:57.980 been used. At this point in history, there's like quite a bit of hand wringing because normally

00:16:04.480 apples are grown by grafting, not by planting seeds. When you plant apple seeds, generally the

00:16:13.520 fruit that you get is like kind of gnarlier. It's more sour. It's more fibrous. Like there's a bunch

00:16:19.880 of stuff about it that's like not great, but it was killer for making hard apple cider and apple

00:16:25.220 cider vinegar like these super gnarly apples just like fermented beautifully apparently

00:16:29.860 in the u.s we have genuine real actual historical figure johnny appleseed who is a swedenborgian

00:16:40.880 i don't know if this is a christian sect that you are familiar with no but according to sweden

00:16:46.800 borgians grafting a plant would be akin to torturing that plant oh so he starts planting 0.93

00:16:53.820 these seeded apple trees that give these like gnarly ass apples. And folks really develop a 0.90

00:16:59.720 taste for fermented products made with this particular kind of apple. Was his wife's name

00:17:05.360 like Granny Smith or something? I think the origin story of like everything. Yeah, absolutely. So like

00:17:13.040 that could be where some of the processed food stuff is coming from, right? Their food systems

00:17:18.560 are legitimately changing. And with any change, there is often a level of uncertainty or distrust

00:17:25.840 or sometimes straight up panic. Right. And it seems to me like Paul Bragg is articulating some

00:17:30.580 of those anxieties. And also this is the time of like the jungle and a lot more awareness of

00:17:37.640 genuinely bad practices in the American food processing industry. So some of this anxiety

00:17:43.800 is extremely justified absolutely after he opens the health food store he starts what he says is

00:17:51.940 the nation's first health and wellness lecture tour it's a medicine show it's the same thing

00:17:59.240 we saw in the snake oil episode mike why are you spoiling oh my okay sorry no it's okay he calls

00:18:06.060 it brag health crusade this was the quote i was going to give you to be like isn't it like a

00:18:11.040 medicine show doesn't this sound familiar leading me you were leading me on a path and i got to the

00:18:15.320 destination too fast i'm sorry i did consider this possibility last night where i was like

00:18:20.080 this is only full of twists and turns if you haven't hosted this show with me for two years

00:18:24.960 so one of the attendees of a brag health crusade lecture remembers this particular part of it this

00:18:37.060 is a direct quote from someone who was there it says paul had this great big pot he'd take on

00:18:42.920 stage and he'd put 20 to 25 jars of different chemicals you find in food stuff from white

00:18:48.240 bread coke you name it and he'd say i'm gonna cook dinner for everyone tonight then he'd put

00:18:53.740 everything in the pot stir it up and shout who's ready to eat folks that's what you're putting in

00:18:59.020 your body oh this is the jamie oliver chicken nuggets thing from like 70 years later it is

00:19:05.620 turkey twizzlers yeah it is pink slime it is also medicine show men like pulling a tooth i think of

00:19:14.920 it as similar to you know you have to go to those seminars to buy a timeshare yes they make you go

00:19:21.080 to the seminar and the only reason to go to this seminar is like yes i would like to be tricked

00:19:26.120 into buying this thing you have really cracked the code on this business model because after

00:19:30.300 the lecture is free and then afterward you can get a private health consultation with paul bragg

00:19:38.420 in the 1935 health crusade series that health consultation cost 20 that sounds expensive in

00:19:48.680 1935 in today's dollars that is 425 yeah it's a good grift and he's doing all this during and

00:19:57.620 just after the depression. Right. Opening the first health food store, starting the first

00:20:03.000 health lecture series are just two of his many, many, many firsts in the natural foods and health

00:20:11.200 foods world. According to Bragg's website, he was the first to introduce pineapple juice and

00:20:18.080 tomato juice to the US. Oh, he was the first to introduce and distribute honey and date sugar

00:20:25.840 nationwide. Okay. He hosted the first health TV show, which he co-hosted with Patricia called

00:20:32.440 Health and Happiness. And he says he opened one of the first health restaurants and health spas.

00:20:39.840 I mean, I like juice. Thank you for the juice, Paul. Sure. Pineapple juice. Delicious. Delicious.

00:20:45.580 And through the health crusades in particular, Bragg gets a lot of famous supporters. So

00:20:51.500 are you familiar with jack la lane he's like the quintessential exercise guru right he's like the

00:20:58.320 first exercise influencer to kind of break through to the mainstream right yeah he's like a like a tv

00:21:04.500 and magazine like muscle man in the way that like people in the 40s would be muscle men right where

00:21:11.060 you're like yeah oh you just like a look like a dude who's puffing his chest out dude i'm looking

00:21:15.740 as you're talking i'm doing a google image search for physical culture for this magazine and there's

00:21:20.980 all these spreads of bodybuilders and like, yeah, it's so fascinating to me how the people that

00:21:27.280 were considered like the ideal of male athleticism back then would be considered like dudes with dad

00:21:33.480 bods now. Right. And what you're talking about here is not like comments on these particular

00:21:37.640 dudes bodies, but what they represent in terms of how our standards have changed and how our

00:21:42.380 visual indicators of fitness have changed, right? Like this is a decidedly pre Chris Hemsworth world

00:21:48.820 say. So Jack LaLanne says that he attended one of the Health Crusade lectures as a teenager when he

00:21:56.160 was 15 and credits Paul Bragg with, quote, saving his life. That doesn't sound true, but okay. But

00:22:02.920 Jack LaLanne has also said, quote, Paul's the best salesman I ever knew. Paul could sell shoelaces

00:22:09.400 to the barefoot. Okay. So also like he tricked me into a bunch of stuff I didn't need.

00:22:15.000 he also appears to have inspired a generation of health and wellness leaders in reading profiles

00:22:22.080 about him and about patricia you'll get quotes from the people who run eden foods and the guy

00:22:27.520 who founded garden burger and the founder of gnc reportedly went to one of his health crusades

00:22:34.120 lectures right dr scholl he's really like the ground zero of like a whole generation

00:22:41.200 of like health woo woo stuff you know what he's the velvet underground of health and wellness

00:22:46.960 world like not everybody bought his albums but everyone who did started a band rappers delight

00:22:52.240 he's sugar hill gang no it's not everything that comes afterwards yeah did you ever go

00:22:57.640 over to a friend's house and the food just ain't no good the chicken tastes like wood

00:23:01.340 that's what we're talking about so paul bragg has a long and storied career there are like

00:23:09.420 one million little anecdotes and other sort of firsts that he throws in there. He ultimately

00:23:15.900 passed away in 1976. His death certificate lists his birth date is February 6, 1881. So that means

00:23:23.740 he was 95 when he died. It's all the vinegar. 95. He made it. After he dies, Bragg gets all

00:23:31.480 these buyout offers from Ovaltine and Kroger and all of these big deal companies at the time,

00:23:35.500 right despite all those offers they keep it in the family and the company is passed along to his

00:23:42.200 daughter patricia she is a character okay i am sending you a picture of patricia bragg's regular

00:23:53.780 everyday look oh wow yeah hey she looks like one of those like america dolls that you that comes

00:24:02.540 with like a tea set she looks like she is from another era that's for sure she's wearing like 0.99

00:24:07.180 a pink sweater with flowers sewn into it huge pearl necklace and then like a some sort of like

00:24:14.600 wool almost like cowboy hat bright pink also with flowers on it i sent this picture to a friend and 1.00

00:24:21.440 was like oh so she was strawberry shortcake yeah i mean that is totally the vibe she looks like 1.00

00:24:27.660 a kooky rich lady she uh famously hates swearing and she loves to tell this story about how she 1.00

00:24:33.960 fired someone for swearing on the job once i've read a number of her reviews of our show on

00:24:39.440 itunes appreciate her feedback one star tried to listen couldn't do it she is my aunt who has

00:24:46.900 stopped listening to the show because too much swearing due to the cursing due to due to the

00:24:51.720 lord's name in vain she also as you predicted is kind of a kooky lady here is there's a great

00:24:59.580 little graph from one of these profiles called patricia bragg born to do her father's work it

00:25:04.780 says she's never shaved her legs painted her fingernails or worn makeup her father advised

00:25:10.320 her to never wear a bra because it impedes circulation but everything still stands up by

00:25:15.440 itself she says proudly demonstrating the pectoral exercises she does three times a day in two minute

00:25:20.820 sessions she's never pierced her ears because it exposes nerve endings and doesn't wear a wrist

00:25:27.060 watch because she believes it cuts off circulation she never had the desire to rebel against her

00:25:32.420 father's teachings and sneak a cigarette or even an aspirin i always knew the consequences of living

00:25:38.360 an unhealthy lifestyle is sickness you pay for your sins i see i see why you picked this she's 0.55

00:25:48.000 afraid of sick crimes illness crimes sick crime bras shaved legs fingernails painted also there 0.68

00:25:56.720 is this part where she says according to this profile she's never worn makeup please to look 0.97

00:26:01.340 at the picture that i sent yeah i was gonna say of a lady very clearly wearing eyeliner and lipstick 0.82

00:26:06.720 hella makeup what are we doing but then there's also this weird conflation of sin and morality 1.00

00:26:13.940 too even as she's also lying about not wearing makeup totally totally which is also a pretty

00:26:20.840 immoral so when paul bragg suggests to patricia bragg that she should consider being a health

00:26:29.380 missionary quote unquote many of the people that they know and that know paul bragg say that he

00:26:38.000 was so strong-willed that a suggestion wasn't really a suggestion so much as like I'm telling 0.98

00:26:44.420 you this and you're going to do it now oh right so he's just a dick okay yeah so from there Patricia 0.94

00:26:51.540 Bragg pretty much directly moves into working at the company supporting Paul's work and that is 0.86

00:26:57.620 where she spends the duration of her career she follows in Paul's footsteps she starts writing

00:27:03.940 their family books she starts inventing things she has this claim that she loves to talk about

00:27:09.460 about how she's the youngest woman ever to be issued a patent in u.s history okay she co-hosts

00:27:15.200 his tv show with him there is a quote from one of these profiles that says quote today brag crusades

00:27:21.980 mainly through radio talk shows recording as many as five a day how many talk shows are there

00:27:29.340 what i was like this is astonishing so like i say she's cranking out books she's cranking out

00:27:36.540 all this stuff she does a revisit of one of their books that she writes with kenny logan's wife

00:27:43.720 okay she also has even more than her dad one million stories about famous people and how

00:27:51.980 much they love brags there's a whole story where she talks about being a nutritional advisor to

00:27:56.980 steve jobs at one point good sign good sign a man who never made mistakes when it comes to health

00:28:04.360 and wellness so patricia keeps on keeping on and eventually sells the company in 2019 to an investor

00:28:11.280 group great since then she's been retired and the new owners have taken over it's weird to me that 0.90

00:28:16.800 it like i think this company's kind of bullshit but also it kind of bums me out that it's now

00:28:21.320 like a private equity owned company yeah absolutely i'm i'm feeling complicated feelings right now 0.97

00:28:26.640 you're like i want it to stay with its original kooky family i want it to be grifting locally

00:28:31.300 so what do you think so far talk to me about like what are your impressions of this business what

00:28:38.240 do you like how you feeling well i know you and i know this show so i feel like the third chapter

00:28:43.660 has to be like this is all the stuff they were lying about and we're gonna go back and debunk

00:28:49.200 okay mike you already called it okay the catch here is in fact almost none of what i just told

00:28:56.100 you is true there is no evidence that paul brag had a sister named louise he did not grow up in

00:29:03.180 a farm in virginia he grew up in bc where his father worked for the u.s printing office

00:29:08.300 the big big one is he wasn't born in 1881 a birth certificate that is very likely his says that he

00:29:17.880 was born fully 14 years later oh so he was saying like i'm so old and yet i'm in such good

00:29:26.020 health, but he's actually not that old. That's his entire pitch is like, look how youthful and

00:29:31.060 vital I am. Don't you want to be like me? You got to have this apple cider vinegar. It's got to be

00:29:35.240 unfiltered. Here we go. This is the opposite of my online dating profile. I'm 24. Those photos are

00:29:42.380 new. Paul Bragg built a career out of this. He ran a fitness program in his twenties. Okay. And

00:29:49.760 actually i'm i'm gonna send you a picture of this fitness program because there's a little

00:29:56.560 caption with this picture if i could go back the tagline would be welcome to maintenance phase

00:30:02.480 don't believe anything in the first 45 minutes it's all it's all crumbling down that is off in

00:30:09.200 our show uh okay so this is a photo that says 26 year old brag with a class in 1920 he had them

00:30:18.380 convinced that he was 41 the thing that i kept thinking about with all of this stuff he's lying

00:30:23.660 about roughly 15 years of his life right depending on what date you go with he offered three different

00:30:29.860 birth years for himself over the course of his life and multiple different locations to different

00:30:35.140 press outlets right but the thing that i keep coming back to is if you think about what a 26

00:30:42.160 year old looks like and then you think about what a 41 year old looks like yeah it's you have to

00:30:47.180 want to believe that yeah so much god it's such a simple grift though i can't believe

00:30:54.900 how basic it is just tell people you're 40 when you're 25 i have these moments where i'm like

00:31:01.340 do i respect this i don't to be clear i don't but i'm so if this is like when someone figured

00:31:09.380 out that you should put salt on caramel yeah yeah so that's the whole thing that's like the

00:31:15.960 quote-unquote evidence for all of his claims it's like look at this look at this 40 year old he looks

00:31:21.880 like he's 25 yeah yeah so my word there's a quote from a fantastic three-part piece from

00:31:30.080 Maui time called in the name of the father and that piece reads quote that means his 1976 death

00:31:39.160 came at the age of 81, not 95. Of course. Remember, the packaging of the food says

00:31:46.560 life extension specialist. Right. God. This dude died at 81, which is only a few years older than

00:31:54.540 the average American life expectancy at this point. It is really incredible that nobody was

00:32:00.280 just like, wait, sorry, how old are you? Like, what? Come on. You said you were 40. Come on.

00:32:04.920 right because like if i was hanging out with a 25 year old who was claiming to be 40 i feel like i

00:32:12.120 could sniff it out yeah i'd be like you can't name any of the characters from saved by the bell

00:32:16.840 you don't love poison by bell biv devel like there are very simple questions that we could ask to get

00:32:23.780 to the bottom of this what are your opinions on new jack swing as a genre go so that is not the

00:32:31.120 only lie that he told and it's not the only lie that patricia told okay please enjoy the next quote

00:32:37.920 from in the name of the father this outstanding maui time piece patricia must have used the words

00:32:44.020 my dad in reference to the late paul bragg at least a dozen times during the course of our

00:32:48.960 interview but he was not her biological father what according to her california birth certificate

00:32:55.920 she was born Patricia Pendleton at Oakland's Peralta Hospital. Patricia's use of the Bragg

00:33:02.640 name comes from her marriage to Robert E. Bragg, a chiropractor and son of Paul Bragg.

00:33:08.960 That makes Paul Bragg Patricia's father-in-law. Okay, so she married into this family.

00:33:15.040 Right.

00:33:15.660 And then for no real reason invented the story. I don't think anyone would particularly care,

00:33:22.920 honestly if she's the non-biological daughter i i mean yeah it seems like a weird own goal 0.68

00:33:29.600 this is the natural foods world equivalent of like what is the relationship between jack and

00:33:35.920 meg white another thing that a 40 year old would know and would baffle a 25 year old

00:33:41.580 wait what the white who uh so in this maui time piece this is the sort of bombshell drop

00:33:51.680 paragraph but the lead up to that is this reporter goes oh hey i was checking into it you know i've

00:33:57.340 been doing some research for this piece i didn't actually find any records of a daughter born to

00:34:01.460 paul bragg amazing and she goes at first she goes oh yeah he adopted me it wasn't i wasn't his

00:34:07.060 daughter by birth i was his daughter by adoption so he adopted me and then the reporter comes back

00:34:12.040 and is like i didn't see any adoption records and then she goes oh yeah actually i married into the

00:34:19.660 family okay i was his son's wife they were married for a few years and then got divorced right oh

00:34:26.360 paul and i basically like really hit it off and he feels like my dad and i call him my dad and he

00:34:30.900 was a family friend going way back and like every time she gives him one of these like partial or

00:34:37.620 just fully false explanations she tells this reporter you don't need to check into that i'm

00:34:43.040 not some hollywood celebrity i love it when public figures are like i'm not a public figure i'm going

00:34:51.580 to start using that in interviews yeah you don't need to fact check me you don't need to look at

00:34:56.700 this i'm not some save that for george clooney that's wild that they got divorced and they kept

00:35:02.400 the weird charade going i guess he just liked her more than his own son so they kept the weird

00:35:08.100 charade going he really did leave the company to patricia not to his son why do we do you have a

00:35:14.060 sense of why no sense so like part of this is this whole story has really kind of broken and

00:35:20.200 been talked about much more in the last like 10 or 20 years which is fully a hundred years after

00:35:28.100 paul bragg was born right so like we are talking about old musty dusty old records yeah most of

00:35:35.360 the characters in these stories have passed so it's extremely hard to fact check there are some

00:35:41.100 folks mostly like wordpress sites and like personal blogs who are like i found record of their will

00:35:48.360 and they cut out the sun and left everything to patricia okay there's a lot of that out in the

00:35:53.580 world what i'm trying to stick to here is stuff that we like pretty well know for sure including

00:35:58.520 there is no record of paul wrestling in the olympics he said he was in the 1908 olympics

00:36:04.180 he would have been 12 at the time there are also some patricia claims to fact check patricia is not

00:36:16.580 in fact the youngest woman to hold a patent in u.s history yeah she got a patent in 1957 when

00:36:23.460 she was 28 years old for a douching device is what she created uh okay in 1914 decades earlier

00:36:32.480 mary phelps jacob later known as caress crosby patented the brassiere oh really like it's like

00:36:40.760 you're so you were like by decades you are wrong yeah same thing with not the first health food

00:36:47.620 store there was a health food store fully 50 years before bragg opened his not the first any of the

00:36:53.820 firsts all of the firsts are wrong right like he did a lot and you could he could have been like

00:36:59.820 i did the biggest one or i did the most successful or the longest running you could pick other

00:37:04.540 superlatives but he seemed really hooked on or the company seemed really hooked on him being the

00:37:09.780 first of all of these things right a lot of these lies have like a weird bell gibson quality to them

00:37:14.800 where a lot of them are just kind of baffling yes like i don't know that people needed you to have

00:37:20.440 been an olympic athlete particularly it is a perplexing set of things to mislead people about

00:37:26.400 yeah the age stuff I get that's straight up money in his pocket right a bunch of this other stuff

00:37:32.460 I'm just like what is happening here yeah one of the other weird deeply weird lies that Patricia

00:37:39.660 Bragg appears to tell is she talks about seeing Jack LaLanne attend her father's health lecture

00:37:45.740 for the first time okay and she was like I just watched how much he just like soaked that up and

00:37:51.760 it was so clear that it mattered a lot to him. And she has all these little details about how

00:37:56.580 he responded to it. By her account and by his, Jack LaLanne attended that lecture when he was

00:38:03.220 15. Jack LaLanne was 15 the year that Patricia Bragg was born. Yeah, that's a weird lie. You

00:38:10.120 can just tell the story. In addition to saying things that are not true, in the Bragg story,

00:38:18.460 there is a lot of leaving out of things that are true okay early in the 60s paul bragg was on the

00:38:27.260 receiving end of an fda seizure oh back when the fda seized stuff i love it according to the fda

00:38:33.760 paul bragg made quote false and misleading claims to provide freedom from disease improve youthful

00:38:40.620 appearance and life expectancy etc semi-colon no adequate directions for use so like they are 0.95

00:38:48.440 straight up like he's not telling people how to use it and he's saying a bunch of shit that's not 0.53

00:38:51.940 true and as part of that seizure he had to say that he wasn't going to make more claims about 0.86

00:38:58.380 this particular product right oh so that happened in the 60s in 1941 he also gets in trouble with

00:39:06.060 the FTC okay he gets in trouble for selling something called Bragg's grass tablets and he

00:39:12.800 gets in trouble for saying that they would quote prevent sickness promote health or stimulate

00:39:17.580 activity and that they were quote rich in vitamin a so apparently these were not rich in vitamin a

00:39:23.380 which is a very weird claim to make and again he had to promise that he wasn't going to make those

00:39:28.460 claims again but as we can see 19 years later in the 60s he is fully like doing it again up to his

00:39:36.820 old tricks this is why we just need adequately funded and staffed federal agencies to just like

00:39:44.880 crack down on just like repeat known grifters who continue grifting because there's no consequences 0.99

00:39:51.660 for any of this shit absolutely are you ready to take one step further back in time did he lie 0.96

00:39:58.400 about the tuberculosis i am on the edge of my seat about this basically the the tv stuff is 0.99

00:40:03.520 again some amateur internet sleuths went back and looked at the immigration records from the years

00:40:09.760 that he said that he left and came back and they were like not one record of that guy going to

00:40:14.780 Switzerland and coming back. Yeah. But again, that's like internet sleuths. Do you know what

00:40:19.680 I mean? Like I wouldn't cite that as a hard and fast source in the same way that I wouldn't cite

00:40:23.980 like Reddit threads speculating about YouTubers say as a hard and fast source, right? Right.

00:40:30.080 No, in 1930, this is according to KCET in Los Angeles, quote, outside Los Angeles,

00:40:37.280 bragg was a controversial figure in 1930 the postal service barred the self-styled quote

00:40:45.380 unquote professor from the mail alleging fraud the american medical association denounced him

00:40:54.320 as a quote unquote food faddist so the u.s postal service and the american medical association are

00:41:01.340 both like boo this guy get him out of here and then he has 40 more years of career dude imagine 0.62

00:41:08.180 getting banned from mailing things from the mail it's like it's like getting banned from like

00:41:16.800 the grocery store or something it's like a whole genre of activity it's like a category

00:41:21.980 it's extremely weird so the next thing i want to talk about is their charitable giving of course

00:41:29.440 god i should have known that literally every single fact that you told me in the first 30

00:41:33.600 minutes was wrong i mean mike i am sticking to the big ones here there is debunking of like

00:41:39.540 truly almost every sentence of the first part of this episode like it is

00:41:44.880 so they do indeed appear to do the kind of giving that they have disclosed to animal shelters and

00:41:54.780 and like regular down the line kinds of charitable contributions that you would expect from this kind

00:42:04.060 of like crispy, crunchy, peanut buttery health food company, right? The challenge here is that

00:42:10.020 there's also giving that they are not reporting out publicly from the foundation. Okay. Until the

00:42:16.660 redesign every bottle and package from brag live food products has the christian little like fish

00:42:26.180 symbol it includes a bible verse they are deeply deeply christian and deeply deeply evangelical

00:42:32.400 people in 2004 and 2005 so situate yourself in this particular cultural moment of 2004 2005

00:42:41.080 they reportedly according to maui time they give 750 to the deeply conservative crystal cathedral

00:42:49.460 ministries oh my god i've been there we went there as a kid we were visiting california

00:42:55.120 yeah they give money to crystal cathedral ministries your character was lovely they

00:42:59.920 give money to the trinity broadcasting network okay they give money to pat robertson and family 0.84

00:43:07.600 oh good stuff trying to stop the great replacement of the whites and stop that they give money to

00:43:14.100 focus on the family of course of course this we're done with the twists now this isn't even 0.99

00:43:20.860 a fucking twist it's like the weird christian health grifters are into like nightmare christian 0.99

00:43:26.280 bullshit this was the point for me that was like man the next time i get nutritional yeast 1.00

00:43:30.760 i will be checking out some other brands i love the the version of christianity where it's like 0.99

00:43:37.460 not okay to marry somebody who you're in love with but it is okay to spend your entire career

00:43:42.740 telling lies in order to profit becoming a false idol yeah this seems like a cool way that you

00:43:52.200 understand this religion the last one that i wanted to talk about is actually the ways in

00:43:56.500 which they misled folks through specific health claims and particularly health claims around

00:44:02.920 apple cider vinegar. Okay. This is something that's been popular amongst famous people in

00:44:08.320 the U.S. for the last like 10-ish years. Folks have been talking about it to the press, but it

00:44:12.700 also goes back further than that. Drinking apple cider vinegar every day is favored by like Kim

00:44:18.280 and Kourtney Kardashian, Jennifer Aniston, Katy Perry, Victoria Beckham. Elizabeth Hurley is like,

00:44:25.800 I drink it every day. It tastes disgusting is what she keeps telling the press. Apple cider 1.00

00:44:30.640 vinegar has been used in folk healing for ages but in the u.s its biggest boost of popularity 0.97

00:44:36.800 in the last century mostly came from paul bragg oh yeah wrote a whole fucking book about it right 0.90

00:44:43.940 he suggested it for weight gain for weight loss for heart disease for quote-unquote female troubles 0.92

00:44:51.700 for hair loss for kidney issues it was genuinely like this is like celery juice levels of claims

00:44:58.940 Right. Basically, the evidence for some of those claims is overblown based on very limited studies by today's standards, based on the evidence we have today. Most of those studies have been small and most of them have only been in rats.

00:45:14.300 of course most of those claims have no evidence at all right some of them are overblown most of

00:45:21.880 them the evidence is non-existent right there are also quite a few claims that brag made and that

00:45:30.420 have caught on more recently about sort of the gut health aspects of apple cider vinegar that

00:45:36.060 it's good for your microbiome blah blah blah blah brags in particular prides themselves on selling

00:45:42.120 unfiltered apple cider vinegar it has okay on the package it says with quote unquote the mother

00:45:48.900 the mother as in kombucha refers to this sort of yeast bacteria colony that's produced during

00:45:56.740 fermentation okay apple cider vinegar is touted as a major source of probiotics but michael there

00:46:05.400 is one catch. This is from an outstanding piece written by a food historian for Epicurious of all

00:46:13.580 places. Get some recipes, get some history. Delightful. So the piece is called How Americans

00:46:18.900 Became Obsessed with Drinking Apple Cider Vinegar. And here is what they have to say about this claim

00:46:25.060 about probiotics. And what about the mother? Why is she such a big deal? Technically, a vinegar

00:46:32.080 mother is not a probiotic as the acetic acid bacteria that comprise it can't survive in our

00:46:38.080 guts. Its main component, cellulose, is not digestible. Shockey and Smith point out that

00:46:43.340 there could be benefits to its consumption that have yet to be measured or quantified.

00:46:47.260 But many artisanal vinegar makers don't include the mother in their products because it doesn't

00:46:51.220 contribute anything to the flavor. Yeah, basically, there's no, there's no reason to think this does

00:46:57.180 fucking anything but the people who are debunking it have to be like careful because you can't prove

00:47:03.280 a negative you can't prove that something doesn't have magical health benefits because how would you 0.98

00:47:08.080 even do that well and also i feel like the real fucking chestnut in that paragraph is it's a 0.84

00:47:16.160 probiotic but that probiotic can't survive in your body yeah it's not the gut health stuff 0.92

00:47:23.860 it's not as easy as just like drink bacteria and then you'll have like new bacteria in your tummy 0.85

00:47:29.440 no and the science is way too fucking new to even know most of how it works right it's bonkers yeah

00:47:37.320 we don't know this stuff here's the other thing i'll say about apple cider vinegar i won't say it 0.81

00:47:41.920 the university of chicago school of medicine will say it quote aside from probiotics apple cider

00:47:48.800 vinegar has a vitamin profile similar to apple juice hey so we're drinking grape juice and apple

00:47:54.300 juice on maintenance resveratrol and probiotics we're finally becoming influencers aubrey we're

00:48:00.140 finally giving out individual health advice apple juice and grape juice there is evidence of some of

00:48:06.560 the claims related to apple cider vinegar and its health benefits there is limited evidence

00:48:11.380 that drinking apple cider vinegar after a meal may help people with diabetes moderately lower

00:48:17.700 their blood sugar but there's nothing definitive okay it specifically does not according to the

00:48:23.980 university of chicago school of medicine help manage hypertension which is a claim that has

00:48:28.900 been made about that it does not do that it also can erode the enamel of your teeth there have been

00:48:35.300 some wild case studies about tooth decay of people who have like been drinking straight apple cider

00:48:40.800 vinegar all the time and it is specifically very bad for people with kidney issues who may struggle

00:48:47.260 to process all of the acid oh okay the university of chicago school of medicine is quick to point

00:48:52.100 out that it's antimicrobial so if you use it in a salad dressing it kills the bacteria on your

00:48:56.980 salad you're welcome that's great okay so you're on you're unprobiotic-ing yourself by doing this

00:49:01.840 it's just interesting to dive into the science on this stuff and go oh this thing that everyone i

00:49:07.040 know has been yelling about for a full decade is just a weird it is a house built on a foundation

00:49:14.520 of sand. It really feels like if you try to piece together the timeline in chronological order of

00:49:19.560 these things, what it sounds like to me is that a guy who's just like a carnival ass grifter 0.97

00:49:25.720 basically made up this thing about apple cider vinegar. And then other people have since looked 0.93

00:49:31.400 into it and like by coincidence, they have found that maybe there's a couple of benefits to this

00:49:37.780 thing just because like, I don't know, it's a it's an edible substance. So it probably has some

00:49:42.440 benefits and some drawbacks like everything else and then people are now like using that to backfill

00:49:48.060 like oh yeah the guy like the decades-long liar guy like he was actually right but like on what

00:49:54.740 basis would he have said this at the time and like what he's telling folks is a scientific

00:50:00.540 explanation for what they were already doing again this was part of an american folk healing

00:50:07.480 tradition, this offered people the sense that what they had already been doing was like a really good

00:50:14.700 thing to do, not just for their own health, but for their own virtue and character. Because of

00:50:21.040 this sort of like deeply Christian language that Paul and Patricia Bragg use, it's not just a

00:50:27.300 matter of caring for your body. It's a matter of, you know, your piety and your ability to resist

00:50:33.440 temptation and like right all of these sort of deeply deeply christian constructs right he's

00:50:39.260 selling people's pre-existing beliefs and behaviors back to them and essentially he's doing a thing

00:50:45.160 that happens to this very day which is getting very comfortable muddling up people's perceived

00:50:52.660 health with their character and morality and worth as people right all of that is getting

00:50:59.200 dumped into the same bucket. Right. It's like a weird little kombucha of culture and capitalism

00:51:05.060 and lies. And you just leave it there to ferment. I mean, what I can't get over is the specificity

00:51:10.900 of apple cider vinegar. There's a million vinegars in the world. It doesn't make any sense

00:51:16.420 that this would have magical properties. I'll tell you what, I love the taste of apple cider

00:51:22.040 vinegar. Oh, my God. I use it in reasonable salads all the time. It's really good. Oh,

00:51:25.080 my god salad dressing it's the best i also make shrub at home do you mean you're eating edibles

00:51:30.560 no no shrub is like a drinking vinegar it's like you infuse vinegar you add some like sugar or

00:51:40.680 sweetener of your choice and a bunch of fruit and let it macerate and then strain out the solids

00:51:46.220 and you add that to like club soda or something it's extremely refreshing and delicious my parents

00:51:51.340 always told me if you macerate you go blind that was abysmal i'm sorry are you ready for a little

00:51:58.000 coda to the brag story yeah denow me first things first we're just gonna watch a little clip i sent

00:52:03.860 it to you in the zoom chat clip time let me know when you're queued up and ready why are we oh no

00:52:10.360 okay i saw it's loading slowly and it loaded this screen grab of orlando bloom on jimmy fallon

00:52:17.700 get ready and then the title loaded i was very confused but now i understand

00:52:22.260 the title of the clip is orlando bloom bonded with katie perry over apple cider vinegar

00:52:30.500 the crazy story so i when i met katie um one of one of our first dates i was she was she had a

00:52:38.040 bottle of water and when you pour it in the water it makes it go kind of slightly off color and we

00:52:43.040 both have bottles of apple cider vinegar because i said wait what have you got in your water and

00:52:47.440 she was like apple cider vinegar i was like no we're made for each other this is it and then

00:52:53.020 the really crazy part is that her mother had actually been part of a church group

00:52:57.080 in santa barbara when she was growing up and katie got her first guitar from patricia bragg

00:53:02.220 who is now 90 who runs that company and then the crazy part is that her mom said you know

00:53:07.880 patricia's getting up there and she wants to offload the company and she was about to sell

00:53:11.840 it and we were like no let us get in there let us help let us find somebody so we brought some

00:53:16.000 people in it was a lot of money we brought some people in to help put the money forward and then

00:53:20.000 we're going to kind of take it through to the next chapter of its life because we believe in it that

00:53:23.940 much uh aubry do you ever feel like a plastic bag twisting in the wind hoping to start again

00:53:35.200 that's how i feel now i don't understand what's happening your ears do not deceive you

00:53:41.360 the new owners of braggs are katie perry and orlando bloom lego loss and i kissed a girl

00:53:49.340 are now in charge of braggs old left shark herself and hot elf own a company together

00:53:57.300 not only did patricia bragg and katie perry's family go to the same church

00:54:02.240 according to one of the profiles of patricia bragg so grain of salt right it was actually

00:54:08.500 the church where katie's parents were the pastors oh okay right this is now my emotions are all over 0.97

00:54:16.440 the place i don't know what to think about this shit anymore it's wild i was like this is the 0.95

00:54:21.820 most bizarre this is a mad lib of a coda to this story i know it's weird it's it's like the end of 0.99

00:54:27.680 clue it's like in the study with the candlestick like this celebrity and this other celebrity i

00:54:33.720 I don't have a ton to say about Katy Perry or Orlando Bloom or press juicery.

00:54:38.520 I have no analysis.

00:54:40.280 I have no analysis to add here.

00:54:42.540 I'm just like,

00:54:43.000 okay.

00:54:43.880 It's too weird not to talk about.

00:54:46.500 Yeah.

00:54:46.700 I just feel good that it's now in the hands of people who are much more

00:54:50.940 qualified to prevent sickness crime. 0.94

00:54:53.200 The Batman of sickness crime.

00:55:03.720 Thank you.

Maintenance Phase - October 11, 2022

Paul Bragg & The Rise of Apple Cider Vinegar

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