Your Diet Sucks

Support us on Patreon! Keto promised something no other diet could: cut the carbs, flip a metabolic switch, and burn fat without counting a single calorie. A magic loophole in human physiology. So does it actually work? This week we trace keto from a deaf Victorian undertaker who accidentally invented the first diet book, to a 1920s epilepsy clinic that turned fasting into medicine, to the bankrup...

Join our Patreon! This is the most requested episode in two years, and the one strangers corner Zoë about the second they find out she hosts a nutrition podcast. Seed oils. Did they secretly poison the country, or did the internet just find a new villain with a great backstory? We go claim by claim through the anti-seed-oil case. The omega-6 inflammation pathway. The omega-6 to omega-3 ratio, whic...

You were taught that hunger is a trick question. Before you're allowed to eat, you have to clear the suspects: you're bored, you're thirsty, you're emotional, you're just not disciplined enough. Somewhere at the bottom of that list, if it makes the list at all, sits the radical possibility that you might simply need food. This episode is about where that interrogation came from...

In 1879, a chemist named Constantin Fahlberg sat down to dinner without washing his hands after a day spent handling coal tar. His bread tasted strangely sweet. So he went back to the lab and started tasting everything on his bench until he found the source. That was saccharin, the first artificial sweetener, discovered because a man would not wash his hands before dinner. Nearly 150 years later,...

Should you count calories?  A century ago, a Los Angeles doctor named Lulu Hunt Peters sold two million copies of a book that taught American women to count calories as a patriotic duty during WWI. She invented the 100-calorie snack pack. She set the 1,200-calorie floor that still haunts diet apps in 2026. The framework she popularized is still running your relationship with food. This week, Zoë a...

This week, Zoë mailed a chunk of her hair to a stranger in Florida. For science. For journalism. For your benefit, really. The $60 hair sample test came back flagging her as "highly reactive" to 210 foods, including emu, ostrich egg, hot dog, and ground horse meat. Reader, she has not eaten ground horse meat in over a decade. The food sensitivity industry is a multi-billion-dollar grift...

In 1997, a 14-year-old named Nathan Zahner convinced 43 out of 50 classmates to sign a petition banning a dangerous chemical called dihydrogen monoxide. The chemical was water. This episode is everything that happened next, scaled up to a $50 billion industry and, eventually, federal food policy. Zoë and Kylee trace the naturalistic fallacy: the assumption that natural equals good and artificial e...

Find full episode transcripts, show notes, and research at yourdietsuckspodcast.com . Grab merch at teepublic.com/user/your-diet-sucks . And if you want bonus episodes, early access, and our eternal gratitude, support us on Patreon at patreon.com/YourDietSucks . Caffeine is the most widely consumed psychoactive substance on earth — and somehow it's still got two extremely loud camps screaming...

Get "Carb Slut" and "Petty and Scientifically Literate" merch here! Check out our website for references, transcripts, and more! Diet culture is really good at one thing: finding the places people go to belong, and nesting inside them. This episode follows that instinct back to one of its oldest sources, the American evangelical church. Zoë and Kylee are joined by Leslie Schill...

Get "Carb Slut" and "Petty and Scientifically Literate" merch here! Whole30 has sold millions of books, built a coaching empire, and partnered with Chipotle and Walmart — all without a single peer-reviewed clinical trial. In this episode, Zoë traces the program from its origin on a CrossFit blog in 2009 to its multi-million dollar licensing ecosystem, digs into the loaded vocab...

Intermittent fasting is the most Googled diet-related term on the planet, except everyone who does it will tell you it's not a diet. It's a protocol. An eating window. A lifestyle. An optimization hack. Definitely, absolutely, under no circumstances a diet. You just don't eat for sixteen hours. Totally different. In this episode, we trace IF from ancient religious fasting traditions th...

Connect With Us: ⁠Patreon⁠ | ⁠@yourdietsuckspod on instagram The wellness industry wants you to believe your body is on fire. Tired? Inflamed. Bloated? Inflamed. Sad? Believe it or not, inflamed. But what does inflammation actually mean, and should athletes be worried about it? In this episode, we trace how inflammation went from a specific biological process to a wellness Rorschach test that can...

⁠Check out our website for a full list of episodes and references!⁠ Support us on Patreon , or Apple Subscriptions or Spotify Premium! Can you build muscle, train hard, and actually perform on a vegetarian diet? Do plant-based eaters need more protein? Is iron deficiency a real concern or just wellness industry noise? This week, Zoë and Kylee dig into what the research actually says about vegetari...

We brought the husbands on for this one. Sean Van Horn and TJ David join us to talk about eating disorders in men, disordered eating in male athletes, and how the wellness industry preys on masculine insecurity with different packaging but the same playbook. First up: a game called Influencer or Dictator, where the guys guess whether quotes about discipline and suffering came from David Goggins or...

Encore presentation—ad-free! Support independent, evidence-based nutrition content on Patreon for bonus episodes, Q&As with Kylee, and our full archive. Every January, gyms overflow and 91% of resolutions get abandoned before spring. In this episode, we trace the surprisingly ancient history of New Year's resolutions—from Babylonian harvest promises to Roman offerings to Janus—and explore...

Do detoxes work? Do you need a juice cleanse to "reset" your body? Is your liver full of toxins? Short answer: no, no, and absolutely not. This week we debunk the $6.3 trillion wellness industry's claims,juice cleanses, detox teas, foot pads, coffee enemas, the Master Cleanse, and everything in between. We cover how your liver actually detoxifies, why your kidneys filter 200 quarts o...

The skincare industry is worth over $180 billion globally. The science backing most of it? Let's just say your liver isn't the only organ that doesn't need a detox. This episode is sponsored by Osmia, Science-backed skincare formulated by a physician who actually reads PubMed. Use code YDS20 for 20% off your first order at osmiaskincare.com. This week we're doing something a little...

Join our Patreon! Get YDS Merch for the holidays! Can you supplement your way to a glow? The $70 billion beauty supplement industry certainly wants you to think so. This week we dig into collagen, biotin, hyaluronic acid, and those $90 greens powders everyone's suddenly drinking, tracing the history from Lydia Pinkham's 19th-century vegetable compound to today's $60 Moon Juice dusts. W...

Support us on Patreon , and see our full list of references on our website! Do you need to eat like a caveman to unlock your ancestral potential? Spoiler: no, and also, which caveman? The whole premise falls apart the second you ask a follow-up question. This week, we're taking on the Paleo Diet, not just what it says you should eat, but why it exists in the first place. Turns out the history...

Support the show and get bonus content! Join the N of One Club on Patreon for bonus episodes, monthly blogs, and a community of people who also think the wellness industry is full of shit. Starting at just $3/month. Do you really need that $5 mojito-flavored electrolyte packet to survive your morning Zoom meeting? Spoiler: probably not. This week we're talking salt. From ancient Romans literally g...

Support us on Patreon!⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Get YDS tees, mugs, hats and more on Tee Public! This week on Your Diet Sucks , Zoë and Kylee dive headfirst into the messy, fascinating world of food policy, the history, politics, and corporate influence that quietly shape what ends up on your plate. From the creation of the first dietary guidelines to the low-fat craze that reshaped grocery store shelves, we unravel h...

Support us on Patreon!⁠ ⁠Want to help with a book project? Share Your Story⁠ ⁠Get YDS tees, mugs, hats and more on Tee Public! This week, Zoë and Kylee dig into one of the most misunderstood topics in endurance sports: RED-S, Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport. We break down what it actually is (spoiler: it’s not just “overtraining”), how to recognize early warning signs, and what the latest scie...

Support us on Patreon! Want to help with a book project? Share Your Story Get YDS tees, mugs, hats and more on Tee Public! This week on Your Diet Sucks , we’re digging into cannabis, how a plant got tangled up in politics, culture wars, and moral panic, and how that continues to shape the way we study it, regulate it, and talk about it today. We trace the science, the stigma, and the shifting rule...

⁠Support YDS on Patreon!⁠ ⁠Check out our new T-shirts! Your mom probably didn’t sit you down to explain hot flashes, vaginal atrophy, or why your metabolism doesn’t suddenly tank the second you hit menopause. That’s where we come in. In this episode of Your Diet Sucks , Zoë and Kylee dig into the messy, complicated, and very normal reality of perimenopause and menopause—because more than half the...

⁠Support YDS on Patreon! Check out our new T-shirts! See our full list of 22 references for this episode on our website! What does your dinner have to do with the climate crisis? In this episode of Your Diet Sucks , Zoë and Kylee dig into the science, the politics, and the messy cultural baggage around food and the environment. From beef’s outsized carbon footprint to the confusing debates over al...