Essays··9 min read
The Folly of Calling Yourself a Skeptic
A conversation about refractory celiac disease exposes what happens when doubt becomes a credential and evidence must fight for the right to be examined.
Writing
Articles & essays
44 published pieces on microbiome science, metallomics, food safety, causal reasoning, and the things I can't stop thinking about.
/
Essays
10 articles
Essays··4 min read
I Built PhageCocktails.com: A Sniper for the Age of Antibiotic Resistance
I owned phagecocktails.com for years and kept saying I had not built it. It is live now. Here is what it is: the case for bacteriophage cocktails as precision replacements for the antibiotics we are running out of, plus fifty open-source grant proposals I am giving away.
Essays··10 min read
No Luxury to Be Wrong: On Credentials, Knowledge, and the Innovation We Gatekeep Away
I don't have a degree, so I don't have the luxury to be wrong, or to be anything other than well-informed. Being the only uncredentialed person in a credentialed room looks like a handicap. It is closer to the opposite. A look at the science and philosophy of expertise, and the people we nearly gatekept out of history.
Essays··9 min read
The Trillion-Dollar Answer No One Is Funding: Phage Therapy, Antimicrobial Resistance, and the NICU
Antimicrobial resistance is on track to kill ten million people a year by 2050, and the one therapy with the mechanism to actually answer it, bacteriophages, receives a rounding error of the world's research funding. That is not an accident but an incentive structure, and it is going to break.
Essays··4 min read
From Evidence to Certification: How a Heavy-Metal Standard Actually Gets Built
A certification seal is the last step, not the first. Here's the full pipeline behind a credible heavy-metal standard, from a public evidence index, through a category-specific limit, to an independently tested seal, and why each layer has to be separate from the others.
Essays··11 min read
What's Coming: A 2030 Trends Forecast from Someone Who Called the Last Decade
In 2009 I called Paleo. In 2020 I told Fred Hart that Pepsi would put prebiotics on their cans. He called me 'the oracle' when it happened. Here's what I see coming. I'm always too early on timing. I've never been wrong about direction.
Essays··14 min read
Range: How a 13-Year-Old in an Operating Room Ended Up Presenting Microbial Metallomics to 150 PhDs
I have sold rocks door to door, roofed houses, lasered a cancerous polyp off someone's esophagus at 13, argued with painters about color theory, reversed kidney failure in a cat with gum arabic, and stood in front of 150 PhDs as the only person in the room without a doctorate. Every one of those things made the next one possible.
Essays··5 min read
Why I Built Tinies Instead of Asking for Money
Every sanctuary I know runs on the same model: ask people for money, hope they give it, stretch it as far as possible, repeat. I run a sanctuary. I know the math. And I know that model is broken in a way that more donations cannot fix.
Essays··9 min read
The Great Pyramid: An Engineering Enigma That Defies the Tomb Theory
For the past eighty years, scientists have used the particle accelerator to find out more about these units of matter. The basic mechanism of the accelerator has not changed over its history. A charge
Essays··6 min read
Reevaluating the Great Pyramid of Giza: Beyond the Tomb Narrative
The Great Pyramid of Giza stands as one of humanity's most enduring enigmas, often presented in educational contexts as a monumental tomb for Pharaoh Khufu. However, this interpretation, rooted in 19t
Analysis
16 articles
Analysis··9 min read
The Clock Runs Both Ways: Heavy Metals, Epigenetic Aging, and the Certification Layer of Longevity
The longevity industry is spending billions to rewind the epigenetic clock. Dietary heavy metals wind the same clock forward, and cadmium is one of the best-documented accelerants in the food supply. Certifying food for heavy metals lowers that exposure, which makes life extension a byproduct of certification.
Analysis··5 min read
The Packaging Reset: Why a Redesign Is the Cheapest Moment a Food Brand Will Ever Have to Certify
Packaging redesigns are rare, expensive, and usually forced. They are also the single cheapest moment a food brand will ever have to add third-party certification marks. Here is the math, and the strategy.
Analysis··10 min read
On the Fence About EPG: What the Science Actually Says About the Fat Designed to Pass Through You
Peter Rahal calls the fat replacer EPG a holy grail for public health. Critics call it a lawsuit waiting to happen. I went looking for the science, not the side. Here is where an honest read of the evidence actually leaves you, and why that place is the fence.
Analysis··8 min read
California Admits Nickel Can Harm a Developing Baby — Then Files the Page Where No One Will Look
California's own health agency publishes a fact sheet stating that nickel is a carcinogen, that soluble nickel compounds can harm a developing baby, and that nickel crosses from mother to child. Then it leaves the page almost completely unlinked. I want to ask why.
Analysis··8 min read
Every Tampon They Tested Had Heavy Metals. No One Could Tell Me About Nickel.
I went to buy tampons and ended up calling the manufacturer to ask whether they test for nickel. The call would not go through. Here is what the evidence actually says about heavy metals in tampons, why 'organic' does not protect you, and why no one is screening for the metal that matters most to me.
Analysis··15 min read
Beyond 'Just Eat Real Food,' Revisited: Functional Fiber, the Food Matrix, and the Health Halo in Reverse
Seven years ago I argued that processed foods fortified with high-molecular-weight soluble fiber could close the fiber gap. The 'gut healthy' backlash of 2026 proves the point I was making, and reveals a bias nobody is naming: the health halo running in reverse.
Analysis··5 min read
The Heavy Metal Index: Tracing Food Contamination Back to the Evidence
Most claims about heavy metals in food are unsourced on one side and unreadable on the other. I built the Heavy Metal Index to close that gap, an evidence database that traces every contamination claim back to the study or standard behind it.
Analysis··4 min read
A Certification Framework for Safer Infant Foods: How Third-Party Standards Protect Against Heavy Metals
Heavy metals in infant foods are a hidden public health threat. I've developed a certification framework that combines science, law, and commerce to protect babies while keeping food companies sustainable.
Analysis··5 min read
The Hidden Costs of Operating Without Heavy Metal Certification: What Food Companies Risk
Food companies avoiding third-party heavy metal certification face mounting legal, financial, and reputational costs. This analysis reveals the true price of operating unverified in today's regulatory landscape.
Analysis··4 min read
Heavy Metals in Fertilizers: Why 65 Years of Agricultural Policy Created a Food Safety Crisis
From 1960 to 2025, nitrogen and phosphate fertilizers silently accumulated nickel, cadmium, and lead in agricultural soils. Here's why this 65-year trend matters for what you eat.
Analysis··9 min read
Why Public 'Gotcha' Testing Backfires: How Shaming Culture Prevents Heavy Metal Contamination Reduction
Unstructured public testing of food brands for heavy metals feels like accountability. But it suppresses data sharing, concentrates harm on innocent brands, and leaves upstream contamination untouched.
Analysis··4 min read
Drug Repurposing, Patent Gaps, and the Ecological Blind Spot in Modern Pharmacology
Introduction The discourse surrounding ivermectin’s potential role in COVID-19 treatment has been fraught with polarization and oversimplification. Much of the debate stems from an entrenched mechanis
Analysis··4 min read
Key Manifestations of Causal Reductionism in Microbiome Science, Metallomics, and Translational Medicine
Causal reductionism is the interpretive or methodological fallacy of distilling multifaceted, dynamic phenomena into overly simplistic, single-cause explanations, often by isolating variables while di
Analysis··9 min read
Bridging the Obesity Debate: Integrating Microbiome Insights from the Taubes-Guyenet Discussion
The ongoing discourse on obesity's root causes, whether driven by calories in versus calories out (CICO) or the carbohydrate-insulin model, reached a notable peak in the 2019 Joe Rogan Experience podcas
Analysis··6 min read
Nutritional Immunity: Rethinking Iron and Zinc Supplementation in the Face of Infection
In an era where nutrient fortification and supplementation are commonplace, it's worth pausing to consider the evolutionary dance between our bodies and invading pathogens. Nutritional immunity, the ho
Analysis··5 min read
The Dangers of Causal Reductionism in Medicine: A Closer Look at Zinc Supplementation
In the realm of modern medicine, the temptation to simplify complex biological signals into straightforward interventions is ever-present. This approach, known as causal reductionism, can lead to unin
Brass Tacks
2 articles
Brass Tacks··6 min read
Brass Tacks, No. 2: I Could Make a Twinkie Healthier Than a Tomato
The internet decided that adding prebiotic fiber to a processed food is a marketing trick. I have been saying for ten years that I could make a Twinkie modulate your microbiome in ways a tomato cannot, and I would bet a million dollars on it. Here is the science, and the bias nobody arguing about this wants to name.
Brass Tacks··8 min read
Brass Tacks, No. 1: You're Scared of the Wrong Ingredients
A viral protein bar gets dragged for its ingredient list: maltitol, xanthan gum, sunflower lecithin, palm kernel oil. I am not here to defend the bar. I am here to defend the ingredients, because most of them did nothing wrong, and because the thing you should actually be afraid of isn't printed on the label at all.
Essays by Claude
1 article
Microbiome Research
15 articles
Microbiome Research··4 min read
WikiBiome: Building the Open Encyclopedia of Microbiome Metallomics
Metals don't just poison us; they reshape the microbial communities that govern our health. WikiBiome is the open encyclopedia I built to document how essential and toxic metals shape the microbiome, organism by organism and disease by disease.
Microbiome Research··5 min read
Beyond 'Safe to Eat': Why Age Matters When Introducing Baby Foods
Your baby's digestive system isn't just smaller; it's differently vulnerable. Here's what the research on age-windows, metabolic readiness, and heavy metal susceptibility means for feeding your infant.
Microbiome Research··5 min read
The Metal in the Formula: How Nickel May Be Driving Necrotizing Enterocolitis in Preterm Infants
Necrotizing enterocolitis kills more preterm infants than any other gastrointestinal emergency. I believe dietary nickel is a catalytic driver, and I can show you the mechanism.
Microbiome Research··6 min read
What If Sugar Isn't the Problem? Heavy Metals, Microbial Metallomics, and the Real Driver of the Obesity Epidemic
Sugar and carbohydrate intake have been declining since the late 1990s. Obesity is still rising. Lab rats on controlled diets are getting fatter. So are pets. Something systemic is happening and I don't think it's sugar.
Microbiome Research··4 min read
How Two People Produced Five Papers, a Novel Therapeutic Hypothesis, and a Published Journal Issue on Parkinson's Disease
The first Microbiome Medicine Roundtable took a disease that had been studied for decades through fragmented lenses and produced a unified framework, a risk stratification model, a novel therapeutic hypothesis, and a published journal issue. Here's how it happened.
Microbiome Research··9 min read
Unlocking the Endometriosis Microbiome Signature: A Complete Walkthrough of the Triangulation Method
A step-by-step demonstration of how the Microbiome Signature Triangulation Method generates and validates intervention hypotheses for endometriosis. From metallomic signature through nutritional immunity, pathogenic selection, vulnerability mapping, and STOP analysis.
Microbiome Research··14 min read
Microbial Metallomics: The Missing Link in Understanding Heavy Metal Contamination and Pathogenic Selection
Heavy metal contamination represents one of the most persistent global environmental health challenges, affecting human, animal, and ecosystem health worldwide 1. For decades, scientists have documen…
Microbiome Research··4 min read
Why Redheads May Face Higher Parkinson's Risk: What the Science Says About Melanin and Iron
A new hypothesis connecting MC1R variants, neuromelanin composition, and iron metabolism to explain elevated Parkinson's risk in people with red hair.
Microbiome Research··4 min read
How Melanotan Peptides Could Reshape Parkinson's Treatment
Exploring MC1R agonism as a metallomics-informed approach to protecting neurons from iron-driven damage in Parkinson's disease.
Microbiome Research··5 min read
The Microbiome Medicine Roundtable Method: From Mechanism to Testable Intervention
Why fragmented biomedical observations need a structured method to become coherent disease models and actionable therapeutics.
Microbiome Research··4 min read
FIP-Associated Gingivitis in Cats: Why Itraconazole and Lactoferrin Work Better Together
Combining an antifungal drug with a natural immune protein solves what single-pathogen thinking cannot: FIP-related gum disease in cats.
Microbiome Research··14 min read
Beyond Protocols: The Case for Systems Thinking in Microbiome Research
Why audiences expecting protocols misread systems-level microbiome talks—endometriosis as a case for metallomics-first, hypothesis-driven translation.
Microbiome Research··6 min read
The Microbiome Signature of Chronic Kidney Disease
Chronic kidney disease drives a signature microbiome shift, one we can now identify, understand, and potentially reverse through targeted intervention. Here's what the bacteria tell us about kidney health.
Microbiome Research··5 min read
Evolutionary, Microbial, and Functional Case for Complex Carbohydrates
In an era dominated by nutritional debates and fad diets, one crucial element often gets overlooked: dietary fiber. Far from being a monolithic substance, fiber encompasses a diverse array of compound
Microbiome Research··6 min read
The Overlooked Role of Zinc Dyshomeostasis in Multiple Sclerosis Pathogenesis
Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is a complex autoimmune disorder characterized by demyelination and neurodegeneration in the central nervous system. While genetic, environmental, and immunological factors hav