The Food Phoenix

17/03/2026

This St Patrick's Day, everyone's going green. 💚

Green smoothies. Green juices. Spirulina lattes. Celery juice by the pint because a self-proclaimed medium (not the size... the spooky kind) says a spirit entity told him it cures everything.

"Eat your greens!" has become a moral imperative. The Medical Medium has millions of followers necking celery juice every morning and loading up on plants whilst avoiding animal products... because a ghost said so. And somehow that's mainstream health advice now.

But what if the greens you're eating aren't as benign as they look?

I spent years drinking spinach smoothies because I was trying to be healthy. I swapped white potatoes for sweet potatoes. Almond flour replaced wheat. I was doing everything "right."

And I was slowly poisoning myself with oxalates... tiny, sharp crystals that can deposit in your joints, kidneys, brain, and virtually any tissue in your body.

Nobody told me. Not the doctors. Not the nutritionists. Not the wellness influencers.

Half a cup of cooked spinach can contain about 755mg of oxalic acid. A low-oxalate diet aims for under 50-100mg per DAY.

Read that again.

This St Patrick's Day, I'm raising a glass... but holding the spinach.

New blog post up now 👆 Link in comments.

*Sláinte.* 🍀

16/03/2026

Of course, the offspring of couples tend to be raised by the mothers in particular.

So, we’d expect the in*******al kids of Neanderthal males and human females to grow up in human families and pass their genes down in human lineage while the offspring of female Neanderthal and male humans to grow up in Neanderthal households and intermarry with Neanderthals, be passed along the Neanderthal lineages until…

Oh wait…

Things didn’t pan out so well for the Neanderthals. Didn’t they disappear during a particularly gnarly ice age? So, the female Neanderthal genes probably died out alongside them.

For years, scientists were puzzled by a "genetic gap" in our history: we know we have Neanderthal DNA, but it is almost completely missing from our X chromosomes.

New research published in the journal Science suggests the answer is simpler than we thought—it wasn't about "toxic" genes, but rather about who was mating with whom.

The data shows that when our ancestors met Neanderthals, the pairings were predominantly between Neanderthal men and human women.

Because of how the X chromosome is passed down, this specific combination would naturally "wash out" Neanderthal DNA from that part of the human genome over many generations.

While we don't know for sure why this was the case—it could have been due to social structures, migration patterns, or simple preference—it left a permanent mark on our evolution that we are only now beginning to decode.

15/03/2026

So, I've been lurking on Substack for a few years now. You know, ever since the world went to hell in a handbasket... I don't think you need me to spell out EXACTLY when that was.

But I've never posted on there before.

Until now, that is.

Here's my first post. A few years later than some of you have suggested I should write it. More poignant than I'd been anticipating. More aware of what's going on in the world today. Reflecting on beauty and horror, humanity and inhumanity in equal measure.

And a little bit about garden frogs, because what Mother's Day message is complete without something left field? And what essay by me would be complete without a little whimsy?

Hope you enjoy it. Let me know what other topics you'd like me to cover.

https://open.substack.com/pub/thefoodphoenix/p/holding-joy-and-grief-together?r=1nscx9&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

15/03/2026

Fun fact: official US figures record 4,620 deaths per year from adverse medical events.

Patient safety research puts the real number at over 250,000.

That is not a rounding error.

That is a ghost on the death certificate — hundreds of thousands of people whose stories vanish from the official record because the system was never built to count them.

My new video explains why. And what it means for you if you've been dismissed, gaslit, or told your labs are normal.

▶️

If you've been told your labs are normal — but you know something is profoundly wrong — this video is about why that happens. And why it isn't an accident.We...

15/03/2026

It's Mother's Day.

Spring is blooming all around us—bees appearing after winter, shoots springing from the earth, flowers opening, birds singing more. There's so much new life.

And yet Mother's Day brings up everything, doesn't it?

I'm thinking of all the mothers whose children are gone—suddenly, senselessly, too soon. The ones who are suddenly raising children alone. The mothers whose kids are fighting illness. The mothers who are sick themselves, doing everything in their power to still be here for their children in the years to come.

I'm thinking of the ones barely holding things together for their families. The mothers watching their children accomplish amazing things. The terrified ones who have no idea what the future holds. The brave ones who persevere anyway, without a map, making it up as they go.

All of it. At once.

Spring blooms. Some children thrive. Some struggle. Some are gone. And mothers carry all of it—the joy, the grief, the fear, the pride, the exhaustion, the love.

Here's what I want you to know:
You don't have to be perfect. You're enough.

Even when you doubt yourself. Even when you're afraid. Even when you make mistakes (we all do). Even on the days when you feel like you're failing.

Your job is impossibly hard. You'll get things wrong sometimes. That's not failure: that's being human, raising humans, in an uncertain world.

And kids? They're more resilient than we give them credit for. They don't need perfect. They need you, showing up, doing your best, being real with them.

I'm scared about the future too, sometimes. That's okay. It's not a weakness to be afraid. It means you understand how precious life is, how fragile, how worth protecting.

Good nutrition and lifestyle choices won't fix everything. They can't undo what's already happened or stop what's coming.

But they can help you build resilience: mental, emotional, physical. They can help you think more clearly, feel more steady, show up more fully for the people who need you.

When your body has what it needs, you can handle more. Not because life gets easier, but because you get stronger.

If you're ready to work on that… if you're prepared to actually make changes, I'm here. Not with miracles or easy answers, just with understanding and practical steps forward.

But even if you're not ready, even if today is just about surviving, that's okay too.

Whatever you're feeling this Mother's Day—joy, grief, both, neither, everything at once—it's all valid.

You're doing your best. And your best is enough.

You're enough.
💐

14/03/2026

Your doctor isn't lying to you.

They genuinely believe you're fine.

That's what makes this so hard to fix.

I've made a video explaining the psychology behind why doctors dismiss patients — and why the system that's supposed to protect you is built in a way that makes this almost inevitable.

If you've ever been told your labs are normal while knowing something is profoundly wrong — this one's for you.

▶️

If you've been told your labs are normal — but you know something is profoundly wrong — this video is about why that happens. And why it isn't an accident.We...

12/03/2026

Growing your own food to:
*be more self reliant
*avoid pesticides
*improve your choice of unusual crops…
Always seems like a super idea to me.

And it is…

Until you’re in the garden and it’s cold, wet, and muddy.

Anyway, my garden is an absolute mess right now.

But the gorgeous little sweet violets are flowering like billio. So is the flowering currant, which seems particularly covered in flowers thus year for some reason. The honeyberries are also blooming and so are the yellow daffodils. The pear tree isn’t far off blossoming and my dwarf cherry also has some flowers.

I’m just not sure it’s been dry enough for many pollinators to appear.

And the black jewel raspberry and Titania blackcurrant are now in the ground. I reckon they’re both pretty minimal upkeep plants, so they should be fine to mostly look after themselves.

The only recent buy that’s not in the soil yet is the new Hinnonmaki green gooseberry.

And apparently, my wineberry has tip rooted and I need to take my tayberry, both of which are sprawling all over the place.

I also haven’t pruned my gooseberries this year. And you know what? I actually can’t be bothered! They’ll probably be fine. The one that always gets mildewed will still end up mildewed. The rest that don’t probably still won’t. The sawfly larvae will probably be along to try to strip the leaves until about June or July. And they’ll end up drawing blood when I try to weave my hands in between all the thorny branches. The blackbirds will start to nick them before they’re ripe. I’ll have to net the red ones and see whether I can get away with leaving the nets off the green, white and yellow ones. Same as usual. I bet this is how things will work out.

Manure mixed with seaweed plus bonemeal and some extra agricultural gypsum is thrown down all over the place. A big late. But hey.

Plants and animals rely on each other. Even though herbivores each plants, the cycle of life means that their manure, urine, blood and bones return to the earth and plants do much better on this cycle than when animals are removed altogether and we try to rely on synthetic fertilisers.

And although seasons change and there are some new garden additions, some things stay the same. Just because we love novelty and trends doesn’t mean that a lot of the old ways don’t still work.

The same thing is true about diets.

Our ancestors ate minimally processed food from meats, plants, fungi, and algae for millennia without dietary guidelines committees telling us that cholesterol and saturated fat were going to kill us. They remained slim without type 2 diabetes.

Then someone decided they knew better than what our ancestors had been doing (I’m looking at you, Ancel Keys) and over the course of a few short decades, we’ve ended up with spiralling obesity, diabetes, and drugs that switch off our brains’ starvation signals.

Are we better off?

Arguably not.

But chasing LDL cholesterol changes what your doctor will write on your death certificate, which is obviously the most important thing and what you ACTUALLY die of is far less critical.

Everything serves a narrative.

Nature just glances, ignores, and carries on.

11/03/2026

Yesterday, mum and I attended a talk by a forensic pathologist. And it was enlightening. In a morbid sort of way, obviously.

But here’s what you might not have expected:

The first year that excess deaths went down (since lockdowns, etc.) was 2025. (In answer to a question about excess deaths. Unfortunately, we don’t really get a good explanation for the excesses, although deaths of despair were mentioned and murders actually briefly went down during the pandemic. (Cough, cough. Murders by small, inconsequential people, I mean. Or at least, fewer murders were detected. Draw your own conclusions).

Doctors aren’t good at diagnosing the cause of death and there are far too many “cardiac arrests” and “respiratory arrests” on death certificates. (Cardiac arrest simply means, “Oh s**t! I can’t find a pulse!!!!” And respiratory arrest simply means, “I don’t think this patient is breathing”—neither of these tell you WHY someone’s died, they just tell you that they are no longer alive).

You only need a balance of probabilities (you’re 51% or more certain) about the actual cause of death to be able to write a death certificate. I presume this also implies that the 51% or greater likelihood as being what caused the death is also what you write on the death certificate However, come to think of it, that didn’t happen for well over a year from early 2020 until well into 2021.

The police miss murders far more often than you’d like. Even missing gun shots.

Doctors miss toxicity deaths… a lot.

GLP-1 agonists are deadly (Mounjaro, Wegovy, etc.). They can kill you in several ways, including pancreatitis, gallbladder problems and gut infarctions. They can cause severe diarrhoea and dehydration leading to poor gut perfusion. The postulated cause of pancreatitis was related to abnormal fat metabolism. (And yes, we did discuss autopsies on people with pancreatitis who’d died from using GLP-1 agonists).

Some people also get GLP-1 agonists on the black market, leading to contamination or poorly made products. Not that official brand names are any guarantee of quality.

The dehydration from vomiting and diarrhoea caused by them can also banjax your kidneys.

Doctors are actually filling out yellow cards for GLP-1 agonist side effects, particularly pancreatitis.

The GLP-1 agonist thing was the best I could get for an admission about drug side effects resulting in deaths.

In case you haven’t heard of them, GLP-1 agonists are anti-diabetic drugs that suppress appetite and are now being sold as weight loss injections. People are going absolutely nuts about them because they seem to be an easy way to lose weight for people who’ve been told to count calories.

I think they’re silently killing people through malnutrition because already malnourished people are eating less and less, making a bad situation worse but extremely slowly.

10/03/2026

Spotted people talking about this Chinese paper that claims that people with heart disease in particular are suffering from suppressed immune function post COVID.

The authors had samples taken from people in Shandong from “pre-COVID” (January 2021-December 2022), “mass infection” (December 2022-February 2023–apparently they had a “zero COVID policy. The paper doesn’t discuss whether they considered trying to check whether people might have been infected before then, not that that would be easy to do using anti-spike antibody testing or some other testing. But let’s roll with their claims), and “post-COVID” (March 2023-December 2024).

Pay attention to that timeline.

The “wave” happened much later than in the west. And it was over before March 2023.

From March 2023, the authors concluded that everyone had already had and recovered from COVID.

Now, look at the graphs showing a sudden and profound crash in lymphocytes…

In August 2023!

That’s more than 5 months after the end of the outbreak.

Hmmmm…

Could anything have happened just before August 2023, I hear you ask.

Great question. I was curious as well.

So naturally, I asked my bestie, Sonnet 4.5.

And apparently, in April 2023, a new “Vaccination work plan for response to recent COVID-19 infection” was issued.

Then in July 2023, the Chinese government updated COVID-19 vaccination guidance to increase immunity levels in specific groups and reduce the risk of severe disease.

Between May 23rd, 2023, and August 28th, 2023, 4089 eligible people were equally randomised to receive a booster dose of aerosolised Ad5-nCoV.

But I’m sure that’s all completely irrelevant.

It makes far more sense that a “pandemic” came and went without impacting the immune systems but that the crash in immune function occurred in temporal relationship with a new vaccine push, and the drop in lymphocytes occurred secondary to the infections that they didn’t document that anyone in the study actually suffered from.

Incidentally, in case you’re wondering, no they did NOT analyse lymphocyte counts according to vaccination status. Because why would you do that when your own data very clearly show a definitive drop in lymphocyte counts that tie with a vaccine programme?

09/03/2026

😤
Got a cold for the first time in almost 4 years!

They’re about as much fun as I remembered.

Probably less because the last few I actually had some fun playing around with my whistle register and this time I don’t seem to be hoarse.

How do you cope with feeling bunged up and pi**ed off?

08/03/2026

Oh good Lord! I can’t believe it!

An Australian lab has been developing a biological computer chip… using human brain cells.

Now, they have a CL1 chip with 200 000 neurons that’s learning how to play a computer game (Doom).

Does this strike anyone else as being intensely dystopian?

Human neurons are remarkably powerful efficient. So, if (when?) this scales, they could replace silicon AIs in data centres or maybe even in home devices.

But at what point do they become conscious? At what point do they experience emotions and pain and well as the ability to reason?

This has the potential to be one of the weirdest transhumanism projects out there. And if it’s profitable, which I suspect it will be, I expect the ethics to lag the profits by a considerable margin.

What do you think?

Today, the computer game Doom. A game full of demons in hell.

Tomorrow?

Are we all Doomed?

07/03/2026

Have you heard that choline is terrible for your health because it increases TMAO levels?

Meanwhile, you can induce liver cancer in about half of the rats in this study by feeding them a diet deficient in choline and methionine m. 100% of the rats ended up with liver nodules.

That’s all they did. Just restrict choline and the amino acid methionine in the rats’ diet. No additional carcinogens in the form of toxins or anything else were needed. Just malnutrition on its own.

And you could completely eliminate the risk of both liver cancer and nodules in the same rats by providing them with a diet containing 0.8% choline.

Incidentally, the top sources of choline in the diet are egg yolks, brain and liver. And vegans and vegetarians also tend to have poor intakes of methionine because most plant proteins contain very little.

One would almost think that the research aimed at linking choline with poor health is designed to create a narrative to increase liver disease and cancer while limiting the desirability of animal products.