Garrett's Rant

This will be the first in a series of posts on this topic.

Back in November I made the mistake of partially reading Garrett’s rant about my recent Supplements blog post regarding the risks of certain supplements and running into a calcium deficiency. I was travelling in December and wanted to think more about if it was even worth responding to this ridiculous nonsense. Anyways, here’s my take on it. Hopefully it will help more people see through the smoke and mirrors.

Firstly, I was rather surprised that Garrett felt the need to do that. But I was far more surprised at just how distorted, exaggerated, vengeful and most of all how extremely manipulative it was. I was like: Wow… What am I reading here? Was this a childish hissy-fit, an unhinged tantrum or emotional meltdown? No, it seemed to be much deeper than that. I think it’s best described as subtly veiled narcissistic rage. Well then, from that perspective, his rant is of no surprise really. Since this is how you’d expect many narcissists to lash out and attack others when faced with any criticism. It was also immediately clear that this wasn’t really a rant against the content of my blog post, rather it was a rage attack on myself.

My next question was like: Why? My Supplements blog post was a rather concise couple of pages raising a very legitimate and valid safety concern. In an email Garrett sent out to people sharing his rant he stated, “The goal isn’t to tear down his (Grant’s) legacy”, and then he proceeded with a very vindictive and personal ~50-page attack attempting to pretty much do just that. Including many topics that had absolutely nothing to do with my recent blog post. It’s just so bizarre it’s hard to find the words to describe it. However, I’m rather glad Garrett has done this as it better reveals his true character.

Garrett has referred to my blog post as a “smear”. I was like: Oh, really? Kind of a weird “smear” when I hadn’t mentioned his name, or anyone else’s name in a negative sense. If it was a “smear” on Garrett, don’t you think it’s rather odd that I included a link to a YT video of someone talking very positively about Garrett and his LYL program. Yeah, a very weird “smear” indeed. But, hey, I guess it’s my mistake. I should have known that Garrett is beyond ANY questioning or criticism. I mean, like how dare I (or presumably anybody else) have the audacity to raise some of these valid safety concerns.

More importantly, the two key points I made in my blog post Garrett himself had already publicly acknowledged. There were three main points raised in my blog post. I’ll summarize them here:

Lactoferrin:

Some people were reporting a serious setback, or even being harmed, by taking lactoferrin. And, just to be clear, this point wasn’t specifically directed at Garrett. It was directed at lactoferrin. Garrett isn’t the only one pushing and selling lactoferrin. More importantly, Garrett himself had already publicly admitted to and fully acknowledged in multiple YT episodes that some people have had a bad response to taking lactoferrin. Albeit, covering it up with this stupid “If you’re going be dumb, you’d better be tough” excuse. I’ll deal more with that nonsense excuse later on.

Therefore, my blog post on Supplements revealed no new information concerning lactoferrin.

Calcium Deficiency:

As with lactoferrin, Garrett himself had already recently publicly acknowledged he pretty much missed the calcium deficiency issue. My point of including the calcium deficiency potential in my blog post, and in sharing Hope Tipton’s earlier blog post on the topic, was to raise awareness of it with people who are not following Garrett. And, yes, I was rather annoyed that someone who goes by the moniker of being the “Nutrition Detective” and claims to be focused on toxicity and deficiencies, and to be really good at spotting patterns appears to have missed something rather obvious. And especially so when four years earlier I had warned about getting enough calcium on a low vitamin A diet.

BTW, shortly after posting my blog post, three more people emailed me saying that they too had likely developed calcium deficiency and started supplementing with it and quickly experienced improvements in their health. So, I have little doubt Hope’s work and understanding on this is correct, and super important.

Again, my blog post on Supplements revealed nothing new in this regard either.

Beware the experts:

In my eBooks, and in some of my blog posts I’ve made the same point about being very careful in taking any advice from the so-called experts. If anyone is claiming to be an expert, and especially so in the health field, insist on them first proving it with real world results. Real, and legitimate experts, routinely solve problems. They don’t make them worse.

Correspondingly, I’ve stated many times that people need to think for themselves, apply their own critical thinking skills and make up their own minds. Blindly taking the advice of a self-proclaimed “expert” in the health and nutrition space could be the biggest mistake of your life!

As above, my Supplements blog post revealed nothing new in this regard either. Lastly, in no way whatsoever was the purpose of my blog post to “smear” anyone. Its purpose was exactly what the title said it was about. It was asking a question and raising the awareness of the real-world results of dubious supplements, and bad advice potentially damaging people’s health. And subsequently also potentially damaging the reputation of the low vitamin A diet. It pretty much parallels what I’ve done with my messaging on the dangers of eating liver. Eating the liver “superfood” has absolutely devastated the health of some people. That subsequently also has the potential of ruining the overall reputation of the carnivore diet. I’ve also noticed that some of the celebrity type YouTubers and self-proclaimed “experts” are now quietly dropping their “liver is a superfood” message. I have little doubt they know exactly what’s happened to their own health.

Why the rage response?

So, with really nothing new being stated in my Supplements blog post, and with it clearly not being a “smear” how did it deserve this extreme and rather vicious personal attack on myself by Garrett (et al?) ? Yes, I’m pretty sure there was a co-author involved.

Well, Shakespeare’s famous line from Hamlet comes to mind: “The lady doth protest too much, methinks”.

But that doesn’t quite describe it. I think there’s a deeper reason. Let me use this analogy. Imagine the police are investigating an incident and they go question a suspect; I’ll just call him Jimmy. Consider these two scenarios:

First, the normal scenario where Jimmy has nothing to hide:

Police: Jimmy, were you at the 7-11 two nights ago, around 10 PM?

Jimmy: (very calmly) No, why?

Next, the other scenario where Jimmy indeed has something to hide:

Police: Jimmy, were you at the 7-11 two nights ago, around 10 PM?

Jimmy: (explosively yells) No, it wasn’t me! I was out of town. I hate 7-11. I never go there. I haven’t been there in a year! Why are you police always picking on the little guy! Don’t you have bigger crimes to solve! Whenever something happens you guys always come questioning me. It was probably my neighbour; he’s always at 7-11,.... And rages on for another 10 minutes.

Well, you get the idea, why the ~ 50 pages of extreme protest, insults, etc., over something that was, in reality, rather minor? Why use personal insults and attacks on me rather than sticking to the issues? Why such an over-the-top rage response? Is this just a narcissist losing control? Or is this the classic: Don’t like the message so attack the messenger response? It’s probably a bit of both. But I think it’s also more of a cover story for something Garrett probably does not want people to come to understand. More on that later.

Now lest you think using the term narcissist is name calling, that is not at all my intention. Consider some of the key characteristics of narcissistic behaviour and make your own assessment.

For me, a key sign of knowing I’m dealing with a narcissist is when someone needs to talk about themselves excessively and generally a lot more than other people normally would. Another sign is whenever I hear someone use the phrase “my people”, and especially so the phrase “I allow my people”, then I know I’m dealing with a true narcissist. Being a narcissist isn’t illegal of course, and unfortunately the personality type is rather common. However, they can be very unpleasant and sometimes even harmful people to be around.

Why I wrote my Supplements blog post and many others

Some people have asked me why I continue to do this work. Afterall, I’ve been doing it for 11 years now and I don’t charge money for it and haven’t earned a dime from it. Far from it, it has actually cost me money. So, why do I do this and write articles such as the recent one on warning about supplements? It’s because it is still very important to correct the science of vitamin A. And, of course, it is simply the right thing to do.

Some background also factors into it for me. For many years of my career, I worked in the Oil and Gas industry. I’ve worked on both on-land and offshore drilling platforms which are rather hazardous work environments. That industry has a very strong focus on safety. The overarching safety rule is summed up in the “If you see something, you say something” philosophy. The same rule applies in many other heavy industries, the aviation industry, and of course the military too. The safety ethos is the same: “If you see something, you say something”. You don’t ignore it, you don’t sweep it under the rug, you don’t hide it, and you most certainly don’t participate in covering it up. You speak up and act, and you do so regardless of your rank or who you might offend.

I’ve applied this same safety ethos in much of my work. I’ve done it regarding so-called vitamin A, vitamin D, glyphosate, Accutane et al, statins, liver consumption, vaccines, Ozempic, food supplementation etc. etc. If I see something I think is wrong, I’m often going to say something. For me the same applies to dubious and harmful supplements. And I don’t care one tiny bit about who might be offended by it. Sorry, potentially harmful supplements don’t get a pass just because someone I know is selling them.

But, specifically, my last article on supplements was also provoked by recent reports from multiple people who have developed cancer after prolonged liver consumption. It was also triggered a bit by multiple recent email reports from people who have been on the low vitamin A diet for a long time and have had their progress stalled for like the last 2 or even 4 years. Therefore, I was like: okay, there’s clearly something very wrong going on here. It’s time to say something about it. And, at the very least it’s time to openly question why that’s happening. And I’m now fully convinced that my blog post was spot on target as to what some of the real causes are.

Now, I’d like to ask that you too also apply the “If you see something, you say something” safety ethos in this health space. And it is not optional. You apply it no matter what. If you feel you’ve been harmed by a supplement, or some bad advice, then please speak up. And if someone is trying to hush you up or somehow trying to prevent you from speaking up, just very calmly tell them to take a freak’n hike! The last thing any narcissist wants people to do is think for themselves. A narcissist gets their distorted sense of power from controlling and even bullying others.

I’ll address some of Garrett’s specific accusations and allegations soon in subsequent posts.

So now, what is the real reason for Garret’s rant and rather vicious personal attack on myself? Well, I can only speculate. But I don’t think it’s just an angry retaliation to my perceived criticism. I think it’s more likely he’s afraid people might start asking the simple question: Am I really doing better or am I actually doing worse with all these supplements? Then, the obvious follow-on question of: If I’m actually doing worse with the supplements, what’s the value of being in the so-called “program”?

Additionally, I think there’s the concern that I might spill the beans, so to speak, and reveal the insider secret to succeeding with the low vitamin A diet. Well, here it is folks: The secret is: There is no secret!

That’s right, you absolutely don’t need to buy a subscription or membership to someone’s program. I think the HMTA is mostly useless as well, other than to be used as a pretext to sell more supplements. I think many of the supplements being recommended and pushed in the low vitamin A community (and in the alternative health space overall) aren’t needed and therefore mostly useless. Therefore, most of them are simply a waste of your money. Obviously, some are potentially harmful too. And, yes, a few might be needed as well.

However, and more importantly, I think the supplements are maybe being used as a bit of a guise to make people think that the “program” is working. Whereas, in reality, it’s very likely that it’s simply just the low vitamin A diet aspect of “the program” that’s responsible for it working. This has absolutely been proven out by many other people doing just fine with the low vA diet on their own. From way back in 2020 my survey results showed that most people (~80%) were reporting the low vA diet was working for them.

And from my 2023 survey, it looked like it was probably still close to 80% (AKA most people).

Likewise, you most certainly don’t need to buy some expensive consultation package either to follow a low vA diet. And my bet is that the consultation packages are just used to sell you more supplements. One of Garrett’s other claims has been something like: We’ve gone way beyond the low vitamin A diet. Well, that’s a nice sounding claim. However, I’m not seeing any real-world evidence of that. Specifically, I’m not seeing any great success rate for people in the LYL program versus those doing the low vA diet on their own. That’s right, this is not that complicated, and you can definitely succeed in this on your own. I’ve outlined the basics here in my 2023 Tackling the Detox Setback blog post.

So, the great insider secret here is that you don’t need to spend your money on “programs” and supplements etc. I think having people believe that they need to buy a “program” or “consultation package” is just the worst possible thing to happen in the low vitamin A community. I think you’d be much better off to use your money to buy some steak, and don’t stress over the things many of the self-proclaimed experts are manipulating you into stressing about. It is very unlikely that good health is going to be found at the bottom of a pill bottle. Lest you think my statements here are just in reaction to Garrett’s recent rage attack on myself; they are not. And they are not at all specific to Garrett or to the LYL program either. I’ve shared many of these same views before.

Now, if you are having trouble getting started with a low vA diet, or you feel you’d do better with one-on-one coaching, or need motivational support, I totally understand that. Clearly, there now needs to be a lot more competition, more perspectives and more choices in this space.

I move on, unintimidated and uncompromised.