A mass panic<\/a> flooded the internet yesterday when David Protein customers learned that the famed 150-calorie bars might actually contain twice as many calories and four times as much fat as what\u2019s listed on their Magnum-condom-colored gold label.<\/p>\n David* is no stranger to controversy. The internet gawked at its $75 million Series A<\/a> funding round last year. Earlier this year, they sent a handful of unsuspecting recipients (including me) a vibrator<\/a> as part of a marketing campaign around their new bars. Last month, Dr. Peter Attia stepped down as the company\u2019s Chief Science Officer after his name appeared over 1,700 times** in the Epstein files.<\/p>\n Yesterday, Feed Me readers had the opportunity to ask Peter Rahal, David\u2019s founder and CEO, anything they wanted about the nutrition label fiasco during an emergency press conference (held in a Substack chat). <\/p>\n Below are Rahal\u2019s responses. He addresses Peter Attia, David\u2019s viral cod, the law firm they\u2019re using, and Clavicular. Please find a quiet place to sit down, lock in, and learn the truth about David.<\/p>\n *David has advertised with Feed Me in the past.<\/p>\n **And earlier version of this newsletter said Peter Attia\u2019s name appeared several times in the Epstein files. It\u2019s been updated to say \u201cover 1,700 times.\u201d<\/p>\n Obviously, this surprised all of us. I recommended he take a step back from all his commitments from CBS<\/a>, David, and Eight Sleep to focus on his family and patients. I don\u2019t think anyone likes cancel culture. We don\u2019t want to go back to that period of time of witch hunting. But I strongly felt it was best for Peter to take a step back and focus on his family.<\/p>\n Why did the Attia story blow up? This is my theory: because the DOJ has failed to serve justice to all the victims of Epstein and it\u2019s clearly a cover-up going on, the public has taken matters into their own hands and I think that made Peter a perfect target. If the DOJ was doing its job, I do not know if the spotlight would have been put on Peter.<\/p>\n 150 calories for 62 grams of bar.<\/p>\n So the reason David is showing as 260 calories is simply because they are using the wrong test. If you use a Bomb Calorimeter<\/a>, which burns food to measure how much energy (calories) a food contains, then non-nutritive items are going to show up as 4\/4\/9. That is not how you test or measure food.<\/p>\n FDA rules require the use of metabolizable energy\u2014the actual energy the human body can absorb and use\u2014not combustion energy. This distinction matters enormously for ingredients such as dietary fiber, certain sweeteners, and fat substitutes like esterified propoxylated glycerol (EPG). When burned in a calorimeter, these ingredients appear to deliver far more calories than the body actually receives.<\/p>\n That is why the FDA mandates specific calculation methods for these ingredients. David Protein follows those rules precisely. EPG has been reviewed by the FDA through multiple GRAS notices and is assigned a caloric value of 0.7 kcal per gram\u2014compared with 9 kcal per gram for conventional fats. Our labels accurately reflect this FDA-recognized, metabolizable value.<\/p>\n Our products are labeled correctly and in full compliance with all FDA regulations. The claims in this lawsuit misrepresent how calories are determined under U.S. nutrition labeling standards.<\/p>\n Alex Spiro. We are going to counter-sue. It\u2019s pretty frustrating but the plaintiff lawyers even admitted to not knowing that non-nutritive ingredients are not measured via a bomb calorimeter. An unfortunate thing in the food business is the proliferation of plaintiff lawyers who try to shake down brands, because they have no cost and only upside when they file frivolous lawsuits.<\/p>\n Not surprised at all. An unfortunate part of American culture and the food industry is that there is a huge list of law firms that have no cost and attempt to shake down new brands. At RXBAR* this happened and it will happen at David today and in the future. An interesting observation is that these types of frivolous lawsuits are correlated with Walmart target distribution. It\u2019s as if these lawyers are walking Walmart for victims. If you are in Walmart as a brand, you have enough money to pay them to settle.<\/p>\n *Editor\u2019s note: Peter co-founded RXBAR, which sold to Kellogg\u2019s for $600 million.<\/a><\/p>\n Allulose is an amazing ingredient, sweet and only 0.4 calories per gram, but a disaster in protein bars. Our ice cream is driven by allulose. The only reason for the shift away from allulose was due to a reaction called the Maillard reaction. It\u2019s an interaction between protein and sugars. In a steak it\u2019s great, you actually want it, it gives you these nice umami brown tonalities. In a protein bar, you do not. In a protein bar, it massively interferes with the taste, color, and texture of the product, and with time it accelerates.<\/p>\n When we started, we massively underestimated the impact the Maillard reaction would have on the bars over its shelf life. After 30 days, it was a terrible product. To solve this problem, we had to significantly reduce allulose. Allulose\u2019s primary function in the bar was binding and sweetening. As a result, we lost a lot of sweetness and when we increased stevia and monk fruit to compensate for the loss of sweetness from the reduction of allulose, we were observing that nasty bitter artificial taste that lingers, which I\u2019m sure everyone is very familiar with. In order to make sure we had a clean sweet taste, we moved to artificial sweeteners: sucralose and ace-k. These sweeteners are obviously slightly controversial, but after digging into the literature, it was clear that the fear around them was misunderstood. The gist around artificial sweeteners is: The dose makes the poison. This concept of dose is really important to understand. Too much water can kill you by diluting the electrolytes in your body, however we do not draw the conclusion that water is bad. To make people even more comfortable, the dosing and usage rates of artificial sweeteners in food vs. beverage is different. Beverage requires a 2-4x usage rate than food.<\/p>\n Fundamentally, we need to make a bar that tastes great over time, and it was a very obvious decision. I understand that if you don\u2019t know something or if something is \u201cartificial,\u201d people assume bad. However, the world is more complicated and there is more nuance. Arsenic is natural. There are mushrooms that can kill you. While a simple heuristic like, \u201cOnly eat foods you know\u201d might be helpful, understanding nutrition requires a more sophisticated approach than a simple heuristic.<\/p>\n The gist: I see nutrition moving away from being religious and ideologically driven to something that is more evidence-based and logical. For those reasons, we were very comfortable with the transition as it was unequivocally in the best interest of the product and our customers.<\/p>\n No changes.<\/p>\n Feels great. They are a great retailer. It\u2019s a privilege.<\/p>\n Haha Clavicular certainly would understand the science behind what we are doing and understand that David can help everyone Ascend.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t know the Live Nation tea.<\/p>\n We will sell it, and open for business. That narrative ran because content creators get more views with that story.<\/p>\n Make sure the truth gets shared<\/p>\n Counter-sue<\/p>\n Working on hiring Rachel McAdams<\/a> as our new chief science officer<\/p>\n Good use of AI<\/p>\n In the food industry and with the FDA, EPG is viewed as the holy grail. It has enormous public-health potential and solves the biggest issue in the American diet. Energy toxicity\u2014overconsumption of calories\u2014is one the largest drivers of negative health outcomes.<\/p>\n Not our messaging, more how innovative and novel our bars are. You can think about it like this: the greater the innovation, the more likely it is to be a target. This is part of the territory for anything that is real innovation. It\u2019s easy to be misunderstood and a target.<\/p>\n Please do not believe all the content you consume. Content creators have an incentive for negative news even if it\u2019s not true.<\/p>\n Yes, this has been studied. EPG has been around since the early 90s and has an interesting history. The gold-standard test is called the three-generation reproduction toxicity study. The results of that study had no adverse effects. It\u2019s also very logical. EPG is non-nutritive, meaning the body is not using it for energy or building similarly to insoluble fiber.<\/p>\n I understand that new things are scary. I have really applied rigor to this as it is my life\u2019s work at this point. I understand the ingredient. If it makes you feel better, I feed it to my 2-year-old.<\/p>\n I used the same approach with RXBar that I did with David. RX binding system was dates. Protein system was egg whites and almonds. These are the fundamental compounds that make a protein bar. They are both first-principle approaches to product design, however the difference between David and RX are the assumptions. RX assumed that the paleo diet was the correct nutrition guidelines. David assumes it\u2019s nutrient driven. Protein, carbs, and fat are the 3 macronutrients. What people want in a protein bar is the most protein with the least amount of other nutrients. Protein is the key nutrient, and people want it to taste great and at a good price. RXBar was ideology-based. David is evidence-based.<\/p>\n One unit per day is our average. No, it was a funny move. We are in the protein business, and cod has the best protein-to-calorie ratio. CFP (calories from protein) is a really important metric when thinking about snacks. It supported our mission of high performance and tools that help you increase muscle and decrease fat. Building a brand has to be fun.<\/p>\n Some cod.<\/p>\n This week on the Feed Me Job Board: The Six Bells, AFLALO, and Dr. Idriss. \ud83d\udcbc<\/p>\n Feed Me Job Board<\/a><\/p>\n Frozen yogurt store Culture is opening a third location in Gramercy.<\/a> If you\u2019re unfamiliar with Culture, they landed the top spot in The Infatuation\u2019s ranking<\/a> of New York\u2019s best frozen yogurt (based on how much they taste like yogurt). Nobody asked, but Culture\u2019s Park Slope location is my favorite frozen yogurt in the city, with Forty Carrots coming in as a close second. I like to sit at the counter at Forty Carrots, where you\u2019re forced to stare directly into a mirror.<\/p>\n Angelika Saleh of Angelika Film Center died at 90.<\/a> I\u2019d never seen a photo of her before this story \u2013 she seemed like such a cool, beautiful woman, and what a generous gift she gave to the city. Alex Traub, an obituarist at The New York Times, is always a pleasure to read. The top comment on the story reads: \u201cI worked at the Angelika box office selling tickets when I was 15 years old, in 1993. My uncle, a Baghdadi Jew from India, was close friends with Joe Saleh & Angelika, and I remember the opening party for the theater in 1989 like it was yesterday. I loved getting to watch free films downstairs after my shifts!\u201d Sweet. <\/p>\n A24 opened a merch store in China<\/a>. It\u2019s inside the offices of Alibaba.<\/p>\n The Wolseley, a grand all-day cafe in London (formerly run by Jeremy King), is opening a hotel in New York City by 2027.<\/a> There will be 76 rooms and an all-day brasserie, and it will be located near Times Square. If 2026 is the year New Yorkers fell in love with Guinness, perhaps we\u2019ll all be ready for Sunday roasts by 2027.<\/p>\n Caper, the food media startup created by Puck alumni, finally launched its website.<\/a> Loewe is a presenting sponsor.<\/p>\n From the Feed Me Tip Line<\/a>: \u201cI\u2019m hearing more and more about toxic sites and soil vapor intrusion in Gowanus (wish I heard about this a few years ago before I moved here). Real estate developers and landlords just don\u2019t care and it\u2019s scary to be a Gowanus resident right now. Voice of Gowanus and NYU recently released this health survey and I wanted to help get the word out.\u201d For more context, The New York Times <\/a>published an alarming piece about the same issue in 2024.<\/p>\n What is the Hoffman Process really like? <\/a>Some of the people I know who\u2019ve been don\u2019t seem transformed at all, but maybe that\u2019s why the retreat sells itself on internal work. GQ published a story today about the $6,200 weeklong practice where phones, exercise, and talking about jobs are prohibited. If you have ever been or know someone who has, can you tell us about it in the comment section?<\/p>\n The Hollywood Reporter\u2019s Editor-in-Chief Maer Roshan interviewed Harvey Weinstein from Rikers Island. <\/a>Weinstein is on the white-guy memoir circuit, telling Roshan that he\u2019s been reading \u201cGraydon\u2019s memoir. Barry Diller\u2019s. Keith McNally\u2019s, which was incredible.\u201d Roshan, who was the founding editor of the thrice-launched and thrice-shuttered Radar magazine, has been delivering scoops like this since I was in elementary school.<\/p>\n Apple launched a new Instagram account<\/a>. In an email from their team, I learned that @helloapple will serve as a place \u201cwhere fans and followers can have one place for Apple news and information, designed to tell stories, share news, and amplify our incredible creator community.\u201d<\/p>\n Congratulations Rachel Karten<\/a> on five years of Link in Bio<\/a>!<\/p>\n Congratulations Biz Sherbert<\/a> on one year of American Style<\/a>!<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/https:\/\/substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com\/public\/images\/3ec60d38-c6a5-4636-81cc-ddc59931a7c3_1456.jpeg\")
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