The founder of the David Protein has answers.
"The greater the innovation, the more likely it is to be a target."
Good afternoon everyone. Bear with me over the next few days if send times get inconsistent. I’m traveling to Austin and Los Angeles for work, and then I’ll be in California for the next week.
Today’s newsletter includes: Peter Rahal responds to your emergency press conference questions, A24 opened a merch store in China, a London institution is opening a hotel in New York, and concern for Gowanus residents.
A mass panic 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’s listed on their Magnum-condom-colored gold label.
David* is no stranger to controversy. The internet gawked at its $75 million Series A funding round last year. Earlier this year, they sent a handful of unsuspecting recipients (including me) a vibrator as part of a marketing campaign around their new bars. Last month, Dr. Peter Attia stepped down as the company’s Chief Science Officer after his name appeared over 1,700 times** in the Epstein files.
Yesterday, Feed Me readers had the opportunity to ask Peter Rahal, David’s founder and CEO, anything they wanted about the nutrition label fiasco during an emergency press conference (held in a Substack chat).
Below are Rahal’s responses. He addresses Peter Attia, David’s viral cod, the law firm they’re using, and Clavicular. Please find a quiet place to sit down, lock in, and learn the truth about David.
*David has advertised with Feed Me in the past.
**And earlier version of this newsletter said Peter Attia’s name appeared several times in the Epstein files. It’s been updated to say “over 1,700 times.”
“I would love the tea on how they let Dr. Peter Attia ‘go’ and if that is actually real.”
Obviously, this surprised all of us. I recommended he take a step back from all his commitments from CBS, David, and Eight Sleep to focus on his family and patients. I don’t think anyone likes cancel culture. We don’t 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.
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’s 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.
“How many calories are the David bars REALLY?”
150 calories for 62 grams of bar.
Why would tests show the calorie count be closer to 260 than the listed 150 calories?
So the reason David is showing as 260 calories is simply because they are using the wrong test. If you use a Bomb Calorimeter, 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.
FDA rules require the use of metabolizable energy—the actual energy the human body can absorb and use—not 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.
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—compared with 9 kcal per gram for conventional fats. Our labels accurately reflect this FDA-recognized, metabolizable value.
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.
“Which law firm are you hiring? How are you feeling?”
Alex Spiro. We are going to counter-sue. It’s 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.
“When you found out about the lawsuit were you shocked? Or was it a matter-of-time type of thing?”
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’s 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.
*Editor’s note: Peter co-founded RXBAR, which sold to Kellogg’s for $600 million.
“Not lawsuit related: You changed the formulation for David bars from allulose/stevia/monk fruit to sucralose/malitol/aspartame. I’m guessing this was primarily cost motivated, given how expensive allulose is, but a little flavor motivated as well, since the bars are now noticeably sweeter. Were you confident your customers would only care about calories and macros, especially since it’s processed food either way, or did this feel like a gamble? Given the interest in allulose is growing, do you think it’s an ingredient that still shows promise?”
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’s an interaction between protein and sugars. In a steak it’s 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.
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’s 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’m 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.
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’t know something or if something is “artificial,” 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, “Only eat foods you know” might be helpful, understanding nutrition requires a more sophisticated approach than a simple heuristic.
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.
“Is this suit causing your team to shift their ice cream launch strategy? How are you thinking about adjusting currently in-flight marketing, if at all?”
No changes.
“How does it feel being the brand face of Target? [David is featured prominently in their latest TV commercial promoting activity, health, and wellness.] How long did that relationship take?”
Feels great. They are a great retailer. It’s a privilege.
“In light of this class action lawsuit, will you now be bringing on Clavicular to help ProteinMogg the competition?”
Haha Clavicular certainly would understand the science behind what we are doing and understand that David can help everyone Ascend.
“David bar x Live Nation/Ticketmaster lawsuit PR collab when”
I don’t know the Live Nation tea.
“Why won’t u let other people use EPG?”
We will sell it, and open for business. That narrative ran because content creators get more views with that story.
“How will you regain the confidence of consumers after this?”
Make sure the truth gets shared
Counter-sue
Working on hiring Rachel McAdams as our new chief science officer
Good use of AI
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—overconsumption of calories—is one the largest drivers of negative health outcomes.
“Do you think David’s hyperbolic messaging and marketing (”the most effective portable protein” ‘protein perfected’) made the company an easy target for class action attorneys?”
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’s easy to be misunderstood and a target.
“Do you have any advice for your loving customers who treat TikTok as news/truth?”
Please do not believe all the content you consume. Content creators have an incentive for negative news even if it’s not true.
“Is there a plan to study the effects of long-term, regular EPG consumption? Given EPG is your competitive advantage, both for your bars and I’m guessing your ice cream, as well, what is the Plan B if there is a larger backlash against this ingredient?”
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’s also very logical. EPG is non-nutritive, meaning the body is not using it for energy or building similarly to insoluble fiber.
I understand that new things are scary. I have really applied rigor to this as it is my life’s work at this point. I understand the ingredient. If it makes you feel better, I feed it to my 2-year-old.
“You went from putting 6 ingredients in RXBars to needing a ‘Protein System,’ ‘Binding System,’ ‘Fat System,’ and ‘Flavor System’ just to explain what’s in a David. At what point did ‘clean’ stop being the mission & macros become the entire story?”
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’s 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.
“How much cod have you actually sold / was it a strategic move to broaden your market for the antitrust suit?”
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.
“What’s next after ice cream?”
Some cod.
This week on the Feed Me Job Board: The Six Bells, AFLALO, and Dr. Idriss. 💼
Frozen yogurt store Culture is opening a third location in Gramercy. If you’re unfamiliar with Culture, they landed the top spot in The Infatuation’s ranking of New York’s best frozen yogurt (based on how much they taste like yogurt). Nobody asked, but Culture’s 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’re forced to stare directly into a mirror.
Angelika Saleh of Angelika Film Center died at 90. I’d never seen a photo of her before this story – 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: “I 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!” Sweet.
A24 opened a merch store in China. It’s inside the offices of Alibaba.
The Wolseley, a grand all-day cafe in London (formerly run by Jeremy King), is opening a hotel in New York City by 2027. 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’ll all be ready for Sunday roasts by 2027.
Caper, the food media startup created by Puck alumni, finally launched its website. Loewe is a presenting sponsor.
From the Feed Me Tip Line: “I’m 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’t care and it’s 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.” For more context, The New York Times published an alarming piece about the same issue in 2024.
What is the Hoffman Process really like? Some of the people I know who’ve been don’t seem transformed at all, but maybe that’s 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?
The Hollywood Reporter’s Editor-in-Chief Maer Roshan interviewed Harvey Weinstein from Rikers Island. Weinstein is on the white-guy memoir circuit, telling Roshan that he’s been reading “Graydon’s memoir. Barry Diller’s. Keith McNally’s, which was incredible.” 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.
Apple launched a new Instagram account. In an email from their team, I learned that @helloapple will serve as a place “where fans and followers can have one place for Apple news and information, designed to tell stories, share news, and amplify our incredible creator community.”
Congratulations Rachel Karten on five years of Link in Bio!
Congratulations Biz Sherbert on one year of American Style!
Peter Attia's name appears over a thousand times in the Epstein files... not "several"
“Too much water is poison” and “arsenic is natural” are such TikTok comment section arguments. And using AI to gain back trust?