Until I read Fiat Food by Matthew Lysiak and Saifedean Ammous, I struggled to connect the dots between the monetary system and the current diabesity epidemic. The book provides the historical context and the economic mechanisms behind the decline in public health, showing how inflation has eroded not just our wealth but also our health.
What is fiat health?
Fiat health refers to a health paradigm shaped and controlled by centralised authorities, corporate interests, and profit-driven systems, analogous to how fiat money operates in the financial world. It prioritises cheap, scalable, and industrialised solutions at the expense of long-term wellbeing, sacrificing nutrient-dense, ancestral practices for convenience and mass production.
Inflation and health
Inflation is often framed as a purely economic phenomenon, but its effects ripple into every aspect of our lives, including our health.
Just as gradual 2-3% annual weight gain can go unnoticed until a serious health event hits, the 2-3% annual reduction in purchasing power caused by inflation often escapes scrutiny until the cumulative impact becomes undeniable.
Between 2019 and 2023, the cost of a 300g ribeye steak from my local farmer rose by 79%, from £8.23 to £14.75. My wages increased by 14% during the same period. My purchasing power and ability to buy nutrient-dense food was reduced significantly.
This disparity means nutrient-dense foods like meat, eggs, and seafood are increasingly out of reach for many people. They also have to work harder for their money, which means less time outdoors, less sleep, and more stress. Instead, they turn to cheaper, ultra-processed foods that are calorie-dense but nutrient-depleted. These foods drive the steady rise in type 2 diabetes, obesity, and metabolic syndrome.
How fiat money shapes health systems
The link between fiat money and health outcomes runs through the incentives of those who control the money supply. Governments, reliant on cheap credit from money printing, align with industries that benefit from mass production: agri-food giants, pharmaceutical companies, and medical institutions. Universities and journals reinforce these trends, promoting guidelines that prioritise grains, seed oils, and sugar over nutrient-dense options like meat, eggs, seafood, and dairy.
The result is a public health crisis driven by recommendations shaped by profit rather than science. Less than 10% of adults today have optimal metabolic health.
How to break free
Rejecting fiat health means focusing on long-term health fundamentals rather than short-term convenience. The principles are straightforward:
- Go outside. Sensible sun exposure is the cheapest, most effective intervention for health available to most people. It improves hormonal balance, boosts mood, and enhances metabolic function. It is, in my view, the most consistently overlooked aspect of health.
- Base your diet on nutrient-dense foods. Meat, eggs, dairy, seafood, fruit, vegetables, nuts, seeds, and whole carbohydrates. These provide the essential fats, proteins, and micronutrients your body is built to run on.
- Avoid ultra-processed foods. Cheap grains, refined sugar, and seed oils are inexpensive to produce and costly to your health. The price difference at the supermarket does not reflect the full cost.
- Support local and regenerative agriculture. Buying from local farmers improves diet quality and decentralises food production. It also puts purchasing power back with producers who are growing food rather than manufacturing it.
Sovereignty over health
The principles of decentralisation and resistance to inflation can be applied to health as well as money. Just as Bitcoin restores individual sovereignty over wealth, sunlight and locally sourced, nutrient-dense food restores sovereignty over health.
The narratives we have been fed by governments, corporations, and institutions are worth questioning. Taking back control of what you eat, how you move, and how you spend your time is not a small decision. It is the foundation everything else is built on.
If this topic interests you, I highly recommend Fiat Food. It connects the dots between money, food, and health in a way I have not seen done elsewhere.
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