Odds & Ends: October 23, 2026

Why your protein powder costs so much more now. Back in 2018, I wrote a guide to chugging whey as a cheap, low-hassle way to hit your protein goals. Whey protein is still a low-hassle way to hit your protein goals, but it ain’t cheap anymore. Oliver Bateman at Men’s Health noticed the same thing. He went through his Amazon orders and found that a five-pound tub of whey concentrate cost him about $60 in 2024. In September 2026? $103. Why the big jump in price? Bateman investigated. The problem is the demand has exceeded the supply. Whey is the leftover liquid from making cheese, and dairies used to discard it, so supplement companies used to get whey basically for free. But protein demand has skyrocketed in recent years. Food companies are cramming protein into everything from Cheerios to Pop-Tarts, and they often use whey to add that extra protein. And there aren’t enough cheese factories making whey to fulfill that demand, hence, higher prices. I haven’t used much whey in the past few years. Instead of aiming for 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight, I now shoot for 0.8, which the research suggests is enough for muscle protein synthesis. At that target, I’ve been able to get my protein from whole foods like egg whites, Greek yogurt, and lean meats. Bateman recommends doing the same thing. 

“Silver Stallion” by the Highwaymen. When Brandon Flowers came on the podcast, he shared his five favorite country songs. (Listener Robbie R. put together a Spotify playlist of them if you want a handy reference). I checked them all out, and my favorite was “Silver Stallion” by the Highwaymen. The song brings together four country music legends — Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, and Kris Kristofferson — and uses the imagery of wild horses and open plains to capture the ethos of the American West; it feels like a cowboy ballad crossed with a meditation on mortality. The quartet’s warm and weathered voices harmonize for a real smooth ride.

Newton running shoes. Running shoes tend to come in two general options: heavy-duty cushioning or minimal design. Newton’s running shoes are genuinely different. Their signature feature is a series of raised lugs under the forefoot that help guide your foot smoothly from heel or midfoot landing to toe-off, while providing a springy, responsive feel. (The lugs can feel a little odd at first, but then people get used to them.) The shoes have both enough cushioning to feel good on the foot and a low heel-to-toe drop that encourages a more natural running stride. I’m not a runner, but Kate is a real evangelist for these shoes, crediting them with resolving a years-long battle with plantar fasciitis. And our son Gus, who started running cross-country this year, says switching to Newtons cured his shin splints.

Something for Nothing: Luck in America by Jackson Lears. There’s a lot of talk these days about how gambling culture has gotten out of control in America, with online sports betting, prediction markets, and risky investing. This book, which came out in 2003, takes a look at how a culture of chance has existed in the United States for centuries, and how it’s always competed with a culture of control. Lears traces that back-and-forth from the colonial period on up. What we’re seeing today isn’t new; it’s just being amplified by apps that make it easier to do. The book does a good job of setting the backdrop and giving some cultural context to the current moment. If you haven’t yet, check out the essay that I wrote about the West’s culture of control and chance over at Dying Breed.

On our Dying Breed newsletter, we published 21 of My Favorite Rules of Thumb and Sunday Firesides: The Society of Things.

Quote of the Week

The well-meaning people who talk of education as if it were a substance distributable by coupon in large or small quantities never exhibit any understanding of the truth that you cannot teach anybody anything that he does not want to learn.

—George Sampson