One Year of Tan Land
On the mission to create a tan and healthy world
Substack recently notified me that Tan Land is now a “bestseller”, and since I started it last February, I wanted to write something in recognition.
To that end, I’ve decided to revamp my “about” page to give you all a more crystallized vision of my mission here, where we’re headed, and what’s at stake.
The post below is a slightly more philosophical version of that page. Thank you to my new and old subscribers alike for your continued support on this journey, and I’m excited for what’s next in store.
What is Tan Land?
Health information for people who want to enjoy their lives.
If you’re reading this, you’ve probably been sick and tired of being sick and tired for a long time.
You probably realized not too long ago that the food you’ve been eating your whole life is terrible for you. That you’re surrounded by by toxic stimuli from air, water, and environmental pollution. And that your pale, sun-avoiding existence hasn’t been doing you any help.
You know that your ancestors were effortlessly healthy and vigorous. They didn’t need to study the latest diet trends to live with ease into their 90s, cancer free.
And you know that Europeans, who spend much of their time eating delicious food, drinking, and chainsmoking with their friends, still manage to live healthy and enjoyable lives into their 80s, without ever thinking about their diet or fitness regimen.
Most people are sick today, yet if you go back a few generations, the degenerative diseases and aesthetic abnormalities so common today — diabetes, cancer, obesity, acne— were completely absent.
A naive solution
If you’re anything like me, you probably tried to eat healthier, but all the “health food” is full of seed oils and processed junk that’s just marketed as healthy and tastes terrible.
Or you tried to adopt a more disciplined fitness regimen, but your lifestyle became so restrictive and miserable that being sick was almost as enjoyable.
And then there are your friends and family, who likely don’t understand. “I’d rather just enjoy my life then go crazy trying to be healthy,” you’ve probably heard.
And they have a point, because health is hard.
You can try to be healthy in this current world, but you’re fighting uphill.
Simply put, our society is not set up to make it easy to be healthy. And this has left you with a sad choice, which both Big Food and the alternative health industry are eager to promote:
Choose an enjoyable life, and you’ll be sick and overweight.
Choose health, and live a miserable life.
This was exactly how I thought for years. I chose the latter, because I hold the ideal of health so highly as to be worth it all costs.
But most people don’t think like that, and sadly, as long as they continue to live such lives, health will never be easy.
A true solution
Fortunately, a few years ago I stumbled upon the truth— you can be healthy while still enjoying your life.
Instead of cutting out all carbs, you can eat delicious traditional foods made from natural ingredients
Instead of cutting out all gluten, you can eat properly made organic sourdough bread.
Instead of poisoning your skin with toxic plastic clothing, you can wear beautiful traditionally made garments from natural materials.
Instead of rubbing carcinogenic sunscreen into your pores, you can tan under the glorious rays of the sun
In such a world, health becomes appealing. No longer the purview of hypochondriacs, orthorexics, and biology nerds, a vision of health that encourages beauty and life enjoyment appeals to everyone.
While most people still don’t understand this, in due time they will.
And when they do, health will become easy— for me, for you, for them, and for our kids.
How do we get there? Tan Land is a project dedicated to spreading this exact message.
For paid subscribers
Every week, Tan Land publishes engaging articles full of æsthetic imagery that teach you in simple terms how to optimize your health without sacrificing the things that matter.
A few examples of the things we discuss here:
Basically, it’s what the food, medical, and alternative health industries won’t teach you about health — from a food entrepreneur on a mission to make health easy and enjoyable.
As a paid subscriber, you can also comment on all posts, and participate in exclusive monthly Q&As which I’m just starting.
For free subscribers
There is also a free tier to Tan Land, where you can receive my essays on food anthropology, social commentaries, and general resources, e.g.
In addition, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, you receive free previews to many of my paid posts. These previews contain the core information from the post, but I will usually put the paywall before the most useful and actionable takeaways at the end.
I try to encourage paid subscriptions because without the paid tier on substack, I would be unable to justify the time I spend sharing my most valuable and helpful insights with you:
The “healthcare” industry charges thousands of dollars for misery-inducing chemical cocktails that don’t even work.
But for the price of a bottle of sunscreen a month, you get the opposite on Tan Land.
If my mission and the solution I’m proposing resonate with you at all, please consider becoming a paid subscriber because people need to know about this healthier, tanner way to live.
About Me
I am just a really tan man who is obsessed with making the world a healthier and more beautiful place.
An unhealthy childhood
As a kid, I suffered from innumerable chronic health issues. I accepted illness as an unchangeable part of my life.
But in college, I learned that fixing the food I ate allowed me to feel truly healthy for this first time in my life.
The knowledge that I could control my own health was empowering, and after years of studying modern and traditional diets, and countless hours of self-experimentation, I became convinced of two things:
It is possible for anyone to fix their health
If we want to address the problems that face our world for ourselves and for our kids, we need people to be healthy.
In 2021, 8 years after my initial realization, I decided to start sharing what I’d learned on social media and in this substack.
Knowledge is not enough
But I quickly realized that wasn’t enough. All the health knowledge in the world will do nothing if people don’t have access to the food they need to be healthy.
I am willing to drive to 5 grocery stores and 3 different farms every two weeks to fill my pantry because I know just how important it is.
But most people aren’t, and even if they were, they wouldn’t have the time.
Teaching people about the problem without providing a convenient solution simply doesn’t help.
And since the world keeps accelerating down a completely avoidable path of ugliness and bad health, and no one seems interested in doing anything about it, last year I decided to quit my job as a Big Tech software engineer and make it my mission to:
Help people learn how to be healthy
Make healthy food more easily available
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph in the world is that good men do nothing
Put another way, “The only thing necessary for sickness to triumph in the world is that healthy men do nothing”.
Yet all the people that could do something— many of them my former colleagues and classmates, with 135+ IQs and amazing career opportunities— would rather work for Mark Zuckerburg building tools to sell ads or consult for bio-tech firms making fake food.
If I wanted to have a healthy world for my kids to grow up in, I realized I would have to take matters into my own hands.
Current projects
To that end, I am currently building a free tool called Shire to make it easy to find real food from local farms.
And I started a company called Ancient Crunch to make your favorite snacks, just with real ingredients.
Of course, I also write Tan Land and promote this message on twitter and instagram (@reallytanman).
And lastly, I’m engaged and about to start a family, and will raise my kids according to everything I teach as an example to the world of the importance of health and good food in building strong, happy families.
Tan Land is the best place for you to learn how to do the same, and to support my work of creating a healthier society where everyone is tan, healthy, and happy.
Thank you for joining me so far, and I’m excited to keep building a healthy world together.
