This Bonkers Food Diary From the Star of “High Maintenance” Is Peak Wellness—and I Love It
If you don't already know about High Maintenance, then you should probably avoid me at parties. Because I might just evangelize it to you at a level that'll make you subtly start backing away from me. (Yeah, I get social cues. But I can't stop.)
So I admit it: I love High Maintenance. I also love food diaries, where people disclose all the places they eat and what they order—or even better, what they cook. (Funny how food diarists have so much time to go to farmers' markets!) The better their lives are, the more hurts-so-good envy I feel. It's basically schadenfreude in reverse.
And now, be still my heart: these two things that I love have combined into what has to be the most wellness-y (and Brooklyn-y) Grub Street Diet of all time, from High Maintenance star and co-creator Ben Sinclair. Let's investigate.
Is there a moringa shout-out?
As in, the super-nutritious green that Well+Good ID'ed as a trend back in 2018? You know it.
"An African man told me about moringa a few years ago while I was filming man-on-the-street segments for the Tribeca Film Fest," Sinclair writes. "He made me guess his age (60s, but looked younger). He told me he had three wives and that he had sex with them 'back-to-back-to-back.' And here I am now, drinking moringa from a Bluetooth-connected heated mug."
I'm not sure whether he's satirizing a guy who thinks this much about tea—or living it. The beauty of Sinclair is, I don't care. Both are somehow acceptable, even endearing, in his writerly hands.
Wait, what about oat milk?
Why yes, he does mention the current Well+Good obsession. Oat milk lattes, to be specific. Lots of them.
And bonus: There's a healthy fat-and-protein cocktail in the mix, too: "Vital Proteins, matcha collagen powder, and Bulletproof MCT oil mixed into almond milk." You guys, matcha collagen powder. Is he for real? Either he's brilliantly satirizing the very specific predilections of the wellness-savvy set. Or, honestly, he's just someone I'd love to spend a day eating and drinking with.
Does he do that thing where celebs mention things to try to get free stuff?
Anyone who's read a food diary, or watched a late-night talk show, or tuned in to Kelly Ripa in the mornings knows that famous people love swag. They're always mentioning products, saying, "Oh, maybe they'll send me some, haha!" As if they're the first rich people to discover they love freebies. Sinclair does a spot-on satire (or dives into the deep end of this vice—again, hard to tell) with his obsession with Ultimate Elixir by Live Ultimate (which retails for $68 for a month's supply, fyi): "I’m not a supplements guy—I’m just trying to get the guy who makes Ultimate Elixir to send me more for free," he says, before deploying the #NeverMissADay hashtag throughout his diary to hammer it home.
Is he concerned, generally, about his pH levels?
God yes. And he gifts us with the obscure word "acidulating," which is a nice touch: "I started wondering if all this coffee was acidulating my alkalinity." Then, three days later: "Missed another day of alkalization. Wondered: Am I going to die?" It all comes back to that, doesn't it? As my dad once told me when I was talking to him about processed food and high-fructose corn syrup (yeah, I'm fun): "You know you're going to die anyway, right?" Thanks, Dad.
Later, Sinclair puts it more bluntly. "Can you tell I’m thinking about my mortality?" he says at one point. Sigh. Yep. Never change, Ben. And hey, just a thought: We can probably score you a jar of Ultimate Elixir if you buy the next round of oat milk lattes. #NeverMissADay.
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