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Health

Well, Well, Well, Look Who’s Selling Gluten-Free Meal Kits

Tom Brady wants you to eat like Tom Brady, sort of.
tom brady
Boston Globe / Getty Images

Tom Brady won his fifth Super Bowl ring in February and now he's expanding his pseudoscientific health brand yet again. Brady—or specifically his business venture, TB12—is partnering with Boston-based vegan meal kit company Purple Carrot on "performance meals" that follow the principles of the quarterback's strict, bullshit-rich diet. The recipes are gluten-free, contain "limited" amounts of soy and refined sugar, and may or may not include nightshades—a class of vegetables that include tomatoes and peppers which Brady has rather arbitrarily declared evil (more on that in a minute).

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The TB12 kits cost $78 for six meals (two portions each of three recipes), which is $10 higher than a standard kit from Purple Carrot, and works out to $13 a plate. Purple Carrot CEO Andy Levitt told ESPN that about 75 percent of their customers are women and having a Brady kit might lead to more men signing up. In case guys aren't enticed by recipes like crispy turnip cakes, there are other perks: Purple Carrot is promising "exclusive access to special TB12 content, plus qualify[ing] for giveaways of premium merchandise, memorabilia, and more!"

I actually got a tip about this partnership on February 14 and found a live mock-up on the Purple Carrot site which showed photos of ingredients—including tomatoes and peppers. (I regretfully did not take screenshots, a directive that is now tattooed inside my eyelids for all future such incidents.) At the time, a spokesperson for Purple Carrot told me:

As part of our ongoing business development efforts, we regularly pursue partnerships with like-minded brands, celebrities, grocery retailers, and more. During that process, we often create mock-ups of potential websites, a range of imagery, etc., and it was a technical error on our part that any of these types of conceptual images were publicly accessible for a short period of time. We are unable to comment on any future partnerships at this point in time.

The meal plan appears to be neither organic nor non-GMO, which is probably fine for your health, but remarkably inconsistent with Brady's regimen. Though the TB12 page contains no photos of nightshades, so it looks like they got the messaging ironed out since then.

Or maybe not?

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PEPPERS. Photo: Courtesy of Purple Carrot

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