A friend contacted me the other day, “Assume you’ve heard about Brady’s $200 cookbook?”
My response surprised him… and it will probably surprise you.
“I’m seriously considering buying it.”
You might have missed the news, but Tom Brady has put a $200 TB12 Nutrition Manual up for sale.
You call it a cookbook, I call it a nutrition manual. It seems to be a little of both, containing both nutrition philosophies and recipes.
In any case, the $200 price tag made headlines. Although honestly, that seems like a bargain compared to Brady’s wife’s $700 coffee table book (even if the money for that went to charity).
So why is someone worth hundreds of millions of dollars selling a $200 book? Well, like everything Tom Brady does, it is the best.
“The manual is printed and hand assembled in the United States, and is printed on thick 100 pound text paper. The covers are made from natural wood with a laser-etched TB12 logo and title.”
and
“The TB12 Nutrition Manual is designed to be modified and expanded over time using its unique screw post binding: as we periodically update this manual with new or modified recipes, we will send additional pages to all purchasers of the manual.”
That sounds like the highest quality physical book I’ve heard of. I’ve also never heard of a lifetime of updated material and it nicely fits into the manual. That contrasts nicely with my siblings having bought Aerosmith’s original album (not updated) about multiple times as it went from vinyl, to 8-track, to cassette, to CD. It’s apples and oranges, but a refreshing change. (It would be more impressive if they promised at least ten new pages a year for the first 3 years or something.)
Aside from all that the big draw here is Tom Brady’s nutrition habits. I can imagine someone reading this in Arizona saying, “Why do you care about the nutrition habits of a football player? Shouldn’t you, ummm, look into a book from say, a nutritionist?”
That logic isn’t wrong.
I’m the first person to admit that we shouldn’t look towards athletes to be role models. It didn’t take me 35 years of being a sports fan to learn that athletes are people too. As a Patriots fan, I have lived through some ugliness. Before Tom Brady won a Super Bowl or was even particularly good (we are talking the first few games), I noticed something interesting in his interviews… He never said the wrong thing.
When he got railroaded by the NFL and the courts for something that science proves never happened, no one would blame him if he got upset. Instead, he pointed out that he turned to one of this favorite books, The Four Agreements, a book that I had never of. I learned a whole new philosophy and it suddenly became clear how and why Brady could keep his calm.
So while all athletes shouldn’t be role models, I think it’s clear that some can be.
Tom Brady’s nutrition is interesting to me on many levels. For one, Brady’s getting better as he gets older. We all know that Father Time is undefeated, but I’ve seen few people in sports give him a harder time.
His views are also uniquely extreme… and in some cases boarder on what I’d call quackery. In fact, I’ve debunked some “acid-alkaline principle” on this very website. On other hand, I have to applaud him when he says that Coca-cola is poison and that Frosted Flakes isn’t food.
This is interesting stuff to me. I’m not sure if it’s $200 worth of interesting, but interesting nonetheless.
I’m going to wrap this up with two other quick thoughts that are rolling through my head:
1) I don’t often “treat” myself to anything that costs very much. Typically, I just don’t see the value in the high-end “stuff” much of the time.
2) Brady has supplied me with hundreds and hundreds of hours of entertainment of the years for free (to paraphrase Bart Simpson). In fact, Tom Brady often takes bargain contracts that allow the team to be more competitive. He certainly doesn’t the need the money, but I don’t mind giving a little back as absurd as it sounds.
Hey LM,
I had never heard of this cookbook until you brought it up on your blog. It would seem that it has already been sold out for a few days, so good luck getting a copy. There was some circulation that there will be another printing in June, but I don’t know if that has actually been verified.
This cookbook idea seems bizarre, but interesting none the less. I wouldn’t buy it for the sole purpose of trying to become healthier, but I would buy it to get a different understanding of the football player. It also seems that this could become an investment opportunity if they continue to have a limited print run, and you can get it signed. In 30 years when people reminisce about Brady and his achievements this odd product may sky rocket in price…and the Pawn Stars will buy just about anything!
The cook book sold out!
I think it’s important to realize that any 1 person isn’t a role model in every area of life. While Tom Brady might be great in some areas, his first child behavior wasn’t role-model quality (whatever the facts are). Or realizing that even role models aren’t perfect so we shouldn’t worship any human
I should have mentioned that it sold out. That’s why I was actually writing the story with the title. I wonder if the run of books was purposely very few to create a scarcity effect. There’s an indication that there might be another printing in early June.
Another thought that I had after publishing is that it should have sold for 199. Brady’s 199 shirts sold out quickly too
I’m not sure what the first child behavior you are referring to is, but his private emails reveal what experts say are the “perfect model” when it comes to parenting.
I agree on not worshiping any human, but there’s nothing with having people you look up to as inspiration. However, more importantly for this discussion, we might consider whether Tom Brady is actually human ;-).