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I am a sixty-two-year-old retired letter carrier in Vermont, and I am going to tell you about a coffee mug. My name is Edward. People have called me Ed since I was nine years old. I am sixty-two. I live with my wife in a small house outside Burlington, Vermont. I was a letter carrier for thirty-seven years. I walked a rural route in northern Vermont for thirty-one of those years, and a smaller in-town route for the last six. I retired at sixty after a hip surgery that healed cleanly. I am not on any prescription medications. My doctor — Dr. Foster, a careful woman I have been seeing for eleven years — tells me at every annual physical that my bloodwork is in the ranges she wants it in. I sleep seven hours a night. I walk my dog a mile and a quarter every morning. I eat the way a man my age should eat, which is to say less than I want to and more vegetables than I would choose. I am, on paper, a sixty-two-year-old man in fine shape. That is the part I want you to hold while you read this. I want to tell you, plainly, what I started to notice in the second winter after I retired. It was small. It would not have registered on any chart. I am not telling you a dramatic story. I am telling you what one careful man started to notice in his own kitchen on a cold morning when his wife was upstairs and the coffee was ready and he was the only one to notice it. It started with my coffee mug. I have a heavy stoneware mug that has been my morning mug for almost twenty-five years. I bought it at a craft fair when our daughter was eleven. It is the only mug I drink coffee out of in the morning. I had been wrapping both hands around it for almost a year before I realized I was doing it. I had not been doing that for the first twenty-three years I had the mug. I had been holding it with one hand, the way most people hold a coffee mug, and reading the paper with the other. Somewhere in there I had become a two-hand-around-the-mug man. I noticed one morning that I was doing it. I sat there at my own kitchen table and I asked myself, honestly, when I had started. I could not tell you. That was the first thing. The second thing was the driveway. I bring the mail in the afternoons, mostly out of habit. A man who carried mail for thirty-seven years does not let his own mail sit in a box at the end of his driveway for very long. Our driveway is about a hundred and forty yards. It is unpaved. It has a small hill in the middle of it. I had been doing that walk in three or four minutes for as long as I had owned the house, which is twenty-six years. Somewhere in the year before my second retirement winter, I had started to pause at the top of the hill. I would stand there for thirty seconds with my hands in my pockets. I would tell myself I was just looking at the trees. I had not stood at the top of the driveway and looked at the trees in twenty-five years. I had started to do it just about every afternoon. I started to notice that, too. The third thing was at the workbench. I have a small workbench in our garage. It is where I keep my hand tools, my coping saw, my small chisels, and the wood I am working on. I am not a carpenter. I do small things — picture frames, a small step stool for our granddaughter, a birdhouse for the kitchen window — that take an evening or two. I had been doing that work at the workbench in the garage on Saturday mornings for as long as we had lived in the house. In the winter, the garage is cold. I have a small electric heater I run when I am out there. Two winters ago, I started having trouble working the tools. My hands were cold in the garage even with the heater going. I started having to come back into the kitchen to warm them up every twenty minutes. I stopped going out there. The workbench sat empty for fourteen months. I told my wife it was that I had run out of small projects. I had not run out of small projects. I had a piece of pine in there I had wanted to make into a small box for almost a year. I had not gone out and made it. I sat with all of this for a winter. I went in for my annual physical in March. Dr. Foster did the bloodwork. I sat across from her at her desk a week later and we went over the results. Everything was in the ranges she wanted it in. Not borderline. Not perfect. In the ranges. She looked at me at the end. She said: anything we should be talking about, Ed? I told her about the coffee mug. I told her about the driveway. I told her about the workbench. I told her my hands felt different than they had at fifty-five, and that I was not asking for an answer, but I wanted her to have the picture. She listened. She wrote it down. She said: I do not see anything on your chart I would do anything about today. But I appreciate you telling me. That is your body and you know it better than I do. If something changes, or if you want to come back sooner, you call me. I told her thank you. I left. I drove home thinking about that conversation. What I drove home thinking was this. The chart was not wrong. I was not wrong either. There is a kind of slow shift that does not show up on the chart yet. A man in his early sixties can be in fine shape by every measure his doctor can take and still be noticing that his hands are different in his own kitchen. It is not a thing to panic about. It is not a thing to ignore. It is, I decided that afternoon, a thing to pay attention to. I started reading. I read for almost three weeks. I am, by temperament, a careful man. A man who walks rural mail routes for thirty-one years is, almost by definition, a careful man. I do not put anything into my body without understanding what I am putting in. I read about beetroot. I read about the deep crimson pigment in the root. It is called betalain. It is the color that stains your cutting board for three days. It is also, according to a long and patient body of research the cardiovascular community has been quietly building for decades, one of the more potent antioxidants in the food supply. I read about the long, slowly built relationship the structure-function research has had with this vegetable. In the context of supporting healthy circulation. Supporting cardiovascular wellness. Supporting the body's own cellular energy. In people whose numbers are already in the range their doctors want them in. None of what I read was a fireworks story. It was the opposite of one. It was a vegetable that has been quietly studied for a long time by careful people who were not making outlandish claims. The language being used in the careful, structure-function corner of the conversation was the language I had been waiting to find. Supports healthy circulation. Not improves circulation. Not fixes cold hands. Not treats anything. Just supports. In people whose numbers are already in the ranges their doctors want them in. That was the shape of the language I had been hoping to find. I came across a small company called Rosabella. I want to tell you what I liked about it, plainly. The first thing was the chemistry. The betalain pigment is heat-sensitive. If you process beetroot the standard way, with heat, you lose some of the compound to the heat. Rosabella cold-presses at low temperatures because they want as much of the compound as possible to make it from the field into the capsule. That is a slower way to make a supplement. It costs them more. They made the choice anyway. At sixty-two, after thirty-seven years of watching small businesses on my route open and close and the slow careful ones outlast the loud ones, I have come to pay close attention to the small decisions companies make when no one is watching. Those decisions tell you everything. The second thing I liked was the simplicity. Two capsules in the morning with a glass of water. That is the whole protocol. I am a sixty-two-year-old retired letter carrier. I am not interested in a protocol that requires its own shelf. Now I am going to tell you the most important part of this letter, the part I want every man my age who reads this to hear. Before I added anything to what I was taking, I called my pharmacist. His name is Stephen. He has been the pharmacist at the small independent pharmacy in our town for twelve years. I have been filling things there for about as long. I called him for a specific reason. I am on no prescription medications. I take a multivitamin and a vitamin D and that is the entirety of my pill organizer. I called Stephen anyway. I called because I am a careful man and because I wanted somebody who knew what was on my record to confirm that adding a beetroot capsule to a multivitamin was the right thing for a man my age to do. He pulled up my profile. He confirmed there were no concerns at the dosage on the label. He told me to take it in the morning with my coffee the way the bottle suggested. He told me to call him back if Dr. Foster ever started me on any prescription medication in the future, because the conversation would be different at that point. He told me, before he got off the phone, that he wished more of his patients made the call I had just made. I also called Dr. Foster's office that week. I left a message with her nurse, with the same information. She called me back the next day to tell me Dr. Foster had no concerns about my adding it at the dosage on the label. I want to say something now, plainly, to every reader of this letter. If you are on any prescription medication, especially anything cardiovascular, please make the call before you add anything new. I called Stephen. I called Dr. Foster's office. I would have made a third call if I had been on a prescription. So should you. The two minutes the call takes is the most important two minutes of your engagement with any supplement. I started on a Monday in April. I set the bottle on the counter next to the coffee maker. I took the two capsules with my first sip of coffee. The first two weeks I felt nothing in particular. I had read enough to know that bodies are different. Some men notice something within the first week or two. Some men take much longer. Some men don't notice much at all. I was prepared to land in any of those camps. I was prepared to be honest with myself about the result. What I noticed, I noticed slowly. The first thing I noticed, around week six, was the coffee mug. It was a Wednesday morning. I was at the kitchen table. The paper was open in front of me. I had my coffee in my right hand. My left hand was on the paper. I sat with that for a moment. I had not been a one-hand-on-the-mug man for almost a year. I had been quietly two-handing my coffee for that long. I had not, that morning, gone to put my second hand on the mug. I had been reading the front page for ten minutes with the paper in my left hand and the mug in my right. I did not say anything about it. I did not want to make a thing of it. I had read enough not to make a thing of one observation. I made a quiet note. I kept paying attention. The second thing I noticed, around week nine, was the driveway. It was a Sunday afternoon in early May. I went out to bring in the mail. I walked down the driveway with my hands at my sides. I went to the box, took the mail out, turned around, and walked back up. I came in the kitchen door. My wife was at the table. She asked me what I was smiling about. I had not realized I was smiling. I had not paused at the top of the hill. I had walked up the driveway at the speed I had walked up the driveway for twenty-five years. I had not done that in over a year. I told her about the coffee mug, too. She told me she had been waiting for me to notice the coffee mug. She had been watching me, the way wives watch. The third thing I noticed was the workbench. It was a Saturday morning in late May. It was cool outside but not cold. The garage door was closed. I had the small electric heater going. I had the piece of pine I had been wanting to make into a small box for our daughter sitting on the workbench. I worked on it for an hour and a half. Without gloves. My hands worked the coping saw and the chisels the way they had worked them for thirty years. When I came in for lunch, my wife looked at the sawdust on my sleeves and she did not say anything. She does not say anything about most things she notices. She just sees them. I went back out after lunch and I worked for another hour. I finished the box the following Saturday. It is on our daughter's dresser now. I want to be careful with what I am telling you. I am not telling you Rosabella did any of those things on its own. I had been walking more deliberately for several weeks before the driveway. I had started, on my own, the day I came home from Dr. Foster's office in March, to pay attention to my hands and to my breath and to the small things I had been letting go of. I had been doing the careful things I had been doing for forty years, just a little more carefully. Something had unlocked in me the afternoon I left Dr. Foster's office that had nothing to do with a capsule on a saucer. There were several things changing at once, the way there are when a careful man finally decides to start reading his own body again, after a year of pretending not to. All I am telling you is that I added one small thing to a long list of things I was newly doing. I kept everything else exactly the same. And a stretch of months followed that was qualitatively different from the year that had preceded it. That is the honest version. I would not give you a cleaner one. I went into Dr. Foster's office for a follow-up about six months after I started. She did not have to repeat the bloodwork. She looked at me. She asked me how I was. I told her about the coffee mug and the driveway and the workbench. I told her about the beetroot. I told her I had called Stephen before I started. She nodded. She said: that was the right way to go about it. The research on antioxidant support is good. Keep doing what you are doing and let's check in at your usual time. I drove home from her office that afternoon. I had been driving home from Dr. Foster's office for eleven years. This was the first time I had driven home thinking that my hands on the steering wheel felt the way they used to feel. I am telling you all of this because I think you might be where I was the morning I noticed the coffee mug. Sitting at your own kitchen table. In your own warm kitchen. In your own fine shape, on paper. Noticing that something quiet has shifted in the way you live in your own body. If you are a man in your sixties — or a woman reading this for a man you love, the way my wife would read it for me — who has been telling himself it is just the winter, or just the sixties, or just retirement, I want to say a few things plainly. I do not know you. I do not know your bloodwork or your medications or what your doctor has told you. Bodies are different. Some men notice something within the first week or two of adding something like this. Some men take much longer. Some men don't notice much at all. That is the honest version. Anyone offering you a cleaner one is selling you harder than I am. Here is how I think about Rosabella now, in the words I would actually use. It is something the body uses. The research community talks about it in the context of supporting healthy circulation, supporting cardiovascular wellness, and supporting the body's own cellular energy. In people whose numbers are already in the range their doctors want them in. It is not a fix for anything. It is not a substitute for a medication. It is not a treatment for cold hands. It is not a treatment for cold feet. It is not a treatment for poor circulation, or for any specific circulatory condition. It is one small thing you add to the long list of things you are already doing for yourself, alongside everything else. Please call your pharmacist or your doctor's office before you add it. If you are on any blood pressure medication, cholesterol medication, or anything cardiovascular at all, this is non-negotiable. I called Stephen. I called Dr. Foster's office. I would not have added anything to a prescription without those calls. Neither should you. The people who know your chart will tell you in two minutes whether the supplement is safe to add given what you are already taking. I am a sixty-two-year-old retired letter carrier in Vermont. I am not the person to ask. Your pharmacist or your doctor is. The company has a ninety-day satisfaction guarantee. If you are not satisfied — for any reason at all, including just changing your mind — they refund you. It is not tied to anything you have to prove. If you are not satisfied, you are not satisfied. That is the whole policy. The beets are grown on a small operation that harvests on its own schedule. There are stretches when they are in stock and stretches when they are not. I mention that not to push you — please do not let anybody push you into a health decision — but so that if you go to the site and they are out, you know why. That is all I have. Thank you for reading this far. I hope something here was useful to you. I hope, somewhere today, you are sitting at your own kitchen table with your hand on the paper and your other hand on a mug that does not require two hands. — Ed P.S. I want to come back to the cold-press for a second. The betalain pigment — the deep crimson, the part the research community keeps circling back to — is heat-sensitive. That is the chemistry of the molecule. Process beetroot the standard way, with heat, and you lose some of the compound to the heat. Rosabella chose the slow way. Cold-press. Low temperatures. More of the compound through to the capsule. It costs them money. It costs them time. They made the choice anyway. After thirty-seven years on a mail route watching small businesses come and go, I have come to believe that the small decisions companies make when no one is watching tell you everything. P.P.S. Two capsules. In the morning. With a glass of water. That is the entire protocol. No powder to mix. No afternoon dose to remember. No schedule taped to the inside of the cupboard. I keep the bottle on the counter next to the coffee maker. I take the capsules with my first sip. That has been the rhythm of my morning for almost a year. A simple morning. I have earned one. P.P.P.S. I am going to say it one more time, because I have to. Please. Call your pharmacist or your doctor's office before you add anything new to what you are already taking. Especially if you are on a blood pressure medication, a cholesterol medication, or anything cardiovascular. They have your whole picture in front of them. I have written you a letter. There is a difference, and the difference matters. The two minutes it takes to ask are the most important two minutes of your engagement with any supplement. P.P.P.P.S. The guarantee, again, in case you skimmed. Ninety days. Any reason at all. You do not have to prove a single thing — not to them, not about your numbers, not about how you feel. If you tried it and you are not satisfied, you are not satisfied. They send the money back. That is the whole policy. A small-company policy. The kind of thing companies used to do when companies still answered the phone. P.P.P.P.P.S. The morning I noticed the coffee mug was a Wednesday in May. A Wednesday like every other Wednesday. The paper. The coffee. The kitchen. A man in his sixties at his own kitchen table. Reading the front page. Holding the mug with one hand. If you are a man at your own kitchen table this morning, and you are reading this on your phone, and you are noticing that your other hand is on the mug because it has been for a while now, I want you to know you are not the only one. A man's hands change over time. Mine had. Yours might be. There are careful, quiet, structure-function things a man can add to his mornings, alongside everything else he is doing, that some men find help support what the body is already trying to do. Some men find they do. Some men don't. That is the honest version. I hope you sit with it for a few weeks. I hope you read carefully. I hope you call your pharmacist before you add anything. I hope, in a year from now, you are at your own kitchen table with one hand on the paper and one hand on the mug, and the mug is just a mug. I hope that for you. That is the whole reason I wrote this. — E. https://track.tryrosabella.com/cdc16426-3e48-40a7-9fad-21098084f6cf DISCLAIMER Individual experiences vary. These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.