From the secret to eternal life to a magical cure all for any disease you can name, chances are there’s a health food fad that’s got your back.
But don’t believe the hype, most of it is nothing more then circumstantial heresay backed up with a desire to make money at the cost of the poor, gullible public, reports Cracked.
And here’s some of the worst offenders…
Peruvian Frog Juice Smoothies.
WikipediaAside from being incredibly violent in smoothy terms – the frog is bludgeoned to death in front of the customer, then skinned and dropped into a blender – research shows it has no health benefits.
Sellers claim their gag-inducing concoction helps with anaemia, bronchitis and low sex drive, yet there is no evidence whatsoever to back up their claims.
According to Tomy Villanueva, dean of the Medical College Of Lima:
The frog juice has not met the standards of the FDA to be mentioned as medicine.
Oh if you still weren’t convinced – they’re an endangered species.
Butter Coffee.
You’d think this one was pretty self-evident, but no – unbelievably the greasy pick-me-up has actually been touted as a health product.
According to Cracked, Bulletproof Coffee was introduced by ‘biohacker’ (?) and entrepreneur Dave Asprey. He claims it reduces weight, suppresses appetite, helps you think more clearly and uses beans that go through a process to remove their mycotoxins – a hazardous mould that grows on coffee beans.
But Dave is just plain wrong. Carbohydrates help your brain function – and there’s none of those in butter coffee.
And as for the ominous sounding mycotoxins – pretty much every coffee roaster uses wet-processing to remove almost all of them. The process is heavily regulated and a study found you could drink 200 cups of coffee a day and there wouldn’t be any mycotoxin-related side effects.
On the other hand, the caffeine would literally kill you three times over.
Bone Broth
https://www.instagram.com/p/BJb9YSxhftB/?taken-by=boneandbroth&hl=en
New York cafe Brodo is selling broth at $4.50 a cup highlighting its health benefits – which is actually genius since it’s comically easy and cheap to make yourself.
You can see why this one could be considered as a health food – people have been eating chicken soup to feel better for centuries.
The broth does contain collagen and gelatine – both of which have health benefits as they’re conversion into amino acids is great for recharging your body after a workout.
However, many of the vitamins and minerals found in broth weaken when you heat it – so unless you’re a fan of cold, congealed bone-marrow juice, it’s probably best used for making stuff taste better.
Asparagus Water.
Spotted in a California Whole Foods store and priced at an eye-watering $6 a pop, it wasn’t long before the Internet went nuts over ‘Asparagus Watergate’.
After a while, Whole Foods responded saying the item had only ever made it into that one single store and had been removed.
A spokesperson said:
It was meant to be water with the essence of vegetables and/or mushrooms to be used as broth. It was made incorrectly and has since been removed.
Which roughly translates as:
It was meant to be some asparagus shoved in bottle of water to be used by gullible idiots inexplicably willing to part with their cash.
Unfortunately we were immediately called out on it and were forced to abandon ship in the face of a PR clusterfuck.
Activated Charcoal Juice.
If ingesting something that has spent millions of years buried in a swamp is your idea of fun then this is probably the one for you.
It has been claimed that drinks containing charcoal juice can do anything from curing your hangover to brightening your skin.
And although charcoal does have some genuine cleansing properties, there is little to no evidence to suggest that consuming it does anything more than turn your shit black.
WikipediaIt can be used to absorb potentially dangerous toxins from your stomach, but in the process will also suck up useful nutrients as well, so not awful or great, just sort of, blah.
When asked about the ‘dubious’ health benefits of charcoal juice, manufacturer Juice Generation said:
If you have questions that skew in that direction, please consult medical professionals.
Which is probably something they should’ve done before pedalling their product’s wondrous life-enriching qualities?
