Category: Health Foods

Ultra-Processed Foods

There is a growing body of information showing that foods that are heavily processed are probably bad for our health in a variety of ways.

The term ‘ultra-processed’ is used to describe foods where industrial scale processing has affected the nature of the product in a detrimental way.

Typically, ultra-processed foods contain ingredients you wouldn’t find in a home kitchen and have been processed in ways not usually possible at home.

Emails are appearing that may be from well meaning people but contain simple mistakes e.g.

“Ultra-processed such as snack cakes, fast food, frozen meals, canned foods and chips”  Not true.

Many snack cakes are ultra-processed, so is a lot of fast food and frozen meals but by no means all of it.

However, chips from a fast food fish and chip shop are simply cut potato fried in oil – probably unhealthy for other reasons but not ultra-processed. Even oven chips are simply cut potato par boiled and coated with a little flour and spice – again, these are not ultra processed.

Canned vegetables are generally regarded as minimally processed but its worth reading the label to see if anything unexpected has been added in the canning process.

Eat healthily but check on whether items are actually ultra processed and don’t accept lists that are too general and contain entries such as “all canned foods”.

If you have any experiences with these scams do let me know, by email.

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Stupidest Spam of the Week Japanese Carbs

The email is from “Shrink Your Belly” and is titled “Shrink old fat with new Japanese carb trick tonight”.

So, it’s yet another magic remedy that lets you lose any amount of weight with no effort.

It’s a shame these are always cons.

This one claims that you simply carry out a simple 30 second trick before dinner each evening and the wight will magically disappear.

Meanwhile you can eat anything you want and don’t need to do any exercise.

As an added benefit – this trick will supposedly relieve any feeling of stress.

Lots of these scam offerings supposedly reduce your belly fat overnight – where does it go?

Perhaps it’s not pleasant to imagine the answer to that.

It’s all fake of course anyway.

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The American Natural Superfood Scam

There are hundreds if not thousands of health drinks on the market., containing every plant and fruit you’ve ever heard of and a lot of strange sounding stuff, promised to be a miracle health supplement.

One such drink making a lot of fuss recently is called American Natural Superfood.

This includes Pea protein, Spirulina, Chlorella, Barley, Wheat Grass, Probiotics, CoQ10, Organic Vegetables, Organic Fruits, Cinnamon, Turmeric, Acerola Cherry, Flax Seeds, Chia Seeds, Cocoa Powder, Kelp, Milk Thistle, Dandelion Root, Digest Enzymes, Ginseng, Ginger, and Aloe Vera.

At least that what the label says and it’s about $60 per kilogram so it’s not cheap stuff.

The latest scam messages say

“YOUR ORDER WILL BE CANCELLED”

This is the typical fake shock headline which then leads into an explanation of the opposite.

It goes on

Attention

We have reserved one free sample of American Natural Superfood for everyone on our list

The problem is that people are ordering 3,4 or even 10 samples for friends and family.

So, we’re running out of samples quickly

Please go here before it’s too late and claim your free 3-day sample

If you don’t I’ll cancel your order and give it to someone else.

Some of the emails are just dumb Marketing and do have free samples (you pay enough for postage of course to cover the cost of the sample) but most are just phishing exercises.

I have no idea whether the product works or not, but if you are interested in a free sample then find the correct website – don’t click on a link in an email.

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Flu Epidemic Scam

Scammers love people to have health problems they can jump on and scare people into paying for poor or non existent magic remedies to wipe out that problem.

This common one uses Flu to scare people – particularly parents, with lines such as “It’s sad that many little ones have died this year …” and “Emergency rooms are packed and often with children suffering”.

The remedy proposed isn’t some unheard of substance from the Himalayas or Atlantis but just curcumin which is a component of the spice turmeric.

Curcumin is well known to be anti-inflammatory and an antioxidant and is available in tablet form.

Eating the spice in food does have an effect but you do need to eat an awful lot to get the same effect as from quality supplements.

This scammer also claims that curcumin keeps your immune system strong and hence you wont catch flu.

There is no evidence for this claim so you shouldn’t believe it.

The purpose of the email is not to make you believe in any supplements but to get you to hand over your personal details supposedly in return for a free bottle of curcumin tablets.

There are no free bottles – just go into your nearest pharmacy or supermarket if you buy to buy some – never ever believe emails offering such things.

Like as not they have no product and if they did, I certainly wouldn’t risk taking unknown tablets.

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Stupidest Scam of the Week Coconut Oil

Coconut oil is a very trendy super food currently with celebrities vying to make the best pitch on how wonderful it is.

There is some limited evidence that coconut oil is beneficial in modest amounts as compared to other oils, but there is no evidence for most of the claims of the coconut oil fans and no evidence that it is a super food  of any kind.

This scammer obviously doesn’t need scientific evidence – she wants to convince us that coconut oil fights cancer, stops ageing, accelerate fat loss and reverses Alzheimer’s

That’s quite a list but the scammer wants to make sure to attract as many people as possible – and probably only stupid people as that list of claims is just ridiculous.

She ends with an exhortation “9 reasons why you should eat as much coconut oil as you can”.

It is fattening stuff so the only result of that would be obesity.

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