Everyone wants to eat high quality food that is good for health, and many businesses take advantage of this mentality to provide a variety of “health food” as we would like to earn a lot of money.
A round of fabulous introduction, a round of jargon bombardment, plus a round of “expert research” and “experience of the people to say”, consumers are usually confused to pay for the waist.
However, when we calm down and examine those “seemingly reasonable” introductions with scientific eyes, we find that most of them are just foolishness – or, just the right nonsense.
When I see a lot of micro-business advertising posts forwarded in my circle of friends, I silently feel anxious for your wallets – “Foolish, you continue to foolish”.
Rich in essential substances
There are many substances needed to keep the human body functioning properly, but “essential” and “need to supplement” are two different things.
Some substances must be produced by the body itself in order to be useful, and it is useless to eat them, such as collagen and various enzymes (i.e. “enzymes”).
Some substances, such as fat, carbohydrates, phosphorus, chlorine, sodium, etc., are not deficient if you eat and drink normally.
Using the number of “essential substances” in a food to show how “healthy” it is is a complete shift in concept.
Contains XX nutrients
”How many nutrients are in a food” is a worthless indicator, because any food can contain many nutrients.
The human body needs a variety of nutrients from food, and each nutrient has its own appropriate requirement. For healthy people, a balanced diet is basically enough to ensure that the body needs a variety of nutrients.
By quality food, we mean that it efficiently provides a certain number of nutrients that the body needs in large amounts or is prone to deficiencies (such as protein, crude fiber, vitamins, etc.), while the incidental nutrients that require restricted intake are relatively few (such as fat and sugar).
Putting aside the above, simply saying “contains XX vitamins, XX minerals and other nutrients that the body needs” is just a correct nonsense.
A piece of pork, a glass of juice, or even a handful of weeds can also be recommended to you with the same dignity: I also contain a variety of nutrients.
XX ingredients are XX times higher than others
Typical examples are “rose salt contains dozens of times more iron than ordinary salt” and “spirulina contains more than 20 times more protein than milk”. The truth is –
ordinary salt contains almost no iron, and rose salt naturally contains many times more with just a little iron.
Milk alone is more than eighty percent water, take dehydrated spirulina and milk than, a handful of spirulina protein is quite a lot, but can you eat that much in one meal?
Also, any propaganda that says “much better” without considering “how much to eat” is “hooliganism”.
For example, the iron content of “rose salt” is high, but we can only eat a few grams of salt a day, so if we eat salt to replenish our iron, we probably have to salty ourselves to death.
Although the protein content in spirulina is high, spirulina is priced by the gram. Let’s do the math. How much do you have to eat and how much do you have to spend to get your daily protein requirement? In contrast, there is not much financial pressure to drink a few hundred grams of milk a day. So milk is a quality source of protein while spirulina is not.
When we talk about the nutrients in food, we must take into account the normal serving size and the proportion of the amount contained to the daily requirement, otherwise there is no real meaning in saying what it costs.
XX University study found
Not to mention whether these universities have actually published scientific papers on these contents, or whether these research results have been misinterpreted.
Even if it is true, the health effects of any kind of food or food ingredients have to go through years of research from various angles and institutions before a consensus can be reached.
”The research findings of “XX University” are often preliminary studies in specific conditions and systems, which have scientific value, but are usually not sufficient to draw general conclusions that can be generalized for the direct benefit of the public.
In other words, people who believe in the research published by one university and ignore the fact that they need a long time to conduct a lot of follow-up proof will fall into the trap of money-minded businessmen. You may be misled into believing exaggerated research results and end up buying products that don’t really work.
Mixing of true and false health concepts
Acid-alkaline body, antioxidant and free radical scavenging, cancer prevention and anti-cancer …… Whenever you encounter “health products” that strongly advocate these concepts, you need to pay extra attention to them.
1. Acid-alkaline body is a pseudo-scientific concept.
It is true that food can be classified as “acidic” or “alkaline” according to the acidity or alkalinity of metabolites. However, this distinction is meaningless. Whether it is “acidic food” or “alkaline food”, it will not affect the acidity or alkalinity of the blood within the normal diet.
2. The relationship between oxidative stress and aging is not well studied.
On the basis of such research, it is too hasty to say that “our products are antioxidant, beauty, skin care and anti-aging”. For example, the black goji berry, which has triggered a big fight for a while, has been proven to be not so magical. 3.
3. there is no real “anti-cancer food”.
Usually, it does not mean that eating anti-cancer food can avoid cancer, let alone eating it can cure cancer. It means: the risk of certain cancers will be lower when consumed in sufficient amount over a long period of time.
In fact, there is no other overwhelming evidence to support those ‘anti-cancer foods’ as they are currently called. The results from laboratory or animal experiments may not be reflected in humans. Rigorous scientific institutions do not recommend a specific “anti-cancer food”, but use those so-called “anti-cancer foods” as part of a comprehensive recipe.
As mentioned above, it is another common tactic of businessmen to first confuse consumers with technical terms, and then distort some scientific concepts to fool them.
Conclusion
It seems that the masses are always in the middle of the “bright eyes” and the “unknown truth”. I hope this article can help you to sharpen your eyes.
There are many other “health food” scams on the market. For consumers who do not have the ability to judge professionally, my advice is: when you see a product that is “so amazing that you can’t help but be impressed”, first calm down, and then see if there is an authority or an independent scientific introduction – if not, cover your wallet tightly.
Many friends reflect that today’s mixed health food advertisements make it difficult to distinguish the real from the fake. I am afraid that I will be fooled, and I am also afraid that my friends and parents will be cheated.