Goji Fraud

I fucking hate "Dr" Gillian McKeith. Firstly because she is not a doctor in the sense of someone who is using that term to imply qualified medical or academic expertise from an accredited academic institution. I hate her even more for contributing to the culture of quackery and extortionate profiteering around the "superfoods" phenomenon. A trip to my local upmarket deli with requisite box shelves reaching up to the ceiling reveals that a piddlingly small packet of luxury muesli with added goji berries is yours for 11.99 sterling pounds.

And right next to that packet is McKeith's similarly costly range of goji berry products which feature "2000% more antioxidants than oranges; 500 times the amount of vitamin C by weight that oranges."

In her defence she does not at least make the utterly unsubstantiated claim that goji berries are used to fight cancer in China as even more unscrupulous pedlars in the US are still claiming.

Firstly, let's just get clear that this so-called "jewel of the Himalayas" (handy isn't it cos that makes it sound really expensive and rare) are actually more commonly known as wolfberries. And as for the anti-oxidant claim, Wikipedia's page on goji berries recognises without dispute that the central claim about wolfberries' supposed extraordinary anti-oxidant levels have yet to be recognised in any respectable peer reviewed academic journal.

The second claim, that these berries, have 500 times the amount of vitamin C by weight than oranges is similarly tenuous. If this were true, it is recognised "would make it one of the world's richest sources of vitamin C behind the Australian billygoat plum and the South American camu camu."

But in their dried format by which they are sold in the West, "the amount of vitamin C in dried berries is actually in a range of 29-148 mg per 100 grams of fruit, still a healthful serving amount similar to citrus fruits and raspberries." That's citrus fruits as in your pikey old common lemons, oranges and even if you're feeling a little exotic - limes.

There's something utterly depressing about the utter lack of scrutiny applied to individuals such as McKeith and the unsubstantiated claims featured on these packs. If you want to broadcast a TV advert, there is an organisation called the BACC which vets with a fine toothcomb every single product claim made in your advert, often requesting highly technical explanations behind those claims before you can go on air. That process doesn't seem to exist in the field of "alternative" healthfoods.

If anything, there's a well-established collusion between the likes of the Daily Mail and GMTV who churn out almost on a weekly basis another "the new superfood" feature for affluent and neurotic middle class folk to swallow whole before getting on the phone to their nearest bearded healthfood store owner to beg him to keep 3 jars aside for them.

There's a wonderful Japanese phrase from some new book I would plug if I could remember its name which collects interesting phrases from foreign languages with no English equivalent. The phrase is "muka muka" which means feeling so angry that you want to vomit. Well this goji berry scam is inducing some serious "muka muka" in me as I type and I'm off to go and drink some tap water.


goji
goji scam
Gillian McKeith