The louder a food screams ‘natural’ or ‘healthy’ at you, the further you should run. That is the somewhat counter-intuitive message of Michael Pollan’s essay, Unhappy Meals. Pollan tells us to avoid those food products that come bearing loud health claims.
They’re apt to be heavily processed, and the claims are often dubious at best....
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In this story, a supplement industry spokesperson resorts to Creationist ‘Science’ for their evidence to support the ‘crucial’ nature of supplement pills, shows how we should eat like Inuits, without the messy business of catching fish (or dying young), and has a pop at one of the UK’s most respected academics when he dares...
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It’s been a bad week for Gillian. The anti-quackery blogging brigade have been partaking in bouts of the great British pastime of uncontrolled Schadenfreude (why did we leave it to the Germans to coin that term?) after the Advertising Standards Authority stopped Gillian McKeith as advertising herself as ‘Dr Gillian’. The Guardian printed a...
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Regular listeners to BBC Radio 4’s Womans‘ Hour will have recently heard nutritionist Suzi Grant extolling the virtues of so-called superfoods. Quackery, I say.
But what on earth can be wrong with a superfood? Surely eating foods rich in nutrients has nothing to do with quackery, but is just common sense? I don’t think it...
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Happy new year to you all. I’ve been off for my Christmas break and I am now attending to my post bag and I thought I would share a few gems with the world.
First, I am always up for a challenge and so when writer Geoff Freed starts off his email “You pure miserable...
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Le Canard Noir has a hectic international life, flitting around the world in luxury, from hotel to beach, from fine restaurants to top spas. And all I have to do is occasionally blog from wherever I can get WiFi access. Such are the benefits of being a Big Pharma shill. (Keep the cheques coming...
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A regular comment to me is to ask “why have I got it in for Nutritionists?” Surely, these are dedicated health professionals who do wonders for peoples’ health by improving their diets and making sure people take the right supplements, if required. Well maybe. The problem is that so many nutritionists are not doing...
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![Dr Wendy Denning: Diat Doktor [sic]](http://www.quackometer.net/blog/uploaded_images/denning-765346.gif)
UPDATE 8th February 2007
Well, six months after first posting this entry, the complementary IT team at Dr Wendy’s support organisation have made a few spelling corrections. I thought this might happen soon, as this entry became the most widely read entry on the site. I guess it was being passed round a bit –...
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The news (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) has been full of reports about how our food in Britain is becoming less nutritious and that it is becoming increasingly difficult to obtain a full set of minerals and vitamins through the food we buy in supermarkets. I have been told by several people that this...
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