– or why do I find this Channel 4 program deceptive?
That’s it, I am angry now! I had enough of television and so called good entertaining. It’s not enough that nowadays you cannot watch anything without being reminded by the adverts that you are in DANGER, cancer is coming for you!!! (Program that brain, because if you have not bad enough effects in your life to develop it, we still have to make you ill somehow) Now they are actually asking this question: “Can the food we eat really prevent heart attacks, slow down the aging process and fight flab?” What the…?! Mate, is this a serious question? So many people turned around their lives and cured very serious illnesses and deficiencies by changing their diet, cut the crap and eating healthy. (Ella Woodard, Venus Williams, just to mention a couple …)
Why am I so outraged? I watched Channel 4’s Superfoods program last night… I was a bit nervous about it as soon as I heard they are going to talk about wheatgrass as I am very aware of the anti-campaign that goes against it just as against everything that is natural and not in the hands of the medicine lobby. (paranoid? I don’t think so!) But my friend said ‘Last time they showed a man who said he cured his cancer by eating broccoli soup every day…’ Hmmm, if they dare to show stories on TV nowadays like his, they might actually make a good program with some useful information about wheatgrass, which I am very fond of…so I switched on…I wish I hadn’t, I wouldn’t feel I am being labelled silly or even worse for supporting this juice.
I understand that scientific evidence is very hard to find (although there is some available online) and unfortunately nobody spends millions of pounds on this project to prove how it works….But it does on so many levels (proving this would cut way into the profit of the pharmaceutical industry and they will have non of it). And nobody tells me that one single person going around and spending a week in some spa hotel, drinking wheatgrass for a week only ( a very lime coloured one by the way, grown in trays) and getting her finger pricked only twice (!!) on a television show is scientific proof for anything either. But let’s suppose for a moment that she and her scientist source are right and the supposed theory they presented last night about how chlorophyll works is wrong (let’s not forget that scientists are arguing about theories on every level even if there is sufficient scientific data available). What about all the rest of the good effects, the bigger claims that they haven’t even mentioned? What about all those vitamins, minerals and enzymes that are present in this juice and if prepared sufficiently they will be still in the juice when consuming? Does that mean squat? If they really wanted to contribute to society instead of creating this nonsense, they could’ve spent that money to carry out some lab tests to see what is actually in it, to prove to all those with unhealthy diets and serious deficiencies, how to balance their diet with something, that helped so many people already and how it works. Failing to do so they even state that one shot of wheatgrass is not one of your ‘Five a day’ and also claim that neither wheatgrass nor other foods can oxygenate your blood! OK, I’m no scientist, but I know that the centre of my haemoglobin that moves oxygen in my blood is iron. So if I have a lack of iron in my body, the level of haemoglobin, therefore the level of oxygen is going to drop in my blood. This is called anaemia isn’t it? Now, how do we solve this deficiency? – with consuming iron… In serious cases they give you iron pills, but what if I eat a lot food that contains iron? Are they trying to convince me, that this will not going to be utilized? How are we taking it into our bodies than at the first place? It is surely not being produced by us. So no food can oxygenate your blood? Really?! Think twice!!
Right, what’s said cannot be changed, they carry on with kefir and how it affects your gut. Now, kefir is something that is widely spread and known in my homeland (Hungary) you can buy it in every food shop. It’s a basic food everybody knows. Of course it is to everybody’s taste whether or not they like it, but nobody would even think to deny that it has very good effect on your belly and the whole digestive system. So they introduced this lady last night in this show, who claims she could finally get rid of her pain and problems caused by her incurable Chronic Disease by using this product and now finally she can eat proper food without medication. Wow, I thought, at least they will be positive about this one. Than the presenter, Katie Quilton turns around and asks her, whether kefir helps with your gut health. The answer is that she cannot say as the European Union regulations are not allowing to do so…Yes, ladies and gentlemen, this is the world we live in. Someone, who believes she got cured by something other than medical treatment is not allowed to publicly state her opinion, as it is NOT ALLOWED BY AUTHORITIES. ‘But she has no scientific data’, they say! My grandma and the previous generations before her did also not have scientific data about a lot of things, such as which herbal tea to drink to sooth which problems, but it still worked for them and most people knew as they talked about it, they told each other. Anyways, back to the kefir; here she is, our hero presenter drinking the kefir for 3 weeks to prove a point. Eventually we find out, that although the artificial stomach in the lab lets 40% of the good bacteria found in kefir through to the bowels, there was no change in her body. Here is my question: if probiotics help to restore the health of your gut (again, information not approved by EU) and she is healthy than what change did she expect at the end of the trial?
I was getting really agitated at this point with this program and when they started talking about fish and Omega3, I was almost sure that its positive effects will be proven wrong by these people too. Luckily they didn’t dare to go this far, there’s been too much research conducted to date in this area and it’s been accepted as fact.
So well done Channel 4 for this rubbish, that makes people, who try to care for their bodies by eating healthy look stupid, people, who provide these products liars and all those, who are convinced that eating anything without selection is OK and food cannot help you to recover from illnesses to be convinced that they are right, ‘cos they said it on the telly anyway. The latter is the biggest group and the one I am most worried about. But whilst some are not even willing to start eating veg and stick to their crappy diets after being diagnosed with cancer as they are so misled, I am going to carry on reading ingredient labels notoriously and avoiding preservatives and sweeteners (especially aspartame YUK!), I am going to carry on eating my veg, no matter whether they are labelled as superfoods or not and I am going to carry on drinking my wheatgrass because I know it is good for me. Why? My dad had cancer – FACT! He had two sessions of unsuccessful radio therapies – FACT! He refused chemo and received no medical treatment after this. His tumour shrunk from 40mm to under 10mm within 8 months (not 1 week or 2 weeks!!) and completely disappeared not long after and the only thing he was taking as ‘medication’ was wheatgrass, so he believes that wheatgrass saved his life – FACT! Do I need scientific proof? NO. I can feel it on my own body, that I am stronger and more resistant to illnesses, if I stick to my wheatgrass (not from powder).
So how do Kate Quilton and her team dare to say so bluntly, that wheatgrass has no effect on your body without even looking into it properly and examining case studies and call this ‘The Truth’?! How does she dare to take away the hope from all those ill people who are failed by modern medicine and tell them to forget about believing in the power of nature and the so called superfoods? How do they dare to indicate that all those people, who say wheatgrass or any other food is very good for you, are not telling the truth? Does my dad lie, when he says his cancer was cured with the help of wheatgrass than?! Are all those people, who report back to him about their triumph against cancer or other problems and thanking him for wheatgrass lie as well? Or we are all just simply loosers and it’s all just placebo?
Let’s face it, this TV program is more poorly backed up with data than all the health claims you can find on the internet, as at least most of those are based on real people’s experience and how it affected their bodies and their lives for the better…