I Prefer to Chew My Food

Today's blog is a bitter rant.  And it's directed at a particular weight loss shake, who shall remain nameless.  It's not their fault that so many people are drawn to their claims of rapid, long-lasting results.  It's ours for being so quick to believe them.  I loathe these products.  They foolishly spit on my profession as if our recommendations for moderation are unnecessary and unsubstantiated.  They make you believe that consuming real food is passe, and the new era of slim bodies start with a blender and a few carefully chosen chemicals.

Each shake provides 90 calories.  If you mix it with skim milk that brings you up to 170.  So lets pretend that you only drank two shakes per day and then had an average dinner of 600 calories.  That's not even 1000 calories for the day!!  There's no miracle potion in the shake mix, it's just simple math.  If you are consuming less than you are expending in energy, then you will lose weight.  Now I will say that if someone handed me a meal to eat for breakfast and lunch and then told me I was on my own for dinner, I imagine having the plan and those particular guidelines would help me to stick to it.  But where does personal responsibility enter the equation?  They aren't teaching you how to eat healthy.  They aren't even teaching you to eat!  They encourage liquid meals!!  Don't we have teeth for a reason?  Are you aware that part of how our brain senses satiety is by how much it smells and chews a food?  So with this in mind, is that shake appeasing the brain when you don't chew the shake nor does the coldness of the shake encourage a lot of aroma?  Not so much.  What about nutrients?  The shake is sweetened with sucralose (Splenda) and has a few select vitamins, minerals and antioxidants.  So if we drink the shake and it contains beta-carotene, then it's the same as eating a carrot (or other Vitamin A rich vegetable) right?  Well what about the other 500+ carotenoids that the carrot contains?  Aren't these important too?  Can't get that in the shake. 

Hmmmm, "great tasting variety for just $2 a meal".  Well I'm pretty sure that doesn't include all the items you might want to add to your shake.  If you plan on concocting one of the recipes, it's going to run you more than $2 and it's also going to raise that calorie level.  I do like how the youtube video for this product runs through a dozen or so different foods, claiming you would have to eat a 3-15 of each of these to get the same nutritional value of a shake.  Last time I checked a lot of foods have a large variety of important nutrients, not just one as this video would have you believe.  For example cheese is not just a good source of Zinc, but it also has calcium so why are they suggesting that you also need to eat frozen yogurt to cover the calcium?  They showed bran cereal and bread for different nutrients, then later indicate all the prunes you need for fiber - but show no indication that you got fiber from the cereal and the 15 slices of bread.  How are people supposed to learn to eat a healthy variety when they are purposefully misinforming consumers so they can sell their product?  It actually made me think of an old Saturday Night Live commercial from back in the Phil Hartman era, for "Colon Blow" and "Super Colon Blow" where they were showing the number of bowls of fiber cereal you would have to eat to get the fiber benefit of theirs.  If a product was truly impressive, then it wouldn't need to over-sell itself like this.

What are you going to do when you stop?  Are you going to drink these shakes indefinitely?  Now, yes, I have not signed up so I cannot see behind the curtain to see what fabulous exercise and diet tips they are providing.  I just cannot stand to see so many people getting caught up in this sort of multi-level-marketing product.  I mean honestly, if they really just wanted to help people with weight loss and healthy changes, they wouldn't be encouraging rapid weight loss like this with the added appeal that you can get your program for free if you sign up your friends.