Food Brands' Wellness Claim, An Eyewash!

For the longest time, I have failed to understand why does not any governing body question the health benefit claims of beauty products or food brands. Talking about fairness cream ads or hair strengthening shampoos will be like playing the broken record again, so keeping that aside, I am interested to talk about food brands.

Let us talk about cooking oil brands. They are playing with the health and well-being of the entire nation by making false claims of being “heart friendly”. Seriously, look at the audacity of the food brands to look straight into your eyes through your TV network and lie to you on your face.

No form of oil is good for the heart, period! Vegetable oil is toxic and responsible for most of the diseases we might be suffering from. Excessive consumption of oil through fried food causes damage to gall bladder, liver and heart. It upsets the digestive system causing acidity. Same is the reason why 90% of the people get acidity after eating deep fried snacks like samosas and pakodas.

When oil is heated to boiling temperature for frying food, it releases very highly toxic hydrocarbons. Reusing this oil for frying by heating it to boiling temperature, is extremely bad for the body.

Image Source

Food Brands and Missing Conscience

This isn’t one of those shady tele-shopping ads about a fat woman who lost weight by wearing magnetic earrings or drinking some stupid tea. This is a proper main stream ad from established corporations. What is wrong with the company, government, policies and everything else which is established to check on swindlers?

Oats is the healthy food choice, really?

Plain oats did not do well in the market due its bland taste. Food brands decided to turnaround the product by coming out with flavoured oats. Talk about Masala oats for example. Has anybody picked up the packets of these flavoured oats and read the ingredients’ list? You will be surprised to know that all flavoured oats are loaded with preservatives, artificial flavours and unnatural substances. However look at the marketing tagline around promotion of good health, fitness and well-being.

Image Source

Silver Lining

Patanjali the new food brand in line, has launched series of products and they are an instant hit. Keeping authenticity aside, the main reason for the success of these products is the trust people have on Baba Ramdev. The man, who is promoting health through Yoga, will not dupe people with bad products is what many must be believing.

Image Source

So, that gives rise to the question that do people already know somewhere deep inside that the products available in the market are not of good quality and have no health benefits whatsoever? If so then why are the consumers still using these products.

Is it because of the absence of alternatives? Can absence of alternatives, force one to buy something bad, despite knowing that food brands’ wellness claims are an eye wash? Can anyone afford to overlook/ignore the harmful effects of a product on one’s health just because they do repeat buying?

Small truths behind big lies unraveled

Some sporadic instances of busting the network of big food brands has not helped the nation in any way. Be it about Coca Cola & Pepsi’s high pesticide issue or Maggi Noodles’ high lead content. These controversies rise and die a natural death without having any profound effect on anyone’s life. The only thing which happens is, government officials become rich overnight.

I am waiting for the dawn of the day when someone will wake up and say, stop saying that these creams will make you look fairer or these shampoos & toothpastes will make your hair and teeth stronger. Masala oats are not at all healthy. No oil is heart friendly and none of them contain omega 3 fatty acids!

Image Source

“Ironic Smirk” due to the helplessness I feel on all such occasions!

“Shocking Revelation: When Iron and Calcium are combined together both of them lose their nutrition value to zero. So Cornflakes may have fortified iron shakti but when its consumed with milk, neither the iron nor the calcium is getting added to your body.”