Every article takes a claim you have already heard about food and follows the mechanism behind it — what actually happens in the body, what the research supports, and where the claim stops being true.
A fat burner bottle usually says something true: carnitine does indeed transport fatty acids into the mitochondria, and caffeine does indeed increase energy expenditure.
One person is promised a metabolism boost through spices and frequent small meals, another explains weight plateaus by claiming their metabolism is broken from dieting.
The feeling of heaviness, bloating, and being "clogged up" is familiar to almost everyone, and the word "toxins" explains it faster than any other.
Gluten has become the word people reach for to explain bloating, fatigue and stubborn weight, and also the word people say with a smirk.
Celery is the food people name when they want an example of negative calories: eat it and you end the day lower than you started, because digesting it supposedly costs more than it delivers.
Almost everyone has heard some version of the rule: meat on one plate, potatoes on another.
People talk about “an acidic body” as though it were a condition you can acquire from the wrong breakfast and correct with the right water.
Activated charcoal is cheap, sold without a prescription, and taken for almost anything: the morning after, a weekend cleanse, sometimes a course of capsules for weight loss.
Two equally confident claims circulate about collagen.
This article is for general information. It is not medical advice, a diagnosis, or a prescription for treatment or a diet, and it does not replace a consultation with your doctor. If you have a health condition, are pregnant, take medication, or follow a diet prescribed to you, decisions about food belong with your doctor.
Figures from regulations, guidelines and studies are given as they stood when this article was prepared and may since have changed; check them against the primary sources. This article is not advertising, an offer, or individual advice, and neither the author nor the site owner is responsible for decisions taken on the basis of it.