Where can I get certified hoodia?

tara747

I have seen it for £25 (2 boxes of 90 capsules) but it must be available cheaper somewhere else.. I am talking about the genuine CITES certified stuff. Would really love to buy some but am too MSE to just buy the first one I see!

Also want to buy aloeride capsules, cheapest I have seen is £16 for 3 boxes. If anyone can best this or knows of a site where I could get cashback for buying it, pleae let me know.

Thanks!

Mrembo

Hoodia is expensive.I bought them from here http://www.hollandandbarrett.com/pages/product_detail.asp?pid=813 but they didn't work for me.
It can be quite difficult to tell whether the tablets are genuine CITES certified stuff.

tara747

Thanks Mrembo. The only one I have seen which seems to be genuine is purehoodia.co.uk. They were recommended by an independent site called kentgarden (I think). I have just received a 5-day free trial pack from them, which I shall start tomorrow (work days are the worst for me for snacking, strangely I don't eat or snack as much at weekends). The 2 for £25 stuff was on eBay and has all the claims so it could be genuine too.

H&B say that theirs is genuine too (with the P57 molecule - apparently most hoodia on sale is missing this crucial ingredient, argh) but who knows...

Sorry to hear it didn't work for you! That is disappointing. Does anyone else have any experience of taking hoodia successfully or not?

Ted_Hutchinson

Consumerlabs, the independent vitamin testing organisation in the USA are very dubious not only about the benefits of hoodia as a weight loss agent but also about the quality of products being sold.

It makes the point there is more hoodia being sold today than could possibly be made from all the Hoodia gordonii plants in existence.

Unfortunately as there is no scientific standard for assessing the quality of hoodia as an ingredient, they are themselves unable to check on what is being sold. They will do so as soon as a test is available.

You may be interested to know that Unilever (Slim-Fast) bought the rights to a hoodia derived product to add to their products, did some research, then dropped the plans with the comment unsuitable for further development.

There is a better way of losing weight that also reduce your risk of many cancers and chronic conditions such as Alzheimer's and Diabetes.

tara747

Thanks Ted. Yes, I did think myself that all the hoodia products couldn't possibly contain real hoodia, since it is so scarce and hard to produce for consumption! But surely some of it must be real.

But then there is the question of whether or not it even works. I have done some research on this and opinion is certainly split. I will check out your link. Thanks again.

tara747

Ted - just checked out that link and it seems like just another high protein diet.

I read Allen Carr's Easyweigh to Lose Weight recently and his principles are pretty much the opposite - minimise meat and dairy, and eat lots of fruit, veg, pulses, grains, nuts etc. I must say that my common sense and food preferences lead me more in that direction than the high-protein-low-carb. I've seen it work for other people, but I would not try it myself. Too dangerous for the liver and kidneys, and too much meat (I don't eat a lot of meat).

As ever, each to their own opinion.

Ted_Hutchinson

tara747 wrote: »

I've seen it work for other people, but I would not try it myself. Too dangerous for the liver and kidneys, and too much meat (I don't eat a lot of meat).

You can still run a low carbohydrate diet as a vegetarian.

However Dr Davis of the Heartscanblog, a vegetarian by inclination and taste preferences has reluctantly been persuaded by the science to change his stance on the need for meat.

It is science and not opinions that I take account of. When one considers that the human race lived without farmed grains or pulses for hundreds of thousands of years before farming started and before the means to prepare and cook these foods foods were developed it is simply ludicrous for anyone to suggest that eating only those foods our bodies evolved to function best on could possibly be harmful to liver or kidneys.

What is killing people now in huge numbers is an excess of those carbohydrates that in paleo times would only have been available seasonally and in a much less refined and more natural state. This Berkeley lecture by Taubes explains the science behind fat accumulation and it was almost a year ago I first listened to it, decided I should find out if it was true and adopted the diet in the link I provided. I lost 2.25lbs each week for 20 weeks when I achieved my target, I dropped a little more over the next few months and haven't regained, except temporarily after too much wine/whisky but I find it very easy to stick to mainly because it's the fast burning carbohydrates that cause the hunger cycle. When you are relying more on fat for fuel this is slower burning and so your body doesn't suffer the highs and lows cause by carbohydrates.

It is because this is the natural food for the brain that similar diets are best for brain damaged children, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's patients, as cancer cells feed on glucose low carbohydrate diets are proposed for those at higher risk of breast, colon cancers among others.

You are welcome to your opinion but I'll stick firmly to the latest science together with a little common sense.

tara747

I totally agree that refined carbohydrates are junk. High protein diets do seem to work but for me it is very difficult to eat a lot of meat. As for the evolutionary argument, I would be interested to compare life expectancy now with that of prehistoric man! There is also the question of safety etc with meat and dairy.

All in all, I think that we have the best variety and quality of food available to us right now compared to any other time in history - it's just that there's a lot of refined, fatty junk available as well, and unfortunately people who choose to eat these will become ill.

I will have a look at all your links.

Ted_Hutchinson

tara747 wrote: »

I would be interested to compare life expectancy now with that of prehistoric man!

I am not expecting you to go hunting your meat. I'm sure if you or I had to track down and kill our meals before we ate them then we may also have a shortened life expectancy.

There is also the question of safety etc with meat and dairy.

If your food doesn't go off it isn't live or natural. Look at the sell by dates on some so called supermarket foods and ask your self how can it possibly last that long? Why doesn't it deteriorate?
Simply because no bugs will attact it.
That shows it isn't real food.

The problem with food safety isn't with the food. It's with our immune function. From the moment food enters our body's to the point of exit there are sites throughout the digestive system where D3 should be stored.

Our circulating 25(OH)D is monitoring the situation and is ready to turn the stored D3 into the active 1.25 that acts as an anti inflammatory and upregulates antibiotic antimicrobial peptides.

So we have a body that is designed to fight inflammation and infection but that depends on us living naked and storing vitamin D3. The body only stores D3 when circulating 25(OH)D is above 100nmol/l and to be honest the stores only reach effective amounts when 25(OH)D is above 125. In order for the hormone to function as it evolved it needs an equal amount of stored d3 as circulating. Just as your computer will crash when the amount of work it's doing overwhelms the RAM so your immune function will crash if your 25(OH)D system doesn't have the required amount of substrate D3 to supply its needs.
At this time of year most people have 25(0H)D levels around 35nmol/l so only those people taking 5000iu/daily D3 really have the resistance to infection evolution determined necessary.

It isn't so much there are potential hazards in meat and dairy, it's that to someone with no effective defense system everything makes them vulnerable.

tara747

Er, right.