The Seven Deadly Spins: Part II

The second deadly spin, from Vain Hair's 'advisory council that I'd like to address is Sloth. For the first installment, click here: http://blazingpants.blogspot.ca/2015/08/the-seven-deadly-spins-part-1-lust.html When we think of sloth, we we think of laziness, slow movement, etc. Today we'll address sloth in one that wants fame and fortune but is far too lazy to get an actual education in nutrition and so, opts for online diploma mills that spend more time educating students on how to start and run a scam business than about human biochemistry or actual nutrition.

Meet Christa Orecchio, self proclaimed "co-author" of a pamphlet of recipes called "eating for wellness" written by Ms Orecchio and Cheryl Tiegs - because you know a paid supermodel knows everything about nutrition. Of course, our slothful O'wrecker doesn't call it that; she calls it the "The Anti-Inflammatory Diet" which was actually a subtitle to the original e-publication that is no longer available. Perhaps it's because it was pushing a product that Tiegs was endorsing through infomercials that the FTC had a significant problem with. TriVita was sued by the FTC for making false health claims about their 39.99 (plus shipping and handling) bottle of miracle elixir cactus juice. No, I'm not making this up - read it for yourself here: FTC on TriVita

But O'wrecker likes that narrative of 'anti-inflammatory' because it pushes her concept of Candida being the root of all physical ailments, which of course, she has a cure for. But I won't get ahead of myself here. Let's take a look at O'wrecker's educational claims and we can see where the deception starts.

According to Orecchio's own linkedin resume, she posts this:

I contacted University of North Carolina and they know nothing about the CN or HHC designation, nor do they offer classes in nutrition outside of a nursing program nor do they have anything related to "wellness". Nope, instead her CN, HHC come from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition (IIN), which will start you on your new business for the low, low price of $5,995. along with about 25,000 other quacks. Don't worry about the rigors of academia though, it's an online school with all open book tests and in order to satisfactorily complete your education you need only do a few simple tasks. for nearly half of the required points, you need only attend a few "coaching circles" and if you complete and submit your required "health history" (potential new clients) you need only score a 50% on one of 4 tests to graduate! So much less stressful than a real education don't you think? Then you can hang that HHC off the end of your name to make it appear as though some certifying body thinks you know what you are talking about. There is no body that certifies a holistic health coach (HHC) by the way. I'm going to dedicate a whole post to IIN, after all, how many actual higher institutes of learning have rich CEOs instead of deans or chancellors? This "school" not only teaches you to create your own scam business (and recommends you charge $125/hr) but sells you all the tools to do it along the way. You can even buy your "integrative" web site from them. Sorry, I couldn't resist that! Nor is there any certification for a 'clinical nutritionist' (CN).

It seems that O'wrecker wanted a more lucrative career than her degree in business was providing for her so she gave up selling yoga pants and went on into woo instead. Her website shows lots of videos that make it seem like she's an in demand TV personality when, in truth, most of them are infomercials that she paid a pretty penny to make to the "Wellness Hour". These shysters specialize in helping quacks health care providers attract and keep suckers  clientele.  They even have a video on "gummy bear breast implants". I swear! I cannot make this shit up!

Anyway, O'wrecker hangs out her shingle in the greater San Diego area and tells people that they have an overgrowth of Candida yeast but sells a ton of supplements to solve the issue. In fact, going back to TriVita, they sell a line of supplements (probably about as effective as their cactus juice) and have a newsletter for which O'wrecker is a regular contributor. So please tell me how food is medicine (one of her favorite lines) but as a consultant she recommends lots and lots of pills, drops and books? Guess that crack education pays off because she offers a whole store for her "whole journey" through woo, and the products don't come cheaply!

But before you can start to recommend your crap, you have to have a backstory. You have to have overcome some life threatening ailments due to your eating habits, right?It doesn't even have to be very original, since that would be too much like work. I mean The Food Babe had appendicitis, right? O'wrecker has to go one better:

Now that she has you convinced that you can be healthy and attractive like her (sound like the food babe?) you'll need to follow instructions. First you need to enrol in a "gut thrive program because everyone in the who's who of woo has to say 'gut' these days. Her program can be yours for the low, low cost of:

Of course she must have been doing crystal math when she proclaimed the value of this "program" at $3800.00! But wait, you have to purchase the supplements FIRST.

And of course it doesn't end there - you need a transition and maintenance supplement plan for the low, low price of:

And be prepared to keep forking over the cashola, because she's a "nutritionist" after all, it says so on several of her many websites.  She also makes some claims about closing her 'successful' private practice to go with her new online program, because I'm sure that it's much more profitable to suck in a couple of thousand people at a time, charge them 700 bucks and sell them a bunch of supplements. Additionally she claims to have co-authored a book about fertility called ""Whole Baby, Whole Mama". An online search for the title of this book, however, only results in one hit. Her website. But you can get her "cookbook" which is available only for sale on her website as a non-refundable digital download only. Yeah, that sounds legit.

The food babe has a bio on her 'advisory council' that states O'wrecker had a private practice for 10 years, though Christa claims 8 on her own site (which she began while still enrolled in that crack, intensive nutrition program). Food babe also touts a "nationally syndicated" radio show, which is really the paid programming from the folks at the Wellness Hour that we mentioned above. Someone has some disposable cash apparently.

While I could go on for hours about her dubious credentials and online practices, I'm going to go ahead and call this one a big fat, five alarm, get the bucket brigade fire, fire!

If you buy into any of this quack's line of BS about your gut, candida (which by the way, she refers to as a disease as opposed to a common yeast that we all have present in and on our bodies) overgrowth or anything that requires you to buy expensive supplements, think about her lack of qualifications and endorsement of the food babe. Those two are peas in a pod. Both are too lazy to get a real education about their topics, they just want to cut to the paydirt.

I'll just leave you with a set of her qualifications in her own words: The Whole Journey are not acting in the capacity of a doctor, licensed dietician, psychologist or any other licensed/registered professional. Christa Orecchio and The Whole Journey will not diagnose, treat, or cure in any manner, any disease, condition, or other physical or mental human ailment.

Thanks for coming along with our queen of sloth; O'wrecka.

Eat Me Babe, I'm GMO free.

I eat food. You probably do, too. I want to be healthy. You probably do, too. That makes us a target audience for some of the worst kind of fear-mongering, pseudoscience, mumbo jumbo snake oil salesmen around. I touched on good ole Dr Oz in my first post but if you haven't met Vani Hari - AKA (self proclaimed) Food Babe you are in for a comic treat. This chick is her very own Oz - as in wizard of Oz and she recruits munchkins to help spread her disinformation. She calls them the food babe army but they are as blind to her tricks as the munchkins were to the wizard.

Vani is the author of a blog called Food Babe and of a recently published book that is full of outlandish fear mongering about the safety of the food on your plate, yet promises to heal you in a mere three weeks. She happily publishes shopping lists of "babe approved food" along with recipes, all the while telling you the perils of not doing things her way. OK, so nothing wrong with eating healthy but scaring people out of eating perfectly safe FDA approved foods and into non-FDA regulated products IS wrong.

Let's start with the biggest issue for me; her credibility or lack thereof. I am flummoxed that anyone can put any stock whatsoever in what comes out of this chick's mouth. She has the gall to weigh in on every scientific aspect of food production (not to mention vaccines),  though she has zero scientific background.  You see, Vani used to be a coder - as in software nerd - with bad skin, a runny nose and more than a few extra pounds. Not uncommon for the stereotypical coder who sits for hours at a time, chugging mountain dew and eating M&Ms as if they were their own food group. I know coders. I've worked with a lot of them. But then Vani started eating right and exercising, lost the weight and cleared up her skin.  She claims all this is due to ridding herself of artificial flavorings and colorings, however. In one interview about her book she claims to have completely overcome all of her health issues, including allergies.

Fabulous. I applaud that but I guess the fat to thin diet book market was oversaturated so she embarked on a quest to blame her former physique on everything from pesticides to GMO and (cue the music) the dark conspiracy behind it all; Monsanto. I think she watched Food Inc one too many times and decided that the Monsanto corp was equivalent to Hitler's 3rd Reich. I mean, she did tweet that vaccines had been used as genocide. I kid you not. Her claims are absurd but since it's fear based, it can be effective to all those tin-foil hatters who are simply into confirmation bias.

But let's go back to the allergies and bad skin. If, indeed purging her kitchen of all evil chemicals (which includes any chemicals at all according to our food barbie - er babe), then why is she touting bizarre skin rituals and hawking skin care products on her site? In addition, why is she posting to facebook that her eyes are swollen due to allergies? Yeah, you smell a rat, too, don't you? Here's a link for you - if you can stomach watching it, the part about your blood circulating through your skin is quite amusing! Food babe skin crap.

You know I like to keep a sense of humor about these things, so let's take a look at some of her more comical assertions. My personal favorite was the post she made about the airline conspiracy to deprive you of oxygen onboard an aircraft to save money! OK, wait. I'm laughing again... She claimed in an article she posted in 2011, that the airlines were mixing as much as 50% nitrogen in with their oxygen and this would make you feel bloated aboard an aircraft. Seriously, I can't make this crap up! Any 5th grader knows that air comprises a mix of nitrogen and oxygen at about an 80% - 20% respectively. She later pulled the post, alternately saying it was an old post and saying, she had made an error.

No, that is not an error. An error is a misspelling or something, it isn't declaring the airline guilty of sabotaging its own passengers based on a ridiculous lack of understanding of the basics of natural sciences. For an absolutely hilarious reply to her airplane article - click here. It is so full of baseless blather that I can't even cover it all here!

Now, if she were simply stupid and touted her thoughts as opinion, that would be one thing. What she does is tout her opinions as fact and if anyone dare challenge or even <gasp> disagree; she labels you as a Monsanto shill and encourages her mob - er, "food babe army" to attack and discredit you all over social media. This is typical Dark Triad behaviour from a previous post.  She also makes claims about microwave ovens and irradiated spices that have no basis in fact whatsoever. She knows they are fake but she pushes them. Why? Because on her site she shills for 'natural' foods and other products, one of which had to be pulled from shelves for salmonella - wow, sounds healthy to me! She also wants to earn big bucks on her new book, written in conjunction with Dr Hyman ( a close pal of good old Dr Oz) - another woo peddler extraordinaire. She claims to use peer reviewed academic papers in her research, but I gotta tell you, if those peers are Dr Mark Hyman and Dr Mehmet Oz, then you'd better get to the bank, because any science they are selling you is designed and communicated to line their pockets. Nothing more, nothing less. (we'll talk more about the good Dr Hyman and his pals pictured here in a future post).

Now I've got nothing against eating right and leading a healthy lifestyle but when you take it to extremes to bash companies and proven science based on a random thought you had in the middle of the night while consuming contaminated coconut oil with a spoon; maybe, just maybe, you've gone off the deep end. That would be a compliment though I don't think our little naturopathic shill HAS gone off the deep end. I think she's in it for the money, and I'd love to check her sock drawer for a hidden cache of gummy bears.

But hey, you don't have to take my word for it - google her or here's an article to get you started from the Atlantic (and incidentally this is the most positive article from a reliable source that I could find.)

For these reasons and many of her public outright lies, we're gonna award her a big fat, way off the scale, 5-alarm, Pants-on-Fire.

So with that, I do believe I will eat a yoga mat and wash it down with a Starbucks Pumpkin Latte!

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That's all folks!

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