Activated charcoal: The latest detox fad in an obsessive food culture

[progressoid]

Our diet is either the cause of, or solution to, all of life’s problems. I’m paraphrasing a great philosopher. We just can’t seem to let food be food. Today each ingredient we eat seems to be demonized or glorified. Gluten is the latest evil. It used to be fat. At some point in the past, it was MSG. Or it’s a superfood, preferably local, organic and GMO-free. Even on the healthiest diet, however, we’re apparently still ingesting too many harmful chemicals. After all, this is apparently a toxic environment we live in. Gwyneth Paltrow says so. So does the Food Babe. In an era of daily television quackery and loony internet health conspiracy websites, one might think that bizarre food ideas are a recent phenomena. But worries that we’re being poisoned from within are probably innate. One of the oldest surviving written documents is an Egyptian papyrus from the 16th century BCE that linked the cause of disease to digestive wastes in our colon. Since that time, our scientific knowledge about the cause of disease has advanced, but the underlying obsession with diet and elimination hasn’t waned. Anecdotally, it seems to be growing. The idea that our bodies need to “detox” is thriving, despite the fact that it has no scientific basis or validity. Part of the modern appeal of “detox” may be that detoxification is a legitimate medical term and treatment. However, in the alternative-to-health perspective, the word has been co-opted, but the science part has been ignored. Fake “detox” is easy. And now proponents of “detox” have taken it one step further. They’re using real medicine for a fake “detox” with. That’s how activated charcoal has become the latest health fad.

The popular use of charcoal got a big boost in 2014. After Gwyneth Paltrow’s magazine “Goop” named charcoal lemonade as one of the “best juice cleanses”, the idea of socially consuming charcoal really took off. If you spot someone drinking what looks like a bottle of ink, it could be “lemonade with activated charcoal” made with “alkali” water and sweetened with cane sugar. All this for just $8.99 for 500mL, making this fad a pretty costly one.

Paraphrasing another philosopher, if you integrate fantasy with reality, you do not instantiate reality. And when you add charcoal to lemonade, it doesn’t make your lemonade tastier, or healthy. Nor does it give a beverage any magical properties. It gives you black, gritty, gag-inducing lemonade...

https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/activated-charcoal-the-latest-detox-fad-in-an-obsessive-food-culture/

[eppur_se_muova]

1. Damn, I missed my chance !

I was actually pondering long ago what fad diet I could introduce to make an ill-gotten fortune. I figured a "carbon-based diet" would sound scientific enough to take in a lot of suckers, and activated carbon would be safe to ingest and maybe even do a modicum of good. But I didn't want to be charged with fraud -- should have known better.

[Warpy]

2. It also makes your teeth look interesting

until you can rush in and brush them.

Taken in small doses, it can reduce the death gas from beer and egg salad. It's also outrageously constipating and will likely absorb any medications the person is on. Used to excess by paranoid health food faddists, it can cause intestinal blockage. It will make poop black, so it can mask GI bleeding.

I don't suggest it unless you've taken an OD of medications and then thought better of it. It's a lifesaver in that case. Just don't bother with ipecac after, ipecac reduces the absorption of poisons.

[progressoid]

3. My wife tried charcoal capsules as a last resort for gas etc.

Nothing else was working. Neither did the charcoal. Turns out she had become lactose intolerant after the birth of our daughter.

[Warpy]

4. Eeeew! I know that one all too well

I've been lactose intolerant since I was five.

For ordinary egg salad + beer farts, a charcoal/chlorophyll tablet can help.