Ten tubby Israeli hedgehogs have been scooped off the streets of Tel Aviv and placed on a strict reducing diet under the unrelenting eye of Ramat Gan Safari Zoo Keeper Becka Rifkin.
The greedy guys were caught snacking on food from bins and tidbits left for stray cats and had grown so fat they waddled not walked and were unable to curl into balls to ward off possible predators.
I’m not sure if the prickly pals’ regimen includes learning to trawl the web, but if so, they could lap up a wealth of contradictory advice about how to maintain Rifkin’s bespoke diet plan:
Eggs are good for us. But only free range and no more than three per week!
Polyunsaturated margarine is now off the menu and butter is back in vogue.
Canola oil is a witch’s brew. But it is permitted when manufactured GMO (‘genetically modified organ ism’) free.
The ongoing debate among nutritionists also includes the pros and cons of non-heme (plant based) iron foods against heme (meat based) iron foods while we lay folk are left wondering if items like chocolate are mere ‘empty calories’ why does the iron in dark chocolate make it permissible to eat?
A
Author is Munich-based ‘healthpreneur’ Monika Griessenberger who advises most wisely that her material “is for educational purposes only. It is not intended nor implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice”.
So what does she suggest?
As a champion of omega fatty acids, she says: “Omega is an essential nutrient that has influence in every aspect of your health, from helping to keep your memory to having a strong heart. It’s quite incredible, and with all the health benefits that omega fatty acids provide for your body, in the right combinations, there is no excuse why you should not start taking them now”.
Then comes the first slew of many annoying contradictions:
The author, a raw food diet fan, urges that the US Heart Association recommendation to eat oily fish regularly be treated cautiously because, while such foods contain “reasonably high amounts of оmеgа-3 fatty acid”, they are perhaps contaminated with “high amounts of mercury” that may do the body long-term damage.
Among foodstuffs Griessenberger does endorse is sріrulіnа, blue-green microalgae credited as a ‘super food’ with enormous nutritional benefits but whose possible side effects may be bad enough to cause deaths!
So here I make the same observation about this manual as I have about other recently-reviewed healthy living books. Many of the recommended foods and supplements are very expensive. Random research showed, for example, that Omega 3-enriched eggs are twice the price of regular battery-produced eggs both in the U.K. and Israel.
Again, I insist that this must deter, even disenfranchise the sort of cash-strapped people who most need the author’s help and is reminiscent of the disengagement from reality of which people like socialite Pippa Matthews (Middleton) was recently accused.
Oh, dear!
**The Omega Fatty Acids Blend: Plant Based Solutions for Your Health by Monika Griessenberger is available from Amazon on Kindle @ $1.99.
© Natalie Wood (08 January 2018)
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