AS a registered nutritionist I see new products regularly on supermarket shelves and it's good to give a commentary on these so people can make informed decisions so they aren’t being taken on.
The new craze now are these super boost or health shots. They are within every high chain supermarket and are being marketed heavily on TV through advertisements. They don’t come cheaply at £2 per 60ml bottle.
Taking one of these everyday for seven days would cost £14 per week or £56 per month. So, should you believe the hype? It kind of says in their name what major ingredient some of these may have i.e. ginger and turmeric within the fresh root ones with fibre (Inulin) in the gut health shots and again ginger and turmeric in the immunity shots.
And to point out, all have the synthetic form of vitamin C which is called ascorbic acid and is clearly stated in the ingredients. But funnily enough, online it clearly states that there are no synthetic vitamins within these products. Just to be clear synthetic vitamins are usually made in a lab and are chemically similar to a vitamin, for example in this case vitamin C. This is a fundamental flaw in the marketing of these super boost shots.
£2 for a 60ml bottle is way overly priced. A bag of oranges can cost around £1 so you can get your vitamin C, with herbs and spices like turmeric and ginger costing around 80p in Home Bargains for a little jar. And wait for it, a bag of bananas that contain inulin fibre (for gut health) cost around 80p in most supermarkets.
You can do the maths yourself, but this approach (using herbs and spices in cooking, eating bananas and oranges as snacks) is far better and wouldn’t even cost a fraction of the £56 per month in keeping up with the health shot products. Don’t believe the hype and listen to the appropriate professionals.
Lee McCusker (BA; MSc; MSc; MSc; ANutr; SENr) is a registered nutritionist from Belfast and can be found on Facebook, Instagram and X, formerly twitter. Email: attentivenutrition@gmail.com
