dyer@vaxuum.DEC (Rasphemous Bloomers) (12/31/85)
Is Pollen Any Good?_______________________________________________
There's a company in Ohio called Cernitin, which distrib-
utes products made by a Swedish company called Cernelle. The main
ingredient in their products is pollen. I'm told that Cernelle
gathers their pollen in a way that doesn't hurt bees because they
don't use bees (they gather it themselves).
Cernitin is selling these products in the United States
using a "multi-tiered" system. That is, they're using the same
pyramid scheme as (for example) Amway. The major differences are
(1) being a young company, those who participate now will be in a
more advantageous (to them) level than one who participates in
(let's say) Amway, and (2) since these products are marketed as
holistic healthy products, the people involved tend to be the New
Age types.
The products are mostly pills in jars, though there is a
powdered diet drink mix (Dick Gregory's - no pollen in it) and
some candy bars that taste like Tiger Milk bars (with pollen in
them). They're also coming out with a line of skin care products.
I find the products rather expensive.
I'm not particularly fond of pills in jars with nutriti-
onal claims, but I'm not one to be closed-minded. So I put it to
you folks: Is pollen any good for you? Why or why not?
<_Jym_>
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::::' :: `:::: Jym Dyer ::::' :: `::::
::' :: `:: Dracut, Massachusetts ::' :: `::
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:: .::::. :: DYER%VAXUUM.DEC@DECWRL.ARPA :: .::::. ::
::..:' :: `:..:: {allegra|decvax|ihnp4|ucbvax} ::..:' :: `:..::
::::. :: .:::: decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-vaxuum!dyer ::::' :: `::::
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::sdyer@bbncc5.UUCP (Steve Dyer) (12/31/85)
There's a tech writer here who contacted me about Cernitin, fresh ablaze with revivalist fervor after a marketing meeting. Cynic that I am, I asked him for some literature and any scientific references on their pollen products he could get from the company. All in all, for anyone with a reasonable background in biology and the scientific method, their literature looked pretty dismal, full of that funny mixture of pseudo-science and misleading facts designed to impress the untrained and credulous. For example, one brochure addresses the components of the pollen found in their pills. What follows is three pages of names of chemical substances; various enzymes and coenzymes, minerals, lipids, etc., without any indication of how much of each of these things is found in pollen, and for that matter, what any of these things presumably "does" to the body. Indeed, the page of enzymes doesn't also indicate that, when ingested, your stomach digests them like any other protein. I might also mention that the American Beef Council could do a similar analysis of a T-bone steak and look equally impressive and be equally meaningless. Also, the one "technical" paper I received mentions many favorable studies, but never cites them, preferring to concentrate on motifs like: "Yes, I used to be a cynic but now..." "the little guy vs. Big Medicine, David vs. Goliath" Of course, these alone don't mean much, but when they're accompanied by a conspicuous absence of referenced studies (in a literary genre which calls for them), it should set a red flag off. I also looked a bit at the "Dick Gregory Bahamian Diet". As Jym says, it doesn't contain any pollen. It looks to be a pretty standard liquid formula diet, very similar to the Cambridge Diet, with the difference that you mix this with fruit juice, meaning that you get about 300 extra calories each day in the form of (shudder) simple sugars. As these kinds of diets go, it seems OK. -- /Steve Dyer dyer@harvard.harvard.edu harvard!dyer