How to avoid Worthless Hoodia

Avoid Cheap Hoodia Supplements (which are also ineffective and worthless)

From reading from the previous articles, a few things should become clear - Hoodia is a very effective appetite suppressant and buying legitimate Hoodia is very difficult. As they say, "sunshine is the best disinfectant". In this article we will go over some of the tricks used by the less reputable Hoodia dealers. We hope by exposing these tricks we can help you avoid buying worthless hoodia supplements.

 

A safe way to avoid cheap, ineffective Hoodia supplements is to learn how they are made. Let's assume a fictitious company called - Bad Supplements, Inc wanted to make a cheap and ineffective Hoodia supplement - Here are some of the tricks of the trade they might use:

• Do NOT use Hoodia from the Kalahari Desert

It's well known that Hoodia grown in the Kalahari Desert has been shown to have a strong appetite suppressant effect. Growing Hoodia Gordonii is a difficult and long process, so there is limited supply available from the Kalahari Desert. Furthermore, Phytopharm has contracts for a large percentage of the hoodia gordonii grown in the Kalahari putting demand much higher than supply and therefore driving prices for Kalahari Desert hoodia gordonii way up.

For this reason alone, the execs at Bad Supplements, Inc. would use Hoodia grown in Mexico, China or the US. This Hoodia would cost about 80% less than Kalahari Hoodia and of course would NOT suppress appetite, but they could still claim they had "100% real Hoodia in the bottle."

• Do not use Hoodia Gordonii

Over 20 species of Hoodia plants. Only the Hoodia Gordonii species has been shown to actuallysuppress appetite. So, the executives at Bad Supplements, Inc. can use one of the 19 other species of Hoodia and still say "Contains 100% Hoodia". While that quote is technically true, it does not have the Hoodia Gordonii that will help with weight loss.

Even if the executives at Bad Supplements, Inc. are not evil - and may want to include Hoodia Gordonii - it's not easy to identify the Gordonii species from the other species. It takes experienced Bushmen to be able to locate the Gordonii species.

• Use the whole Hoodia Plant

This is one of our favorite tricks that Bad Supplements, Inc. may pull. If you see a line like "Contains Only 100% Pure Whole Hoodia Gordonii Plant" you might think this is a strong positive. The catch is that the Bushmen always peel away the outer skin and remove the spines from the Hoodia before eating it. If you take the whole plant, skin, roots and all, and crush it into powder - a large percentage of what you get is less than (50%) is just skin and roots, which have no appetite suppressant effect. The-P57-molecule was extracted from the heart of Hoodia Gordonii, so this is what you want in your supplement - not the skin.

Of course, having to throw out the skin would decrease the amount of Hoodia Bad Supplements, Inc. can claim is in each capsule and that means added cost. So, to keep their supplements cheap - Bad Supplements, Inc uses the WHOLE Hoodia plant.

• Do NOT pay royalties to the San Bushmen

This is a no-brainer for the executives at Bad Supplements, Inc. By legal agreement with the San people, any company that harvests Hoodia from the Kalahari desert must pay royalties to the San Bushmen. Since the government controls and regulates the farms that grow Hoodia Gordonii, any company legally harvesting Hoodia has to pay royalties. In addition, Hoodia is a protected plant, so it is illegal to harvest wild Hoodia from the Kalahari desert.

Bad Supplements, Inc knows that paying royalties will decrease their profits, so even if they do buy Kalahari desert Hoodia, it must be wild Hoodia from the black market to avoid royalties. Of course, once you start buying black market Hoodia, who knows what you are really getting - but all Bad Supplements, Inc wants is a good deal.

• Use Kalahari Desert SEED Hoodia Gordonii

This is a very tricky one by Bad Supplements, Inc. They might put on their bottle "100% Kalahari Desert Hoodia-Gordonii" - but read carefully, somewhere in small print it may say "Hoodia seeds from the Kalahari Desert". I think they thought up this trick from looking at how Cuban (seed) Cigars are marketed. Basically, they get seed of Hoodia from the Kalahari Desert and then plant it in Mexico or China. This Hoodia will of course not have the appetite suppressant effect, but it will be cheap.

When all else fails - lie!

If Bad Supplements, Inc. is really greedy- they may just lie about their Hoodia supplements. Numerous Hoodia supplements have been tested and shown to contain almost no Hoodia - regardless of what claims they make on their label. This has always been a problem with Dietary Supplements as opposed to drugs. The FDA requires that drugs be tested before they come to market. On the other hand, anyone can put a dietary supplement on the market without ever filing a single document with the FDA. The FDA only gets involved if there have been numerous complaints against a company. Given the small staff of the FDA for policing supplement claims, many companies are willing to play the odds and figure the FDA will never test their supplements.

CONCLUSION:

While Bad Supplements, Inc. is fictitious (wouldn't it be great if all bad companies had the word Bad in their name?) there are numerous real companies following the points listed above. Companies might use some combination of the above tricks - maybe they have real 100% Kalahari Hoodia Gordonii - but use the whole plant and skip quality controls. In our view, if a company uses any ONE of the tricks listed above, that is enough to stop us from using their products.

In the end, real Hoodia Gordonii from the Kalahari Desert is expensive to grow, process and bottle. If a Hoodia supplement is very cheap, it is probably a fake. Don't despair, not everyone in the supplement industry follows the Bad Supplements, Inc procedure.