Goji berries

r3nu4l

So I was watching the food nazi Gillian McKeith the other night on TV...she knows her stuff

Anyway, she was talking about the benefits of Goji berries and she expounded on their greatness so much that they sounded almost like magic beans and I decided...I have to get some of these (who says the hard sell doesn't work anymore? )

So, I take a trot to Tesco and scour the shelves until I find them and can't wait until I get home and try this new treat. I pick up a 250g bag (about one quarter of a bag of sugar in weight) and then stop to see how much they are...

£8.99 (roughly €14) for the bag! :eek: I check again, thinking the price must be per kilo or something but no, it's over £35/kilo!

Needless to say I left them on the shelf.

So, has anyone tried these wonder-berries of health and vitality? Taste good? I want to know before I invest in a bag of them! What have they got that other foods haven't?

texas star

Hiya I was watchin the same programme, Im crazy about that stuff. I have found a web page www.bodykind.ie they sell them but not fresh as tablet form. Im actually looking for berries called camu camu apprently they have more vitiam C in them then an orange. I will keep an eye out for your berries,and keep you posted.:)

Blub2k4

If you can get your hands on these http://images.google.ie/images?hl=en&q=sanddorn&btnG=Google+Search&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi

they are supposed to be very high in vit c.

You can get them from the islands around the coast of North Germany.

gnadsher1970

Gillian McKeith has no proper qualifications in the area of nutrition. She has a correspondence course PhD from a non-accredited college. Her advice veers between normal sensible stuff to outright unproven speculation and bursts of downright quackery. You can buy Goji berries (£40 a kilo plus pp) and every other product that she recommends on her programme from her website. Any qualified dietitian (anyone can call themself a nutritionist, you need qualification to be called a dietitian) will tell you that a normal well-balanced diet is all you need. It is really that simple. No supplements or power bars or magic beans are necessary. Goji berries and hemp seeds and brazil nuts and fish oils may be perfectly ok for you but none of them are indispensable.

r3nu4l

gnadsher1970 wrote:

Gillian McKeith.../rant

Yeah, as someone who has a PhD I always hated her calling herself a PhD :mad: I have never and will never refer to her as Dr. :mad: :mad: That said, she does know her stuff regarding nutritional values even though I don't agree with a lot of what she says about nutrition in general.

Anyway back to the topic of my thread...I wasn't looking for dietry advice I was asking (through my tongue-firmly-in-cheek post) has anyone tasted these wonder-berries? Do they taste good? I wouldlike to taste them but not at £9 for a bag! I'll eat two or three kiwis instead if I really want to pump myself full of Vitamin C

Here's the Wikipedia article. Still doesn't say anything about taste. Interesting to see that Tesco are selling Goji berries cheaper than Gillian

gnadsher1970

Sorry. Her name just provokes a Pavlovian reaction in me. Charlatan. Interesting to see in the wiki article that the Vitamin C level is indeed very high when the berries are fresh, but in the dried form is comparable with citrus fruits and raspberries. It also says they taste like a more tart raisin. Try and imagine that and then spend £35 on oranges instead. That'll keep your Vitamin C level up for a while.

StormWarrior

I bought some the other day. I don't think they taste very nice (and I love almost all fruit).

I read somewhere that they're only going to give you a nutrition boost if you're severely malnourished, but i don't know how true that is.

flikflak

I saw them in the health food shop for about €9 then went round the the Chinese supermarket and got a box of them for about 2.50.

I think they taste ok but anyone else who had tried them thinks they are awful.

Have not really noticed any amazing health benefits yet from eating them but I suppose they wont do you any harm and its better than snacking on sweets.

sudzs

StormWarrior wrote:

I bought some the other day. I don't think they taste very nice (and I love almost all fruit).

I read somewhere that they're only going to give you a nutrition boost if you're severely malnourished, but i don't know how true that is.

Bleuch, bleuch, bleuch! They taste disgusting so they must be good for you!!!!

I got some in Holland & Barret, around 4 or 5 quid for a 75g bag.

rubadub

Can't watch her anymore, for fear somebody walks in the room and thinks I am watching a german geriatric schiza video, she has some fetish for the auld crap!

Most of these miracle fruits can be got in other ways, it is always quotes like "has twice the vitamin C as an orange", - yeah but oranges taste nice and cost 1/20th the price.

And aren't the people on that program loosing the weight too fast? or can they afford to loose more than 2lb a week if very fat? some are loosing 4-5lb a week.

r3nu4l

rubadub wrote:

Can't watch her anymore, for fear somebody walks in the room and thinks I am watching a german geriatric schiza video, she has some fetish for the auld crap!

Most of these miracle fruits can be got in other ways, it is always quotes like "has twice the vitamin C as an orange", - yeah but oranges taste nice and cost 1/20th the price.

And aren't the people on that program loosing the weight too fast? or can they afford to loose more than 2lb a week if very fat? some are loosing 4-5lb a week.

QFT! I must admit that I get a lot of Vit C and most other vitamins and minerals in my diet naturally anyway, lot's of fresh fruit and veg as well as meat, oily fish and eggs each week.

I also worry about some of those people on the program losing so much weight so rapidly but also, when I look at Gillian McKeith I don't exactly think of her as healthy looking!

As for the poo fetish, well, that is a bit strange alright. Yes you can tell a lot about someones diet from their stool but she does seem slightly obsessed

Unshelved

Interesting article about the Poo Lady in today's Guardian.

Link here -
http://www.guardian.co.uk/food/Story/0,,2011095,00.html

texas star

Hey I bought them berries in Tesco for 10euro.they are dried and I put them into my smoothy every morning. I like them and if I believe everything I read they are a new super food group like blue berries. I also munch on the on my breaks but I think you are only soppose to eat a desert spoon every day on your cearal. Well I havent experiance anything different so far but will keep you posted, if any one is interested that is.:)

loismustdie

you can also buy them mixed with flaxseed, they also have iron and vitamin b, omego3 and loads more, you onky need a tbs a day

cmcd

texas star wrote: »

Hey I bought them berries in Tesco for 10euro.they are dried and I put them into my smoothy every morning.

Sorry for digging up this old thread but I both love and hate Goji berries. I love the boost I feel they give me but hate the crazy prices being asked for them. Being a miser I searched the town and the net for lower priced Gojis. The shops were all about the same high price and the net search threw up a combination of either dodgy looking sites or else ones which would not ship to Ireland.
On my search I did find one guy in Ireland posting on an Irish garden forum who is trying to grow his own Goji plants from the seeds found in the berries. He has had a lot of them sprout and they seem to be growing well so far. I might try this myself http://www.gardenplansireland.com/forum/about1130.html
Anyway the search goes on.

PaulyB63

Sorry to jump in but just randomly came across this topic.

I bought some Goji Berries the other day in tesco from the Tesco range of whole foods and they are nowhere near as expensive as you're all making out, They were around €3.50 for a 150g bag (I know this is still €24/kilo or thereabouts) which at the amount of these things you need to eat to get benifit is a steal! (I'll dig out the receipt later to confirm that price)

I also think they taste great. They remind me almost exactly of a cereal my parents brought me back from the USA in the 80's.... Smurfs cereal!!

http://bluebuddies.com/Smurfs_Smurf_Cereal.htm

Sweet!

r3nu4l

PaulyB63 wrote: »

...and they are nowhere near as expensive as you're all making out,

That's because they have come down in price. Simple really. They were hugely expensive when they first came onto supermarket shelves. In fact Tesco didn't stock own-brand goji berries until a few months ago. When they saw how popular they were becoming (thanks to Gillian McKeith), they changed that, began stocking them, made them cheaper than other brands and sold them by the bucketload for a very healthy profit

My original post was made 19 months ago and as I say a 250g bag used to be £8.99 (about €14 back then) at that time.