There’s always so many new health trends going viral on TikTok – but are they actually good for our health?
Let’s unpack some of the latest TikTok health trends and see if they are worth a try!
Proffee
Proffee is a protein iced coffee – essentially combining the two together.
There are a few brands that make products such as collagen coffee, so it already comes pre-made.
The idea is that it’s meant to be really good for people who skip breakfast. It’s very popular in the fitness community.
In terms of some benefits:
- It can make your coffee more substantial than just coffee on its own
- In some contexts, it might be helpful. For example, stirring collagen or protein into coffee could be helpful for someone who struggles with their protein intake or has much higher needs.
Now for some of our concerns:
- In health and nutrition, in general, we always like to take a food-first approach where we can and try to avoid excess intake of supplements and powders for a variety of different reasons
- It only adds one macronutrient – so it adds protein, yes, but it doesn’t add any extra fats or carbohydrates.
- We also generally know that collagen-based protein isn’t well absorbed by the body anyway. So while it provides a bit of protein, it’s probably not the most effective source of protein you could choose.
- Because it doesn’t include carbohydrates or fats, it’s not really a replacement for breakfast, despite how it’s being promoted
- The caffeine in coffee is a bit of an appetite suppressant, so it can briefly suppress your appetite. It can also give you that jittery feeling, especially if you’re prone to anxiety.
Our verdict:
It’s better to just have a proper breakfast! You can have this as well, but it’s not a replacement. And really, do we have to healthify everything? Can’t coffee just be coffee?
There might be other on-the-go options that are more nourishing and satisfying, like an Up&Go or one of those ready-made protein drinks from places like Rokeby Farms. Or, a smoothie, if you have time to make it, with minerals and a piece of fruit, would be more substantial than just protein and coffee if you’re really pressed for time and can’t make a proper breakfast.
Nature’s Cereal
Next up – we have ‘nature’s cereal’.
This is one of the TikTok health trends that actually makes us angry! How can they call this cereal? It is fruit in a bowl. That is literally what it is – just fruit in a bowl.
The way they often make it in this particular iteration of the trend is berries in a bowl, with some coconut water, eaten with a spoon.
This has been around for actually a really long time, but it’s just picked up traction again. Of course, TikTok can always find a way to revive old trends and make them seem all cool and fresh.
It’s claimed to be a healthy alternative to cereal. This is mind-blowing that it’s actually a claim. It is fruit, it’s not cereal!
Let’s talk about some of the benefits:
- This trend may encourage people to eat more fruit
But more importantly, here are some of our concerns:
- It’s literally just a fruit salad soup – it doesn’t have protein, which is really important for muscle and repair and energy, and keeping you feeling full. It doesn’t really have many carbohydrates at all, considering berries are pretty low in carbohydrates. There’s also no fats to help absorb fat soluble vitamins like vitamin A, D, and K, and for satisfaction.
- It’s very low in energy – meaning you’re just not going to get enough nutrition, and will be feeling super hungry in no time.
- If you were replacing a regular breakfast with this, there is an increased risk of deficiencies because if you’re not having cereal or kind of carbohydrate products. This means you might miss out on nutrients like B vitamins, or iron, zinc and iodine.
- It implies that regular cereal is ‘bad’. This is one of the things that we always hate when it comes to diet culture and TikTok health trends in general – it creates this black or white mentality.
Our verdict:
We certainly don’t love this one! Let cereal be cereal, and fruit be fruit.
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Alkaline Water
Let’s first chat about what alkaline water is.
Essentially, to measure the acidity of water, we use the pH scale. Above 7 is alkaline, and below 7 is acidic. Alkaline water has a higher pH than tap water. So essentially, it’s about pH 7.
People can get alkaline water by buying bottles where it’s already been alkalized, adding certain drops to regular water, or buying ionizers that cost thousands of dollars.
Anytime we’re looking at multiple dollar symbols, we go, “Hmm, could there be an agenda here?”
Alkaline water claims to:
- Make you more hydrated and detoxifies the body.
- It also claims that it lowers inflammation.
- It claims to prevent cancer
- It also claims that it slows down the aging process.
Now onto our concerns!
- Besides the fact that it’s expensive and generally a marketing gimmick, there’s pretty much no evidence to support these claims.
- There are no health claims currently allowed on alkaline products – so it’s just a water bottle making unfounded claims. Essentially, it doesn’t have any evidence to back this up, so they’re pretty much pulling stuff out of thin air.
- Our body works really hard to maintain homeostasis, which means balance in all of our body systems. Our body’s acid-base balance is really important, and our stomach pH, which is very acidic, will cancel out the alkalinity of this water anyway.
- If we had too much alkalinity from any one source, it could disrupt our body’s homeostasis and acid-base balance – causing medical concerns. While this is probably not going to happen from drinking a bottle of alkaline water, overdoing it on the drops or having large quantities of highly alkaline products isn’t good for us. Too much of anything is not a good thing.
Our verdict:
Don’t waste your money! Your body is amazing at maintaining a safe pH level.
Get a copy of my free 3 Steps To Stop Cravings eBook here!
Sea Moss
On to one of our next TikTok health trends – sea moss. Sea moss is a type of algae or seaweed found along the rocky Atlantic coast.
We did some research on this—it grows between North America and Europe, and it is an edible sea plant.
According to some TikTok users, sea moss is apparently an absolute superfood that contains 90% of the minerals your body needs.
Some of the claims around sea moss include:
- Apparently, it’s got the power to clear your skin, improve your gut health, and even regulate your periods or cause weight loss.
We do have quite a lot of concerns about this, as we generally do with most supplements, especially those that claim to heal everything.
So, here are some of our concerns:
- Anything with “heal” or “cure” or “magic bullet solution”— we have a little red flag waving. Often those people have a “link in my bio” to buy the sea moss from them.
- One of the biggest concerns is iodine toxicity. If you’re not aware, iodine is a trace mineral found in many different foods, including iodised salt, and is often found in products that come from the sea, like seaweed and fish. The thing with iodine is that the amount we need is quite small. Getting too much or too little is dangerous because it can disrupt our thyroid, which needs iodine for healthy functioning.
- The tricky thing with seaweed or sea moss is that the iodine content can be completely variable. It can be a low amount, which is fine, or it can be very high. If TikTok claims that eating all this sea moss causes all these positive health benefits, what’s to say that some people aren’t consuming really high amounts of it, which could lead to iodine toxicity?
- With all things that grow along the ocean floor, there’s a risk of heavy metal contamination. So it’s another reason why you don’t want to be consuming heaps of sea moss.
- Our last concern is that there aren’t many great studies on this in general. It’s not an area that’s well-studied, so a lot of these claims are unfounded and anecdotal.
Our verdict:
Iodine toxicity isn’t great, so this is one we would discourage having too often in your diet. Supplements can also be pricey, so save your money on this one!
Lion Diet
Next up on our TikTok health trends – we have the raw red meat craze, also known as the Lion Diet.
Essentially, the Lion Diet is an elimination diet based on eating red meat, mostly raw.
The Lion Diet is red meat and salt – and that’s pretty much it. Some variations include fasting—either really long periods of fasting or one meal a day. Already, quite a few red flags here.
There are a lot of claims associated with the Lion Diet. These include things like:
- Improving intolerances
- Resolving gut issues
- Improving autoimmune symptoms.
These claims are likely not based on evidence at all, because there’s no way there’s going to be a study about this.
However, because beef is a very low allergenic food, almost anyone should be able to eat it or digest it. It’s true that food intolerance symptoms could improve – but only because you’re literally not eating anything else, except for one food.
It’s a similar deal with gut issues. A lot of the time, we find that when people go from a diet that’s quite high in fiber—which is good for your gut but can sometimes be difficult to digest—a lot of their gut symptoms improve.
So while some of these claims may seem to check out in the short-term, there are a lot of concerns with doing this for any prolonged period of time, or even, to be honest, just doing it in the first place.
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Here are some of our concerns:
- It’s not sustainable. Like many diets we talk about, this one in particular is not going to be sustainable long term. Who would want to eat red meat multiple times a day, or even once a day, for the rest of their life?
- It’s essentially an elimination diet, so it’s not meant to be followed for a very long time. But there are people who continue following it, just like there are people who’ve been doing the carnivore diet for years. There’s always the risk with any elimination diet if someone continues to follow it.
- It’s a big risk to gut health. It cuts out pretty much all fibre, and fibre is the fuel for our gut bugs, especially prebiotic fermentable fibres. Meat doesn’t have any fibre in it, because it’s not a plant food. So the gut bugs would just simply die off or the diversity will be greatly reduced.
- It can also really increase cravings and the risk of binge eating, because it cuts out so many different foods. We know that when we cut out certain foods, especially a lot of carbohydrate-based foods, those cravings can increase.
- Low carbohydrate diets can also really affect your ability to perform exercise, especially endurance-based exercise like running and weight training. Other symptoms of following a low-carb diet include things like brain fog and low energy.
- Nutrient deficiency risk: if you’re only eating meat, that’s only one of the core food groups. This means you’ll miss out on things like vitamin C, B vitamins, and things like calcium. Unless you’re eating bones – you’re not really going to be getting calcium.
- Finally, we’re not recommending anyone to ever eat raw meat. You could get infected with parasites, have a higher risk of getting salmonella, E. coli, or toxoplasmosis. The list goes on.
Our verdict:
There’s lots of reasons why we don’t recommend this. I can’t even recommend trialing it, to be honest, because there’s risks involved with just eating raw meat. Even if you were to cook all of the meat, there’s so many essential nutrients that are going to get missed out on.
We recommend giving this one a hard miss!
Summary
A lot of TikTok health trends are generally pretty harmless, but some of these ones had us raising an eyebrow in genuine concern!
If you’re ever unsure about what approach to take when it comes to nutrition, of course we always recommend working with a professional (like an Imbodi Health dietitian!) to find what’s going to work best for you and your health goals.
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