The Forever Living Clean 9 and F.I.T. Diet: The Facts

I completely understand that most people (including myself) need a kickstart or motivation tool to return to a healthy lifestyle – be that Davina McCall’s latest workout DVD or an overpriced smoothie blender. I have no problem with this, it’s our prerogative, obviously. Heck, it’s taken several expensive accoutrements (trainers, gym kit, new headphones) to motivate myself to get back into the gym.

But what I DO have a problem with is the misleading marketing and bogus pseudo-science that sometimes accompanies many new diet and health products out there, not only swindling people but also toying with their health and wellbeing.

The Forever F.I.T. and Clean 9 diets by Forever Living are good examples of these bogus products. They claim that staying committed to their three part ‘advanced nutritional and cleansing weight-loss program’ will show you how to lose on average between 7 and 10lbs permanently and never put it back on. Bold claims. And obviously, this advanced weight loss miracle doesn’t come cheap. The first stage, the Clean 9, is a nine day ‘detox’ diet that claims it will purge your body of toxins and make you feel lighter and more energised – this nine day pack alone is around £100. The plan is to then progress onto stages two and three, F.I.T.1 and F.I.T.2, each lasting thirty days and definitely help your wallet lose weight by a whopping £220 per stage.

The Clean 9 pack (as of December 2015) consists of the following supplements:

15 Forever Lite Ultra Shakes – These are essentially artificial soya protein powders to be mixed with milk, taken twice a day as meal replacements. I’ve written much on this topic previously here. Soya protein is the worst type of protein; whey protein or natural food protein is always the better option (unless you have allergies). But soya is the cheaper protein for companies to source or manufacture. For a time, there were a number of health claims about soya protein. Some of these claims stated that soya protein consumption helped lower bad cholesterol, prevented heart disease and even fought off some cancers. However, recent studies have scientifically proven that many of these health claims are not only false but that there are very serious concerns with high soya protein consumption. (15 high soya protein shakes – approx £20, Boots/GNC/Holland & Barrett)

http://www.webmd.com/vitamins-supplements/ingredientmono-975-soy.aspx?activeingredientid=975&activeingredientname=soy

http://www.menshealth.com/nutrition/soys-negative-effects

54 Forever Garcinia Plus Tablets – Garcinia Cambogia is the scientific name for a South-East Asian tropical fruit.  In 1998, a randomised, controlled scientific trial looked at the effects of hydroxycitric acid, the purported active component in Garcinia Cambogia, as a potential anti-obesity agent. The conclusion from this trial was that Garcinia Cambogia failed to produce significant weight loss and fat mass loss. Scientific evidence to date is still lacking and clinical trials do not support claims that Garcinia Cambogia is an effective weight-loss aid. What’s more, a 2005 scientific study in Food and Chemical Toxicology found that high doses of Garcinia Cambogia extract caused testicular atrophy and toxicity in animals. Its also interesting to note that most other Forever Living Products are certified ‘suitable for vegetarians’ and also ‘halal’ for Muslims, yet, because these tablets contain gelatin, are not suitable for vegetarians but still certified ‘halal’. So Forever Living are specifically using halal animal gelatin?! Potentially false accreditations aside, this supplement is ineffective and has been exposed across the Internet. (60 tablets – £15, online health stores)

9 sachets of Forever Fibre – 5g of soluble fibre in each sachet to mix with a beverage. Dietary fibre is undeniably crucial for us, but each sachet approximately gives you the same amount of fibre as an apple. Or a bowl of wholewheat cereal. Or a piece of multi-grain bread. Or a bran muffin. Or ½ a cup of lentils. Plus, even today, it’s still unconfirmed whether the fibre in supplements like this gives us the same health benefits as naturally occurring food sources. Hence most reputable companies aim fibre supplements at preventing constipation rather than claiming it can aid weight loss. (10 sachets – approx £3.00, Boots)

18 Forever Therm Tablets – Allegedly these tablets are a “carefully created formula containing a special combination of vitamins, including B6 and B12, which contribute to the reduction of tiredness and fatigue”. Vitamins are always needed, ideally from natural sources but there’s nothing wrong with a multivitamin supplement. But when you have a concentrated mixture of vitamins, especially when taken with protein shakes with high soya and sugar content, you are just simply peeing them down the toilet. Your body can only handle so many vitamins, and can only handle them in certain ratios – anything extra is just passed through your system and down the toilet. (9 day supply of high grade multivitamins – approx £3, Boots/Holland & Barrett)

2 litres of Forever Aloe Vera Gel Drink – I’ve written much about this product previously here and here. (2 litres – approx £20, Holland & Barrett/Boots)

If you’ve been sold an earlier edition of the Clean 9 pack, you may also find:

Forever Bee Pollen Tablets – First off, bees don’t make pollen. Plants make pollen. Forever Living’s ‘Bee pollen’ is actually flower pollen collected off the legs of bees as they return to their hive – mixed with a bit of bee saliva and who knows what else has happened to stick to them. There is no way to know what kind of pollen is used in this supplement. Finding bee pollen research that had been conducted on humans proved to be an extremely difficult task – The few studies (and I mean few) actually were case reports of bad reactions and most are now over twenty years old. The scientific interest died off in the 1980s when they realised it wasn’t well digested by the human digestive system. Again, to date there is no scientific evidence to show that it is has any health benefits. Recently, there have been reported cases of anaphylactic reactions as a result of consuming bee pollen supplements and anyone with pollen or bee allergies should definitely stay well away. The Food and Drug Administration in America have added bee pollen supplements to their list of ‘tainted supplements’ and subsequently the Bee Pollen tablets have been removed from the newer Clean 9 packs. 

So ignoring all these debatable supplements, the instructions basically tell you to eat an incredibly calorie-restricted diet and do some exercise for the duration of the course. BREAKING NEWS: if you do this, with or without £500 worth of questionable supplements and shakes, you’ll lose weight. The shakes and aloe gel drinks are basically giving you something to fill your stomach with to stave off cravings (though whether this actually works is largely down to your own willpower), and a few vitamins and fibre supplements so you don’t succumb to full-on malnutrition. Oh, and aloe has some mild laxative effects, so expect to lose a bit of weight down the toilet as well.

Bottom line is that this is a crash diet with some useless and potentially dangerous overpriced supplements; weight lost in this manner will almost certainly pile back on just as fast and it’s not good for your health. By all means, if you’ve got hundreds of pounds to throw away and need to suddenly lose weight before an impending wedding or beach holiday, then give it a go. For those of us that are a bit more careful about spending over £500, simply picking your preferred choice of low-calorie meals and taking a few multivitamins should yield better results and save you a lot of money.

Like with most weight loss products with big claims (and most Forever Living products), the true scientific evidence just isn’t there to back it up. The unregulated Forever Living distributors are back out again promoting these new packs, claiming all sorts of miracles and trying to sign people up. I guarantee you that almost every single review, recommendation and social media post you will see is from a Forever Living distributor or affiliate.

So…..Are you ready to take control of your health? Are you ready to feel better and look better AND also SAVE OVER £500?!

PYRAMID SCAM?

Why are these businesses always having to defend themselves, right? They’re not illegal.

Pyramid scheme is a dirty word – over the years and with the power of sharing information through the Internet, people became more aware that they were a scam and the law also started clamping down; a lot of them were prosecuted. Like vermin, these businesses hid in the shadows and waited. They tweaked the business model to circumvent new laws and regulations and re-emerged as multi-level marketing, network marketing or social marketing companies….but underneath all the pseudo-marketing semantics, they are still those same old dirty schemes.

Here’s an extreme hypothetical example, but see if it fits:

Say there’s a company that mass produces cheap ‘health’ drinks and sells them for a whopping £30 each. Who’s gonna pay £30 for a ONE LITRE bottle of plant juice that has no scientifically proven health benefits and contains SEVEN artificial e-numbered chemicals, right?!

But then I tell you that YOU can sell these drinks for £30 each, and you’ll get PAID £10 for every bottle you sell…plus YOU can recruit people to sell drinks as well. You’ll get £3 for every drink THEY sell, plus £1 for every drink their recruits sell and so on. Three levels of commission, hypothetically £14 total commission on a £30 sale. Everyone, including yourself, does have to buy a product ‘kit’ for £200 (for personal use only) to allow anyone to start selling, but all you need to do is find three people who find three people who find another three people…. In the end, yeah, you’ve paid out £200, but you’ll be making around £980 in commission from your team of three plus any extra from individual customers purely interested in buying a ‘health drink’.

Boom. Why wouldn’t you want to join, right?

Product is shifting. The ‘health’ drinks are flowing. No recruitment revenue so it fools the law, only ‘product commission’ rolling in…and the actual health benefits of the drink don’t really seem to matter because you realise signing people up is where the money is. And if there is no manager or anyone around to regulate what you say or claim the drink can do or what the business really is, it’s inevitable what will and does happen.

The focus of these distributors shifts to recruiting. The official line is to deny this and say that they’re here to sell the drink but the fact is that the recruiting incentives far outweigh the sales incentives…and that tells you everything. Any new confused member who even tries to solely focus on selling the product, will soon find if they don’t recruit their customers as new team members/distributors it won’t be worth their while, and another distributor will just sign them up instead.

These companies count on and exploit that desire for wealth and financial freedom by using emotionally manipulative tactics – I called one distributor, pretending to be interested in joining and within twenty minutes she was trying to pull at my emotions by telling me that I should join her team so that I may leave a pot of money for my children after I die?! I know exploitation and manipulation is an inherent part of marketing, but the manipulation here is ridiculously outsized because these independent distributors who refer to themselves as ‘managers’ or ‘supervisors’ are completely uncontrolled and make whatever wild claims they want, to convince you to sign up – and the lax regulations in this country allows them to do so without question.

Most of the people involved are truly good uninformed people looking for a change of career but others – I’m sorry to say – fully aware and looking for easy money without the hard work. The idea of just recruiting people and getting percentages from all of them and all of the people that join under them and so on and so on, is obviously attractive to say the least.

If all this sits right with your personal morals, religion or ethics, fair enough….but absolutely 100% they’re pyramid schemes – dirty, unethical and swindling people to buy cheap bogus ‘health’ products. To be fair, the real reason most people are buying the £200 product kits is for the opportunity to join the scheme and make money. It’s completely unsustainable as eventually someone in the chain will run out of people to sell to, and those at the bottom get fucked gambling away £200 but aren’t able to make any money back. And you never know if YOU are going to be in that bottom level of the pyramid; statistics prove that 90% of people who join these schemes have failed to make their money back.

What is clear is that these companies are charging insane prices for sub-standard artificial bogus health products specifically designed to prey on the ill, weak or insecure; and the overpricing isn’t for superior quality of product (far from it).  I mean, it’s cost next to nothing to mass produce.

So when a company like FOREVER LIVING sells one litre of an unproven ‘miracle’ plant juice for £21 or another company wants to sell you an artificial soy protein ‘miracle’ drink for £35 and at the same time offers you an ‘amazing money making business opportunity’, you can be quite sure that they are pretty much a shady pyramid scheme in disguise and you’ll want to stay well away from it.

IS IT HARAAM?

Pyramid schemes like Forever Living and Reliv have been here for decades, as alluring and easily accessible ‘work from home’ money making schemes. Given the current economic downturn, it should be no surprise these shady business practices are on the rise yet again but what is truly disturbing is that these schemes have become acceptable and seem to sit right within the values and conscience of the practising Muslim community, reaching a whole new level of hypocrisy.

I spoke to a number of individuals involved in these schemes locally (unbelievably most of them practising beard-toting brothers and hijab-wearing sisters) to understand what was going on, but trying to engage a healthy intelligent discussion with anyone invested or working for these schemes has thus far proved impossible. These ‘business owners’ all tried to maintain a sort of feigned ignorance or plausible deniability, all using the same defensive scripted dialogue full of baseless excuses that is obviously part of their ‘training’. Each time this scripted marketing spiel failed, predictably they all fell back onto the ‘you’re a hater hating on my success‘ card – some of these practising Muslims even became quite belligerent and aggressive to protect their profits.

Forget about the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him). 2015 is all about the profit, it seems. 

With all pyramid or multi-level network marketing schemes, the actuality is that it’s not going to work out for somebody in your downline or lower levels (read about pyramid schemes here). In a pyramid scheme, there is a massive risk you could be in the bottom levels and you’re unable (or there’s no one left) to recruit and thus lose all the money that you’ve gambled to join the scheme.

Alternatively, you could potentially be in the level above the bottom level and be directly responsible for convincing and recruiting someone, only for them to make a loss because there’s no one left to recruit in your area. PLUS THEY’RE DUPING PEOPLE INTO BUYING INFERIOR QUESTIONABLE HEALTH PRODUCTS AT DOUBLE THE TRUE MARKET VALUE. If they were selling cheap cosmetics or flimsy kitchen utensils at double the value, it would still be despicable but less sickening than these shameless unprincipled distributors who are preying on the ill, weak and insecure with their ‘miracle’ health products and claims (read more on the scientific truth about Forever Living Products here and here). It’s a shameless hustle, it’s a corrupt scam – but if that sits right with your values, fair enough.

As much as it may be denied, argued or ignored, these schemes are WRONG. As well as being documented in shari’ah and Hadith, there are Islamically forbidden elements of business transactions such as riba (trans: profit by exploitation), gharar (trans: ambiguous transaction) and also gambling in these schemes – to the point that these multi-level marketing companies and this business model have now been deemed officially HARAAM in fatwa number 22935 issued by The Permanent Committee for Scholarly Research and Ifta’ in Saudi Arabia.

http://www.saudigazette.com.sa/index.cfm?method=home.regcon&contentid=20120309119277

http://islamqa.info/en/42579

The Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) also prohibited two sales (business contracts) in one. Combined ambiguous contracts, like with Forever Living, are defined as this:

First off, the purpose of the initial membership payment is unclear and disguised – is it for the purpose of becoming the member of the company or is it for the purpose of buying some product? Secondly, after becoming the member of the company he or she is automatically appointed as an agent/distributor of the company to recruit more members. This ambiguity can lead to many uncertainties.

Nevertheless ambiguity and doubt is present throughout these schemes and the fact of the matter is that most of the members of the pyramid lose out, except for the few at the top.

The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) clearly forbade these ambiguous transactions, as narrated in shari’ah and Hadith.

There’s no excuse to be morally compromised in this context – especially those few who, by choosing to have the responsibility of a hijab or beard, are visual public representatives of Islam and are directly compromising our religion. The hypocrisy is mind blowing.

My account here may not be perfect (your input is more than welcome), my words may even be deemed embittered or subjective – the further I research into this, the more I admit the hypocrisy of all this infuriates me. There are many people out there who have been duped but don’t want to come forward out of embarrassment. It is a difficult subject to research when these companies use a lot of manipulation and marketing tricks to hide their true nature; it is especially difficult when a lot of the practising muslim distributors, who have reached the higher levels and are making a bit of money, have happily compromised themselves and willingly cover up the shadiness in exchange for profits.

So IS IT HARAAM? The FACTS are undeniably clear. Forever Living and Reliv – amongst many more of these companies – are immoral, unprincipled and ruthless; exploiting people with sub-standard cheap bogus ‘health’ products before getting them to join their shady scheme. To me, that’s haraam…. but, more importantly, it’s just damn wrong.

Allah knows best. Though our consciences, may He guide us to the right choices in life. Ameen.

4 MUST-KNOW FACTS ABOUT FOREVER LIVING ALOE VERA GEL DRINK

Forever Living Products, amongst all their sins, are selling inferior cheap questionable products full of artificial unhealthy chemicals and additives at least twice as expensive (if not more) than any other retailer or manufacturer.

It’s always wise to have all the facts. At $19 (£22) for one litre (4 SERVINGS) of a plant juice which they claim is so natural that it’s the closest thing to slicing open the plant itself and drinking directly from it, here are four must-know facts about the Forever Living Aloe Vera Gel Drink:

1. IT CONTAINS SEVEN E-NUMBERED SYNTHETIC CHEMICALS. SEVEN ARTIFICIAL SYNTHETIC ADDITIVES:

SORBITOL IS AN E-NUMBER. ASCORBIC AND CITRIC ACID ARE BOTH E-NUMBERS. POTASSIUM SORBATE IS AN E-NUMBER. SODIUM BENZOATE IS AN E-NUMBER, AND IN COMBINATION WITH ASCORBIC ACID MAY FORM BENZENE, A KNOWN CANCER CAUSING COMPOUND; PLUS IT’S ALSO LINKED TO HYPERACTIVITY. XANTHAN GUM AND TOCOPHEROL ARE ALSO E-NUMBERS – WATER IS GOOD FOR YOU, BUT EVEN A COUPLE OF DROPS OF POISON CAN TURN A GLASS OF WATER INTO SOMETHING DANGEROUS

2.  ALOE HAS A LAXATIVE EFFECT, AS DO SOME OF THE E-NUMBERED CHEMICALS, SO IT’S NOT RECOMMENDED IF YOU HAVE A SENSITIVE STOMACH

3. THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO SOLID SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE FROM ANY RESPECTED UNIVERSITY, SCIENTIFIC ORGANISATION OR RESEARCH FACILITY THAT DRINKING ALOE VERA HAS ANY HEALTH BENEFITS (I guarantee that almost every single review, recommendation and social media post you will see is from a Forever Living distributor or affiliate)

4. YOU CAN GET BETTER QUALITY AND PURER PRODUCTS WITH LESS ARTIFICIAL CHEMICALS FOR HALF THE PRICE OR EVEN CHEAPER IN MOST HEALTH STORES LIKE BOOTS, HOLLAND & BARRETT OR GNC

Ideally, the most natural and healthy way would be to buy the plant fresh and extract it yourself – it’s incredibly easy (all you need is a spoon). It’s 100% pure plus you stay away from all those unhealthy artificial chemicals:

http://www.realfoods.co.uk/product/9/organic-aloe-vera-leaf

At an insane $19 (£22) for four glasses of juice, the Forever Living Stabilised Aloe Vera Gel Drink is definitely not worth your money and something to steer clear of

Aloe Vera: The Facts

It’s very very simple: there is no solid genuine conclusive scientific evidence to prove the effectiveness of drinking aloe vera juice for medicinal or weight loss purposes. There are masses of individual recommendations, comments from distributors, masses of anecdotal reviews (e.g. individual reports of ‘I used it for this and it cured me plus I lost weight’) and thousands of random unverified websites but NO CONCLUSIVE SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE whatsoever from any established university, or any independent scientific organisation or research facility. Not one.

Forever Living and their distributors have flooded the Internet with misleading information (the crude names of the websites usually give it away). They’ve set up websites that appear to be independent and critical, yet conclude that aloe vera is nothing short of a miracle cure. This makes it extremely difficult for anyone new to really know what the true facts are about aloe vera.

A review of genuine academic literature and research quite clearly tells us that its inclusion in many hygiene skin products is due to its “moisturising emollient oily effect” – it increases the skin’s water content by reducing evaporation making dry skin softer and more supple, just like any other moisturiser – it’s great for burns and skin irritations, but that is it. It is not medicinal. It does not have any significant antiseptic properties. It does not increase energy. It does not cure diseases. It’s simply a cheap easily sourced natural hydrating moisturiser.

Without intending to fear monger, here is some other information (usually left out by aloe product distributors) that’s worth knowing:

In 2011, the National Toxicology Program in North America carried out a series of short and long term carcinogenicity studies of a non-decolourised whole leaf extract of Aloe Barbadensis Miller (aloe vera) in rats and mice, in which the extracts were fed to the rodents in drinking water. The studies found “clear evidence of carcinogenic activity” in the rats. The NTP believes further studies of oral preparations of aloe are crucial, as are studies of the oral exposure of humans to aloe (note that topical preparations for skin use are always considered safe though).

A US company produced an aloe vera product called T-UP that you could drink or even inject into your bloodstream. It was hailed as a miracle product. It was even promote as a potential cancer cure. The product conclusively failed in clinical trials to help treat any symptoms of cancer and in the US it is now illegal to inject aloe vera because it’s that dangerous.

Oral ingestion of aloe vera may also cause diarrhoea, which in turn can lead to electrolyte imbalance, kidney dysfunction, dry mouth, headache, and nausea. Aloe products can be powerful laxatives and there are some reports of serious upset to the usual balance of body chemicals after severe diarrhoea.

Furthermore, the aloe vera gel drinks typically produced by Forever Living (which they claim is the closest thing to slicing open an aloe plant and drinking directly from it) contains SEVEN E-NUMBERED ARTIFICIAL SYNTHETIC CHEMICALS, including a laxative! You’ll want to stay away from most, if not, all of those chemicals, especially if you have intestinal or bowel problems.

BOTTOM LINE – If you’re still adamant on ingesting it, PLEASE note the following. Never exceed the manufacturer’s recommended dosage of any aloe product and avoid using regularly for prolonged periods of time. Try and stick to high quality GEL only products, not juices or drinks. Oral aloe products are not advised for use by pregnant women. Aloe also interacts with other drugs and medications so always talk to your doctor first.

Here are some articles worth reading from authentic and established scientific sources:

https://nccih.nih.gov/health/aloevera#cautions

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20365-aloe-vera-extract-gave-rats-tumours.html#.VPHMCfmsX3Y

http://www.cspinet.org/new/201308211.html