Mens_Health_UK_March_2017

MENSHEALTH.CO.UK MEN’S HEALTH 91

which is a lot of kale smoothies. Venture

down the aisles of your local (preferably

upmarket) supermarket and the scale

of the wellness business is manifest.

‘No added sugar!’ screams your peanut

butter; ‘gluten free!’ claim the packaged

sushi bento boxes. And, naturally,

products bearing the names of health

and wellness bloggers are ubiquitous.

ADDED DRESSING

The latest name to expand into this

lucrative line of personal brand extension

is Deliciously Ella, who has recently

added a new range of vegan-friendly

energy balls to her burgeoning empire

of books, apps and a West London deli.

I pick up a Deliciously Ella Hazelnut

and Raisin ball in Sainsbury’s. It is “free

from gluten, dairy and refined sugar”,

naturally, and costs £2. As I unfurl the

lavender-coloured packaging and tuck

in, I’m immediately struck by how the

natural sweetness from the raisins

notes Warner. “The food industry is

strongly regulated, but within certain

areas of the wellness industry people can

often say what they want without any

regulation. A book, for instance, can even

be published without anyone checking

the facts. That’s frustrating because it’s

spreading misinformation. There’s a lot

of bad science in the bestseller list.”

sugar, meat and diary, of course, but then

that’s evidently what works for her.

HANGING IN THE BALANCE

For Mills, distancing herself from the

negative aspects of wellness might be as

straightforward as penning a blog post.

But for Clean Eating Alice, who I meet

in Fulham’s health sanctuary Lomax, it

isn’t so easy. After blogging about her own

fitness overhaul, she has rapidly amassed

over 500k online followers.

“When I chose the name ‘Clean Eating

Alice’, I was like, right, I just want to get

rid of all the crap in my diet, so I’m going

to call it ‘clean’,” she explains. “I had no

idea what it meant and there’s still no real

definition of what ‘clean eating’ is.”

Her smile falters. “It’s incredibly

frustrating. I don’t believe in restriction,

I don’t believe in cutting anything out

of your diet. In fact, I’m looking at doing

a complete rebrand.”

You are naturally inclined to feel for

Alice. She seems sincere when she says

that she has never advocated a restrictive

diet. Gluten, dairy and meat are all on her

menu, and she has never claimed to be

qualified in the field of nutrition. Now,

by focusing on a career as a PT, Alice is

readying herself for life after wellness.

“The bubble is not going to last for long,”

she says. “They will have to crack down on

all the misinformation sooner or later.”

Within publishing, too, this tectonic

shift in the wellness plates hasn’t gone

unnoticed, says Orchard. “Because there’s

so much information out there, the public

is starting to interrogate things more...

looking for people who actually have the

right credentials.” That the idea of seeking

advice from people with “credentials”

is a dawning realisation rather than an

a priori assumption shows you just how

far down the rabbit hole we’ve come.

So have a surfeit of wellness experts

spoilt the bone broth? Well, not quite.

With more bloggers landing book deals,

more energy balls filling shopping bags,

and more vegetables being spiralised,

the time when boring, evidence-based

facts trump Instagram tags as health

influencers is a little way off.

In the meantime, perhaps the best

thing you can do is hit the gym for a bit.

Fix yourself a hearty, colourful dinner,

then pour yourself a glass of something

nice. Do the same tomorrow, then see how

you feel. This is not nutritional science,

of course; but crucially neither is it rocket

science. And that is rather the point.

THE

WELLNESS

DELUSION

“Food prices

are justified

by attaching

unrealistic

benefits”

beautifully offsets

the nutty crunch. I

feel content, smug,

almost. It’s so good,

I could almost

Instagram it. That is,

until I flip the now-

empty wrapper over

in my hand, look at

the nutritional information and find that

almost 50% of the ball I just devoured is

made up of sugar – 19.9g out of 40g. That’s

the same amount as a Snickers bar.

“These products are being launched

under a brand that is strongly associated

with health, and yet there is no clear

reason why it should be considered

a healthy product,” says Anthony

Warner, a development chef in the food

manufacturing industry whose blog, The

Angry Chef, has gained cult-like status

within both the scientific and foodie

worlds for its vocal and well-informed

criticism of clean eating and wellness.

“I’m not saying people shouldn’t eat those

energy balls, but you do have to remember

they’re high in fat, high in sugar and are

a processed, packaged food product. The

problem is, because they’re associated

with a wellness brand, there is an implied

affiliation with health. But invariably

there is little evidence to back that up.”

In the same way that many bloggers

can call themselves nutritionists

without either respected or recognised

qualifications, many of their claims

around food frequently go unchecked,

Almost as bad as the

baseless claims that

proliferate the wellness

industry, says Warner, is its

distinctly undemocratic

nature. “You see a lot of

status-signalling with food,

which is a relatively new

phenomenon in human

society. These days we

have so much choice about

what we can eat that people

use food to say something

about themselves: ‘I’m

rich and successful and I

can spend hours trawling

shops for really exclusive,

expensive ingredients’. But

in order to justify doing

that, they’re attaching

these incredibly unrealistic

health claims to them,

be they strange sugar

replacements like medjool

dates and coconut sugar,

or extract of seaweed. In

reality they’re no more

nutritionally potent

than any normal healthy

balanced diet.”

Such criticisms haven’t

gone unnoticed by the

wellness gurus themselves.

Last year Deliciously

Ella posted the following

statement on her website:

“It’s not about dieting,

restriction or rules, and

it’s certainly not about the

concept of ‘clean’. Despite

being labelled as ‘the

queen of clean’, I do not

use that term to describe

what I do and never will

do. I agree with the critics

that dividing food into

two categories: ‘good’ and

‘bad’, is incredibly negative, and only

works to further fuel the idea that food

is something that should inflict feelings

of guilt, which I fundamentally disagree

with.’” She still avoids wheat, refined

GLUTEN FREED

Though reports of

its dietary impact are

much exaggerated,

going free-from gluten

no longer means

having to sacrifice

flavour. Or talk about it

Lunchtime

burrito

Corn

tortillas

Post-work

pint

BrewDog

Vagabond

Pale Ale

Ramen

noodles

Instant

rice

vermicelli

Soy

sauce

Bragg

Liquid

Aminos

Breakfast

cereal

Quaker

Instant

Grits

PHOTOGRAPHY: GETTY | FOOD STYLING: TAMARA VOS