“Just four cups a day will give you all the benefits of colostrum,” says the man in a Facebook Reel as he pops a small cup of dried powder into his mouth. He’s one of those health influencers who gets paid to promote certain products, so you can’t trust anything he says anymore.
4 cups? I only drink 1 cup. Do I have to drink 4 cups? Without water? I’ve tried this medicine and it’s bad enough when mixed with water.
If you’ve ever had a baby, you know what colostrum is. For the guys, I apologize in advance because it’s a very embarrassing story. Colostrum comes out of a mother’s breast just before milk comes in. It’s thought to be the most important nutrient a baby gets. It’s highly nutritious and packed with antibodies and antioxidants that build your baby’s immune system. Colostrum lasts for the first 2-4 days after birth, so Levi and I breastfed for about 10 minutes before we decided that bottle-feeding would be much easier and would allow us plenty of sleep. (Oh, don’t worry, it was actually a bit longer than that. Just kidding.)
And then God knows who decided that cow colostrum (aka cow milk) is so beneficial for adult humans, they’re promoting it as the next “patent pending whole food.” Regardless of how they got the stuff, they powder it, put it in plastic jars, and sell it online for $110. They’ve run a very aggressive social media campaign with normal looking people touting the amazing benefits of the stuff: longer hair and nails, amazing gut health, full of energy, etc.
I’ve been drinking this for months and not only does it taste awful, it turns into a horrible sticky lump when you add water. The only way to alleviate this is to use the spinner they gifted me with my last purchase. Additionally, I only drink 1 cup instead of 4. When I inquire about this I am told “you can never have too much of a good thing” and to take “just the right amount”. The problem is that if I drink 4 cups my stock goes out 4 times faster and it costs 4 times as much money.
Colostrum is just one more so-called health food I’ve added to my collection of various powders and supplements that claim to solve all sorts of problems. Usually the list is so long and unbelievable that it should raise red flags from the start. Will colostrum give me energy, eliminate bloating, and flatten my tummy? Nothing else in my life has ever done that for me?
These products are almost always offered as a subscription, meaning you’re automatically charged each month and receive your next shipment regardless of whether your previous order has been completed. The subscription offer is written in the fine print, so half the time you don’t realize you’re signing up for a subscription when you first make your purchase.
Before I knew it, we were spending hundreds of dollars a month on mushroom coffee, super green drinks, colostrum, etc. My kitchen cupboards were already chock-full of products like matcha, protein powder, chia seeds, collagen, and vitamins with purported benefits ranging from improved sleep and focus to healthy skin, hair, and nails.
The problem is, no one really knows what’s in these products unless they take them to a lab for testing. They’re not regulated by the FDA, and numerous studies and papers attest to the fact that most supplements don’t do what they promise and don’t contain the ingredients they advertise. And yet, we’re still lured in by their promises that they’ll solve our problems.
Combine this with algorithms that track every action we take on our devices, know every webpage in our browser history, and how it all adds up like a snowball rolling downhill. The internet knows I am a woman in my mid-50s, a loving pug and an elderly mother concerned about hair growth, weight loss, wrinkles, aging in general, and gut health and fitness. All around me, I see a constant stream of Instagram reels of women my age with even skin, long hair, and ripped bellies. They have endless energy, high focus, strong immune systems, and healthy digestion. They sleep well, never feel hungry, and look half their age.
As far as I can tell, mushroom coffee is ground up earth, green drink is broken down grass, and judging by its consistency and taste, I don’t even want to think about what colostrum actually is – I’m literally certain I won’t be buying it.
