Getbig.com: American Bodybuilding, Fitness and Figure
Getbig Main Boards => Gossip & Opinions => Topic started by: Arnoldattendee on March 08, 2006, 05:06:43 AM
-
Imagination healthy at expo Supplements mostly hype, expert says
By Jeb Phillips THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
At one booth in the Arnold Fitness Expo - that massive hall of commerce and barely clothed models in the Greater Columbus Convention Center this weekend - people are promoting something called Muscle Milk.
It claims to be an " 'evolutionary' muscle formula promoting efficient fat burning, lean muscle growth and fast recovery from exercise.'' On Friday, a sports-nutrition expert walked up and scanned the ingredients.
"That's just cake batter,'' said Jenna Bell-Wilson, an assistant professor of medical dietetics at Ohio State University. There were samples of Muscle Milk on the counter. They did, in fact, taste like cake batter. A 1-pound container costs about $18 online. A box of Betty Crocker cake mix costs $2.50.
Since the federal government banned ephedra, there's no nutritional supplement being sold at the expo - part of the Arnold Sports Festival - that might help kill you, as far as Bell-Wilson could tell.
There are plenty, though, that won't help you at all, or have no research to prove their packaging's claims, or that you can buy far cheaper in the grocery store. Bell-Wilson spent two hours walking around the expo, checking out the nutritional supplements on display. She didn't see anything that would
cause any lasting harm - or much that would do any particular good.
Adam Schretenthaler, who works in product development with Cytosport, the makers of Muscle Milk, said he would "completely disagree'' that his product is cake batter. "It's a blend of different milk proteins and whatnot,'' he said. "It's a very healthy product.'' He pointed to the line of people waiting to taste it, and the video of endorsements playing overhead, to help prove his point.
If drinking cake batter makes you feel better and helps you feel that you are recovering from a workout, then drink it, Bell-Wilson said. But it's still cake batter. "You want to know why these people have big muscles?'' she asked. "It's because they work out a lot.'
There's no real innovative nutrition at the expo, just innovative marketing, Bell-Wilson said. The companies find something you should be eating, or are eating anyway, put a healthy or scientific-sounding name
on it, then jack up the price.
The Vital Choice Seafood booth is just pushing salmon. The supplement Endothil-CR, which bills itself as "musculogenic cell recruiter,'' is a pill made of fruit extract. "That is a good advertisement,'' Bell-Wilson said at the front of the booth with the Endothil samples. "It looks very doctorlike.''
Lots of the booths were selling jugs of whey protein. The protein is good for you, and it's become the standard protein source in nutritional supplements, Bell-Wilson said. It's highquality, has essential amino
acids and is easily digestible.
"Here's the kicker: It's milk. Or if you want it in powdered form, powdered milk,'' she said. (The international sales manager for Cytosport, Chris Maun, disagreed with that, too.)
Booth after booth had the same sorts of everyday products. Others made claims they couldn't back up. One promoted its product, with Ginko biloba, "for improving blood circulation, and enhancing oxygen and
glucose use.'' Ginko biloba hasn't been proved to do any of that, Bell-Wilson said.
In tiny print at the bottom of the booths' handouts is the disclaimer: "These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.''
Bell-Wilson noticed something even sneakier at the Ab-ulous Meals booth. The fliers said the Super Lean Beef Chili is low-fat, though the box label said it has 11 grams of fat per serving. The FDA won't allow
anything with more than 3 grams of fat per serving to have "low-fat'' printed on the box, she said.
"Low-fat'' wasn't printed on the Abulous Meals box. It was just on the handouts, and on a sticker placed on the display boxes. The Super Lean Beef Chili costs $7 per meal at the expo. A small chili at Wendy's is 99 cents.
-
Idiots..cake batter doesn't have 40 grams protein per serving.
And whey protein is a fractionated component of milk.
Most supplements are useless but so is this "professors" education.
-
Idiots..cake batter doesn't have 40 grams protein per serving.
And whey protein is a fractionated component of milk.
Most supplements are useless but so is this "professors" education.
assistant professor
-
The True Adonis has been saying this stuff for years. You guys need to smarten up!
-
who the fuck is Bell-Wilson??? i swear if i saw that bitch at the expo.... i would have stabbed her 9 times
-
I love these reporters who just come to the show to fault it. Obvously, she doesnt know jack about anything, but that is ok. Lets report on the negativity of the 125,000 people who came to the expo and the shows, of the 640 booths who spent hundreds of millions of dollars pumping into the economy of Columbus, perhaps their largest event in the year.
Cake batter! That is funny. Beleive me, if I can have a cake batter with 40g of protein that tastes good, I would be eating cake all day long...
I only wish someone could have taken a picture of that person to see what they looked like...
-
I love these reporters who just come to the show to fault it. Obvously, she doesnt know jack about anything, but that is ok. Lets report on the negativity of the 125,000 people who came to the expo and the shows, of the 640 booths who spent hundreds of millions of dollars pumping into the economy of Columbus, perhaps their largest event in the year.
Cake batter! That is funny. Beleive me, if I can have a cake batter with 40g of protein that tastes good, I would be eating cake all day long...
I only wish someone could have taken a picture of that person to see what they looked like...
why would you want to id this idiot who works for a crummy newspaper with subscribers who cant freakin read
-
I only wish someone could have taken a picture of that person to see what they looked like...
that's your job ron
-
who the f**k is Bell-Wilson??? i swear if i saw that bitch at the expo.... i would have stabbed her 9 times
not before i shot that ho. always somebody overdosing on haterade. everybosy wants to look like a bodybuilder but they want to talk shit about it.
punk ass busters trick ass marks holla hop scally wags skeezers.
-
Garraeth has a point. I mean sure she's not being to respectful but honestly it's the majority of supp makers trying to rip us off us consumers that's really not fair. Besides Muscle Milk has what like 800 calories per serving. That doesn't seem to healthy to a layman
-
BELL-WILSON, JENNA AUTUMN
Unique name at OSU = bell-wilson.1
Email addresses:
Published address = bell-wilson.1@osu.edu
Address:
306 ATWELL HAL
453 W 10TH AVE
COLUMBUS, OH 43210
+1 614 292 0635
Appointment:
School Allied Med Prof
COLLEGE OF MEDICINE AND PUBLIC HEALTH
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR-CLINICAL
-
i dont take issue with anything she said. she's right as far as i'm concerned. get your bag of protein from costco and take that with milk after a workout. creatine works. and i take glutatmine but even recognize that might not do anything, could be psychosomatic. real food makes up the rest of the equation.
and other than aas, everything else is just pissing money away
-
Jeb Phillips is an 'Enterprise Reporter' for the Columbus Dispatch. Specifically, their Public Schools section. You can email him at jphillips@dispatch.com and ask him why he considers MuscleMilk ingredients to be a larger social issue than the recent poor performance of the GRANDVIEW HEIGHTS CITY school district, which is where his newspaper is located and majority of his readers live. Perhaps doing something in his role as education writer to stop the lagging literacy rates among his future reader base might be a brighter idea. Eh?
-
Mr Phillips,
Why do you consider the ingredients of some sports supplement to be the most pressing issue in today's society?
Also, ask Dr Jenna if cake mix provide 40 grams of protein, as MuscleMilk does. Clearly, you should have consulted with more than one biased professor before attacking a product by name in a public paper.
You are an embarrassment to the fine field of journalism, and I am encouraging my friends and fellow readers to contact your editors to express our displeasure with your article and irresponsible reporting. Thank you.
-
oooh, nice. the editor is listed too.
bmarrison@dispatch.com
-
well if youre going to all that trouble, make sure they know they mistakenly listed muscle milk at $18/lb instead of $18 for teh whole tub
-
If you agree that was responsible reporting, I encourage you to write the author & editor and let them know. However, if you find it to be irresponsible and a one-sided article, you should also write.
If nothing else, they'll think twice before using the ASC for news fodder, and report on something that matters. Or, if they do attend the Arnold Classic, they might do a fairer piece, for fear of reader backlash.
-
If you agree that was responsible reporting, I encourage you to write the author & editor and let them know. However, if you find it to be irresponsible and a one-sided article, you should also write.
If nothing else, they'll think twice before using the ASC for news fodder, and report on something that matters. Or, if they do attend the Arnold Classic, they might do a fairer piece, for fear of reader backlash.
240, why is the bodybuilding industry underwriting you if you cant even do your freakin job? you write the letters. you're the bodybuilding industry buttboy!
-
If this is the biggest scandal at the ASC this year, good & well. A couple years ago the feds were handing out subpeonas. Muscle Milk problems are preferable.
-
240, why is the bodybuilding industry underwriting you if you cant even do your freakin job? you write the letters. you're the bodybuilding industry buttboy!
I did :)
I am encouraging others to do the same.
-
I e-mailed him and he replied. Here's his response:
Thanks for writing. If by people like me, you mean local newspaper reporters, we are supposed to report on what is going on in our cities. The Arnold Sports Festival was going on in Columbus, so it's completely appropriate that I would write about it. And if by people like me you mean something else (people who don't regularly drink Muscle Milk, for example), then there would be no newpapers. Lawyers typically don't write stories from courts and officers don't write stories about the police, partially because they would bring their own biases to the stories. I have no bias about Muscle Milk or anything else that was at The Arnold. I don't take them and I haven't studied them. But the woman I followed around does study them. She has a doctorate. She lectures extensively. So I relied on her expertise. As for drinking cake batter and Muscle Milk for a few weeks, I imagine I would gain a whole lot of weight doing both.
Sincerely,
Jeb Phillips
-
Believe it or not....
Most supplements are over-priced placebos with some health promotion claim.
Arnold didn't drink muscle milk, Arnold didn't get big drinking Joe Weiders shakes, he had 2 scoops of ice cream with a cup of milk and an egg, he would mix it up.
Tom Prince swore off of Whey Protein, he would only consume whole foods.
Now acknowledging that most of this shit is crap, I still buy certain supplements that are worth while. I like No-Xplode because it gets me hyped up before a workout when I'm drowsy. I also buy CEE because it's inexpensive and it has good reviews, I haven't noticed a huge difference. Everything else can basically be gotten from food.
It's also humerous to read the guys comments on muscle milk, he basically went out of his way to emphasize as long as people *think* it helps... it helps. I wouldn't state that if I had full confidence in my product that could never be replaced with any other type of food... it probably is cake batter with a bunch of whey protein.
MRP = whey protein + sugar.
-
Adam Schretenthaler, who works in product development with Cytosport, the makers of Muscle Milk, said he would "completely disagree'' that his product is cake batter. "It's a blend of different milk proteins and whatnot,'' he said. "It's a very healthy product.'' He pointed to the line of people waiting to taste it, and the video of endorsements playing overhead, to help prove his point.
Ohh,I love the appeal to popularity fallacy...
The fact is...The govt's stance on food supplements and drugs is a complete failure and very ignorant and uninformed.
The govt should obviously decriminalize things like Anabolic steroids and also make it a LAW that any company selling any food supplement product have various peer reviewed scientific studies backing up the claims they make about them,Or else they should not be able to make them.
These supplements 99% of which completly useless..The companies should NOT be allowed to claim they build muscle or make you loose fat or anything like that unless it has been proven in numerous peer reviewed scientific studies.
They should PROVE they are safe,And if they aren't they should be forced to list the dangers associated with them on the package and they should PROVE they are effective, and if not..Should not be allowed to advertise they are.
-
It's "appeal to majority" I believe.. but same thing ;) ;D
-
Tom Prince swore off of Whey Protein, he would only consume whole foods.
That's an interesting fact. There an article out there about this? All kidding aside, TP does know nutrition.
-
It's "appeal to majority" I believe.. but same thing ;) ;D
Nah,"Majority" would be where most people believe a particular thing so it must be true. An appeal to popularity would be where the supplement is so popular(As he pointed out by the long line) that it MUST work.
Regardless it's fallacious reasoning either way you look at it.
Alot of gullible fools believing something doens't make it true. They advertise the hell out those supplements in the magazines obviously you're going to have alot of gullible monkeys waiting in line to get cake batter.
-
I appreciate the comments regarding the Dispatch article. The main focus of the article was to be a review of products and a discussion about whether the claims can be supported by research. As I read the postings, I see that many of you are concerned about the validity of product claims and realize that some supplements, don't always do what they are intended to do. That said, the article took a colorful twist with the mention of cake batter. I was surprised by the high fat content, especially with saturated fat...and was taken by the smell and taste...cake batter. Do I think the Muscle Milk is cake batter? NO. I am aware that cake batter has less protein and it does NOT contain creatine. Do I think it has a similar taste and smell? YES.
I think that Muscle Milk and products like it serve an important purpose--to provide a convenient and dense source of protein and carbohydrate in recovery (although I'd up the carbs a bit in some of them), and supply creatine for power output. I did not say that Muscle Milk was ill advised...my point was that it had a generous amount of fat, particularly saturated fat...and I was surprised that a historically fat conscious strength trained group would want that much fat in a serving. I also pointed out that supplements are not the only option; but the products are safe and an option for highly active people in recovery.
My final thought on the Arnold experience was that most of the individuals in attendence got where they were because of consistent exercise and adequate calories, carbs and protein to support it. I don't like that some of the supplements, particularly the pills, may not live up to their claims, hence be pricey placebos--that is not fair to the consumer. This statement, however, did NOT apply to Muscle Milk or protein supplements. Meal replacements, bars or shakes are useful for those requiring high amounts of calories and convenient sources of protein and carbs. There are real food options as well...
Don't drink cake batter...it contains raw eggs.
Jenna Bell-Wilson
-
I understand why some supplements get a bad reputation (Muscletech and their over the top marketing)
The reality is supplements are a great way to get a quick meal for those "too busy" to eat "right" I feel a packet of myoplex in between meals is a great way to maintain a constant level of energy, combat sugar cravings, help with mood stabilization, etc
I honestly believe the majority of Americans would benefit if they consumed supplements (MRP's, protein bars, etc) instead of Arbys, McDonalds, etc
I understand the ads in the magazines can leave a bad taste in some mouths, but I would argue against supplements having little to no value. Have the brains to recognize bullcrap. Believe it or not, there are industries where bullcrap is even more rampant (Namely financial services, mortgages, payday loans, the car business in general, etc) Or, how about infomercials promoting instant abdominals overnight by wearing a sauna belt?? Windsor pilates, Ab-Lounge, Dr Phils Diet book, where does it end?
I read that Columbus Dispatch article, and I thought it was a one sided, narrow minded viewpoint
-
Was there a Collaveeta Olive Oil stand at the arnold?
-
I don't see a problem with what they did. Hell more than half the shit the supp companies put out there is bullshit anyway. These guys have no connection with any of them so they can say what they feel and bascially the truth. They don't need to kiss ass. The only thing I see weird about it is they are basically bashing the #1 show that comes to that frozen hell on earth and the main reason the convention center was expanded. I am pretty sure the tourist industry isn't that town's #1 source of income. I am pretty sure that city does very well the weekend ofthe ASC. Why bash a cach cow for the city. But, they are right in their writing. And I love Muscle Milk and I love cake batter (cooked of course) so I love their report
-
BELL-WILSON, JENNA AUTUMN
Unique name at OSU = bell-wilson.1
Email addresses:
Published address = bell-wilson.1@osu.edu
Address:
306 ATWELL HAL
453 W 10TH AVE
COLUMBUS, OH 43210
+1 614 292 0635
Appointment:
School Allied Med Prof
COLLEGE OF MEDICINE AND PUBLIC HEALTH
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR-CLINICAL
email sent.... thanks 240