The Bee Pollen Myth

The Goji Berry contains 18 amino acids, (six times higher than bee pollen).

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How many times have you seen this on Goji websites? What an interesting little obfuscation of the facts. This statement presents at least two distinct questions. Do they (Who are ‘THEY’ anyway?) mean that if Goji has18 amino acids then pollen has only 3 amino acids? Or do they mean that the quantity by weight or volume of these acids is 600% of the given weight or volume of the same 18 amino acids in an equal amount of bee pollen? So far this is not rocket science and yet many thousands of well intentioned (hopefully)people simply repeat this type of nonsense without ever giving it a second look.

The truth is very simple. Bee Pollen has more amino acids by type and also by weight than Goji. When you consider what pollen actually is then it becomes much more obvious. Pollen that is collected by bees is actually the sperm cells of male flowers. Each micro-granule of pollen is nearly invisible because it is so small. As pollen is collected by the bees it accumulates into ‘grains’ which are about 2 mm in diameter when you buy them.

The Bovis Myth

This one took a bit longer to research so please bear with me. The first time that I ever saw a Goji berry it came complete with the Bovis myth firmly attached. I pride myself on being a pretty sharp guy and I know that I do considerably more research than most people, therefore it was quite a surprise that I did not know about the Bovis scale. That was five years ago and I still can’t find the original scientific study that determined the number 355,000 for Goji that was measured by a ‘Bovis expert’.

Every item I can find simply quotes this as a fact and there is no reference material cited. What I did find was a nice colour brochure offered at my health food store selling Genesis Today™ brand of Goji juice. On page 7 we find in the right hand column the following statement, “Goji juice shows a reading of 355,000…the highest reading that many health professionals have ever reported receiving. This brochure can be viewed online here: Goji Healing Booklet . Genesis Today is owned by Lindsey Duncan ND, CN who is apparently a well respected individual.

The Vitamin C Myth

All over the internet you see people raving about Goji berries having the highest Vitamin C content on earth. That is pure nonsense. As far as I know the Acerola cherry has the highest concentration of Vitamin C of all the fruits. It is ridiculous to see the misquoted figures on the websites and product labels of what we thought were reputable companies.

Tibetan Goji Myth

Scientifically, Goji is actually Chinese Wolfberry bearing the botanical name Lycium barbarum.Traditionally the finest quality comes from Zhongning County in Ningxia Province. This is in the floodplain of the Yellow River which has the most highly mineralized soil in the world. The first westerner to import Ningxia Wolfberry into the USA was Dr. Gary Young. In his book, ‘Discovery of the Ultimate Superfood’, Dr. Young talks about this Tibetan story at length.

Richard Zhang who co-wrote an excellent wolfberry book with Dr. Paul Gross is the owner of a Wolfberry farm in China. He went to Tibet in search of the Tibetan berry and came home convinced that it was a fabrication with no basis in fact.

A gentleman by the name of Simon Parry who writes for the South China MorningPost has also gone to Tibet at the invitation of a Mr. Antony Jacobson. Mr.Jacobson is the president of a company named ‘Tibet Authentic’, which claims to be the only real source of so called Tibetan Goji. Unfortunately Mr. Parry was unable to see the supposed Goji fields after being led on a wild ride throughthe mountains for 12 hours.