Sorry I went MIA for a minute–my internet is down, and I’m on dial-up!   I have lots of great tips of other newsletters to track down and evaluate.   Some I was getting, some I want to, and others were new to me.   So I’ll do a Part II on this later.

These are some of the big names out there of people selling you information about health and wellness, with my unvarnished opinions.   Hopefully I won’t make too many enemies as I tell you EXACTLY what my opinion is of the strengths and weaknesses  of each of these.

Mercola.com, Joe Mercola’s report.   He’s so commercial, he’ll shamelessly sell just about anything, including an obscenely expensive tanning appliance that hangs on the back of your closet door.   He takes wild stances on a variety of things without really doing his homework, locks in on one variable without considering a variety of other variables.   He promotes whey proteins, and he should know better but ignores the biggest study in nutrition history (the Oxford/Cornell China Project) because he makes big money selling the stuff.   He was selling this blood-type eating program he authored that is just purely bogus.     He’s against all grains because of gluten, and now he’s against fruit because of the natural sugars in them.   Please!   These are two huge classes of whole foods that shouldn’t be dismissed.   To do so is irresponsible, especially for somebody with a mailing list in the 7 figures whom people depend on.   That said, his staff writers do some good stories on real issues in alternative health, and he does some good little informational videos on many topics, if you’re visual.

Dr. Ben Kim.   Keep in mind he’s a chiropractor, not a medical doctor.   But I really like this guy.   His free newsletters are simply and very well written, he practices as well as teaches excellent nutritional principles, and his site is great.   Once in a while I see things I don’t like–advocating for fish oil supplementation, for instance, and saying that white rice is good food for babies and people with digestive tract issues, not differentiating for his readers between the nutrients in white rice that are synthetic and whole-food, natural nutrients.   But 99 percent of his information is excellent.   He is also peddling the nutritional supplements.   But he knows good products to offer, at least–goji berries, raw cacao nibs, a product similar to VitaMineral Green.

Jean Carper.   She has too many staff writers, and I think she’s doddering off into old age.   She hawks vitamins relentlessly, lowest-common denominator, mainstream stuff.   She has quite a few recipes, but they are, again, very mainstream: not very plant-based.   She does a good job of surveying the latest published research coming out in nutrition.  

NaturalNews by the Health Ranger, Mike Adams.   He writes good stuff, sometimes a little over-the-top inflammatory and hyped up, and he sometimes goes off on crazy tangents predicting the end of the American financial system and weird stuff like that.   I wish he’s stick to health and wellness.   But he’s a good muckraker and does good product reviews.

Blaylock Wellness Report by surgeon and nutrition expert Dr. Russell M. Blaylock, about toxins in our food supply, and how to avoid them.   You have to pay to subscribe.

David G. Williams “Alternatives” newsletter.   My mom loves this guy, once subscribed me to his newsletter for a year.   I like his reviews of little studies all over the world on alternative treatments for a variety of ailments.   If you get on his mailing list, he’ll perpetually bombard you with vitamin-selling emails.   But once he suggested making your own anti-skin cancer crème when he couldn’t find anything to recommend based on the research he was writing about, and not only was one of the ingredients a toxic chemical, but I made the stuff and it was completely unusable.   I had $30 worth of stuff and had to dump it all.   He clearly does not test everything he suggests.

Jonathan Wright, M.D.’s “Nutrition and Healing” Newsletter.   Once again, a very commercial guy who sells supplements and promotes things I dig deeper on, like fish-oil supplements and fish eating in general.   And you pay about $50/year for his newsletter.   But he’s credentialed from Harvard, he’s very knowledgeable and experienced, and he’s doing a great service spreading the word about prevention and diet’s role in America’s rapid descent into disease hell.   He’s also a great watchdog on the FDA, helps you understand fully how that regulatory body isn’t going to protect you from anything much.

DrFuhrman.com report.   I’m a big fan of Joel Fuhrman.   He, too, is exceedingly commercial.   You pay for his newsletters, and his programs are nonrefundable.   My complaints about his program are the vitamin sales, the high use of soy products, the lack of focus on RAW plant foods (even has some strange beliefs about not needing enzymes), and of course the preoccupation with “low fat.”   But overall, he’s a fantastic advocate of whole plant foods.   My 12 Steps program is better and much more pure, but he knows his stuff and dares to use his M.D. status to do the right thing, and I respect and honor that.

Tomorrow, the gurus in the RAW FOOD MOVEMENT.