Happy Sunday! This week: a $25 jar that's mostly water, a berry that actually earned its reputation, and the breakfast packet you're overpaying for.
🧠 Brain Food
Weekly trivia
Which of these has the most vitamin C per gram?
A. Orange
B. Kiwi
C. Strawberry
D. Blueberry
The answer is at the bottom of this email.
🖋️ From Flora’s Desk
This week’s deep dive
Sea moss gel is having a moment. $25 for a jar of what is, texturally, gelatinous seawater, sold on the claim that it contains 92 of the minerals your body needs.
That number is their whole pitch. But your body needs roughly 20 dietary minerals. There is no list of 92. The figure comes from lab analyses picking up trace amounts of most naturally occurring elements, which is also true of seawater and of dirt. Sensitive enough equipment finds rubidium in a strawberry. “Contains 92 minerals” isn't a nutrition claim. It's a sentence about the lab equipment.
What sea moss does contain is iodine, and that part is worth taking seriously, because it works in the opposite direction from the marketing. Iodine is essential, but the adult upper limit is 1,100 micrograms a day, and too much can push a thyroid into either underactivity or overactivity, especially in people who already have a thyroid condition. Sea moss iodine varies sharply by species, harvest location, and preparation, and almost no jar tells you how much is in it. So a product sold for “thyroid support” is one of the few things in the aisle that could plausibly disrupt your thyroid, and you have no way to know your dose.
Flora’s Take: Most things I write about only cost you money. This one can cost you more than that, so if you take thyroid medication, talk to your doctor first.
🔍 Flora’s Featured Food
One food, one score
Raspberries. The rare thing in the produce section with a health reputation it didn't have to buy.
The case for: The fiber is the story. A cup of raspberries carries about 8 grams of fiber against only 5 grams of sugar, which is close to the best ratio of any common fruit. Most fruits run that math in reverse. That fiber slows the sugar down, feeds your gut, and fills you up in a way that fruit rarely does. There's real vitamin C in there too, about a third of your day per cup, and it manages all of this at roughly 65 calories.
The case against: The price of the fresh ones, and the clock. Fresh raspberries run $4 to $6 for a small clamshell, and they mold faster than nearly anything else in the store, so a fair share of that money ends up in the trash. They're also mostly water and air by weight, so nobody's getting full on raspberries alone. None of this is the berry's fault, but it's your grocery bill either way.
The verdict: Everything the health aisle pretends its products are, sitting quietly in the produce section. Buy the big frozen bag and the flaws disappear too: same fiber, a fraction of the price, and it can't rot.
🔄 Swap This
Upgrade what you already eat
Worse: Flavored instant oatmeal packets. A maple-and-brown-sugar packet runs about 12 grams of sugar, and you're paying roughly three times per serving for the privilege of someone else deciding how sweet your breakfast is.
Better: Plain rolled oats, frozen berries, and a teaspoon of real maple syrup if you want it. More fiber, about a third of the sugar, and five minutes on the stove.
🧠 This week’s answer: Kiwi. About 93 mg of vitamin C per 100g, nearly double an orange’s 53. Blueberries only have 10.