Pills Pills Pills

If one more person says the word Berocca to me, I might punch them in the face. My flatmate asked me to pick some up for her on my way home from the shops. Do you know how much they cost? £5. £5! Even she was shocked and she was the one who had asked for them!

According to their website, Berocca is a 'healthy' way to get more vitamins (namely Vitamins B, C, Magnesium and Zinc).You know what I think they are? I think they're fizzy tablets that are being marketed at extortionate prices, because the sale of protein shakes has declined in the past few years because people realised they could just get up and go to the frickin' gym. Just like people will realise that eating oranges (roughly £negligible) will give them the same, non-essential benefits as taking a factory formulated, chemical rich tablet. By the way, don't get excited by anything that says it contains guarana, it's just a fancy word for caffeine. And people go ooon and ooon about the benefits. Look, take it if you want to, but do NOT try and push this obsession on me. I barely have enough money for 9p Tesco noodles and you want me to spend that money on vitamin supplements? Get out.

And it's not just Berocca (and not just pills). It's like the government unconsciously OK'd the marketing of natural products when they started telling us to get our '5-a-day' and drink 10 gallons of water an hour. Even Women's World questions the credibility and necessity of the '5-a-day', admitting that there are other, and possibly better ways, to stay healthy - bearing in mind this is one of those websites that is probably specifically designed to make women worry about their looks and spend more money (look, it was either this site or the Daily Mail - we both know which one's more credible).

Where did this obsession with popping non-recreation pills come from anyway? I mean, I like to take a vitamin C tablet every now and again, but that's because they're chewy and yummy and I had some left over from the 90's. Do you think people were thinking about these sorts of things 50 years ago? Even 10-20 years ago? And most of those people are still alive! Look at the Japanese and Chinese for goodness sake - they do a lot of weird'ish over there, but for all the crazy sea urchin delicacies I see advertised, I've never heard of a mass campaign for magnesium tablets. When I see my family, they ask you 'Are you eating?' and if you are, that's pretty much good enough for them and the entire bloody village. These aren't even essential vitamins - fair enough if you've got an iron deficiency or you're anaemic or something, but your body can't even retain vitamin C and as for vitamin D, do you even know what it's for? What is the likelihood you're going to get scurvy in this day and age* (when not out at sea on a 17th century warship that is). 

So, in summary, and link this whole rant back to how I think Berocca's stupid, here's a list of 10 things I could have spent those £5s on:

1. 2 drinks on a night out
2. Half a week's shopping (actually essential)
3. A second-hand video game for any console made before 2008
4. lunch
5. 2 hot drinks
6. 2 non-oyster card journeys on London buses/ one non-return from East-West/North-South London (Terms & Conditions apply)
7. A variety pack of something unhealthy and the quintessential opposite of Berocca (which Berocca consumers probably do anyway)
8. A BASKET OF FRUIT (you see where I'm going with this)
9. Someone's début album (support the industry, hate piracy....)
10. The ingredients to make a Beef and Carrot stew with rice, with a side rocket and spinach salad and a vinegar-based dressing.

Think about it people.

P.S. There's a new 'Mixed Berries flavour' out now. Consumerism FTW.

*P.P.S Apparently rickets (caused by vitamin D deficiency) and scurvy are on the rise http://www.nhs.uk/news/2010/01January/Pages/Rickets-on-the-rise.aspx) - but again, that's due to poor diet and lack of exercise, both of which I promote over the taking of vitamin supplements!