Hello, I'm Monica Reinagle.

Welcome to the Nutrition Diva Podcast.

People sure do love to share nutrition information on social media.

Unfortunately, a lot of what I see going by in my news feed is completely inaccurate or at least misleading and I do

what I can to set the record straight. No, Margarine was not originally invented as a way to

fatten up turkeys and no it didn't end up killing them.

No, you can't tell the gender of a green pepper by counting its lobes.

No, a clear parasite was not found in a bottle of Dasani

filtered water. And fortunately there is no evidence that anyone has been

injecting poison into bottled water either. Some of these crazy stories create unnecessary

worry among consumers. Some do serious financial damage to innocent companies. Others may appear relatively harmless. After all, who

gets hurt counting the lobes on green peppers? Well, maybe we all do.

There is a lot of unfiltered and unvetted information streaming at us,

and not just about nutrition.

Our willingness to believe and share information without considering its credibility or source

can do a lot of damage.

And this is why I run the risk of irritating my friends and family with my compulsive fact-checking.

Even if it's a bit embarrassing, realizing that we've been taken in might make us just a bit more skeptical when the next

sensational story hits our feed. Frequently a quick search on Snopes.com is all it

takes to put something down as a hoax. But Snopes could not help

me in a recent exchange with a friend who reposted a whimsical little video extolling the health benefits of dates.

Dates are the world's number one food against heart attacks, strokes, and cholesterol, the video claimed.

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