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HOODIA IN
THE MEDIA
The Bushmen of
the Kalahari may have known about Hoodia
for thousands of years, but only in the
most recent times has it become familiar
to those outside of that notorious
desert. At first knowledge of this prized
plant only seeped into the global
consciousness, but growing media interest
quickened the pace of the revelations
resulting in Hoodia and its appetite
suppressing effect now being renowned all
over the world.
The BBC were one
of the first major news organisations to
report on the Hoodia phenomenon,
featuring the Kalahari's now-famous plant
in an edition of Correspondent,
a news and current affairs programme
focusing on reports from around the world.
The edition in question was entitled
"The Anti-Fat Pill and the
Bushmen" and was broadcast on BBC2
on Sunday 1 June 2003.
In the
making of this programme, the BBC's
Correspondent reporter Tom Mangold
travelled to the Kalahari and sampled the
appetite suppressing Hoodia plant for
himself. This is his experience of
encountering Hoodia in his own words:
"In order to see
for ourselves, we drove into the desert,
four hours north of Capetown in search of
the cactus. Once there, we found an
unattractive plant which sprouts about 10
tentacles, and is the size of a long
cucumber. Each tentacle is covered in
spikes which need to be carefully peeled.
Inside is a slightly unpleasant-tasting,
fleshy plant. At about 1800hrs I ate
about half a banana size - and later so
did my cameraman. Soon after, we began
the four hour drive back to Capetown. The
plant is said to have a feel-good almost
aphrodisiac quality, and I have to say,
we felt good. But more significantly, we
did not even think about food. Our brains
really were telling us we were full. It
was a magnificent deception. Dinner time
came and went. We reached our hotel at
about midnight and went to bed without
food. And the next day, neither of us
wanted nor ate breakfast. I ate lunch but
without appetite and very little
pleasure. Partial then full appetite
returned slowly after 24 hours."
More recently, Hoodia was
featured on the CBS programme 60
Minutes, the No. 1 rated news
magazine in the US, a programme which has
been running since 1968, and which is
arguably the most successful programme in
US television history. In an edition
broadcast on Sunday 21 November 2004, a 60
Minutes correspondent, Lesley Stahl,
ventured out into the desert looking to
find some Hoodia, guided by a Kalahari
native by the name of Toppies Kruiper. This is
the 60 Minutes programme's own
summary of what happened:
"Kruiper
led 60 Minutes crews out into the
desert. Stahl asked him if he ate hoodia.
"I really like to eat them when the
new rains have come," says Kruiper,
speaking through the interpreter.
"Then they're really quite
delicious." When we located the
plant, Kruiper cut off a stalk that
looked like a small spiky pickle, and
removed the sharp spines. In the interest
of science, Stahl ate it. She described
the taste as "a little cucumbery in
texture, but not bad." So how did it
work? Stahl says she had no after effects
– no funny taste in her mouth, no
queasy stomach, and no racing heart. She
also wasn't hungry all day, even when she
would normally have a pang around
mealtime. And, she also had no desire to
eat or drink the entire day. "I'd
have to say it did work," says
Stahl.
The 60
Minutes programme also reminds us
that "although the West is just
discovering Hoodia, the Bushmen of the
Kalahari have been eating it for a very
long time. After all, they have been
living off the land in southern Africa
for more than 100,000 years."
References:
BBC
Correspondent: Hoodia Gordonii -
Sampling the Kalahari Cactus Diet
CBS 60
Minutes: Hoodia Gordonii -
African Plant May Help Fight Fat
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