What's the deal with these detoxing food pads?

March 7, 2006 12:07 AM

What's the deal with Koyotakara detox foot pads? I saw a picture of these after being used, and got intrigued. What is really going on?

Has anybody tried these and documented it, or do any MeFites have personal experience? How could this work? How can you tell there are "toxins" absorbed? It says there is wood vinegar in the pads, would that react with the heat and moisture from your feet to make it look like this?

Supposedly, the color changes after continued use and can vary for different people. But the pads cost so damn much and I can't find any reputable discussion of them that I want to know just how sketchy this is.

posted by kyleg to health & fitness (9 comments total)

I don't believe it for a minute.
1) Why would the toxins be brown?
2) Why are the feet not also brown - the toxins would have been drawn to the surface of the skin too? All the toxins seem to be in the pad
3) Wouldn't it be a bad idea to concentrate all your toxins in your feet if it did work?

This forum has some debunking.
posted by edd at 12:21 AM on March 7, 2006

Beware health remedies that talk about vague "toxins." Usually a scam and/or a well-meaning but confused product. As this seems to be.
posted by teece at 12:23 AM on March 7, 2006

That was a repulsive picture. And I'll bet anything it's a giant scam. Reminds me of ear candles.
posted by cilantro at 12:30 AM on March 7, 2006

Scam. Scam. SCAM. Scam.

Koyotakara - Easy Nite Detox is processed wood vinegar and natural resource extracts which are made into sachets using advanced technology used for detoxification. The main active ingredients are:

Tourmaline
Chitosan
Wood Vinegar
Pure Silicate

Advanced materials, my ass. Tourmaline is sand. Chitosan is sugar. Wood vinegar is just vinegar and alcohol. Pure silicate is just sand, too.

You don't have to put this on your foot for it to turn brown -- it'll do it just by being exposed to air.
posted by frogan at 12:55 AM on March 7, 2006

My mother had actually bought a box of these a couple years ago -- at the time I had never heard of them and never bothered to look into it. But anyway she let me stick a pair to the bottom of my feet one night just to try; neither of us were afflicted by anything terrible, she had just wanted to try them out.

Of course in the morning the packet had turned into a gooey brown mess on the bottom of my feet. I don't recall feeling better afterwards, but as I said I wasn't in bad health to begin with.

My mom tried sticking one to her knee one night just to see if the packet would just "work" anywhere and strangely enough the packet didn't turn brown or sticky after the night.

Sadly we ran out of the packets soon afterwards and were unable to conduct anymore experiments with them.
posted by zippity at 5:08 AM on March 7, 2006

frogan: "Advanced materials, my ass. . . Chitosan is sugar. "

Yes, but it's sugar made from bug shells. Mmmm... bug shells.
posted by ewagoner at 5:42 AM on March 7, 2006

Zippity: The materials in the packet react to moisture such as that in sweat. It's likely that your mom didn't sweat from her knee but did sweat from the bottom of her foot.

No experiments needed. It's just sand, vinegar, and sugar.
posted by Justinian at 6:00 AM on March 7, 2006

"To translate what the above link tells you, it is basically vinegar (acetic acid) and wood alcohol (methanol), with some other garbage thrown in. The reason the teabag changes color is a reaction of sweat to the pyroligenous acid and whatever else happens to be in these magical teabags."

-from edd's link above
posted by OmieWise at 6:12 AM on March 7, 2006

If you have toxic feet try Dr Scholls. Cutting down on the booze will help even more.
posted by Good Brain at 9:41 AM on March 7, 2006