By Michael J. Critelli | MakeUsWell Newsletter, 

One of the more revealing food trends of the moment is not a new snack, diet, supplement, or restaurant concept. It is a beverage trend: taking drinks that are already sweet and adding even more sugar, cream, syrups, fruit purées, coconut cream, energy drinks, and other dessert-like ingredients.

The Wall Street Journal recently reported on the rise of “dirty soda,” a trend that began with customized sodas and has spread through social media, influencers, celebrities, and fast-growing beverage chains. The basic idea is simple: start with soda, lemonade, an energy drink, or another sweet beverage, and then add flavored syrups, cream, fruit, or candy-like flavor combinations. The result is marketed as fun, personalized, indulgent, and visually appealing.

That is exactly why the trend matters.

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By Michael J. Critelli | MakeUsWell Newsletter, 

We are living in a world in which nutrition guidance has never been more available or more dangerous.

For years, social media has been filled with exaggerated claims about foods, beverages, vitamins, and supplements that supposedly “cure” difficult medical conditions. Artificial intelligence now makes those claims look and sound more believable. Deepfake videos, once difficult and expensive to create, can now be produced quickly, cheaply, and convincingly by many more people.

People dealing with frightening or hard-to-treat conditions are understandably vulnerable. When someone is in pain, losing sleep, frightened about cognitive decline, struggling with a chronic condition, or frustrated by conventional medical care, they may try almost anything. A persuasive video featuring a trusted celebrity, physician, or news anchor can become a powerful sales tool for a questionable remedy.

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By Michael J. Critelli | MakeUsWell Newsletter, 

When a company brings a new product to market, it is natural to talk first about the technology, the features, or the problem it is trying to solve. All of that matters. 

Our more important starting point here is how we are taking care before we ask people to use the product.

The purpose of our food intelligence product

At MoveFlux, we are preparing to beta test our AI-supported food intelligence product. It is designed to help people make smarter food decisions and gain better real-life insights at home, in grocery stores, in restaurants, while traveling, and in the everyday moments when food choices are made quickly and often with incomplete information.

Food is not just another consumer category. It touches health, family, culture, stress, sleep, work schedules, budgets, medications, allergies, and sometimes serious medical risks. A product that helps people think about food choices has to be useful, but it also has to be careful about what it claims, what it asks users to share, how it uses that information, and how clearly it explains its limits.

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By MakeUsWell | MakeUsWell Newsletter, 

Hi MakeUsWell Community!

Your network — our network — has cool, smart people with real range.

One such person is the talented Sean Brawley.

Sean grew up in the unforgiving, Hunger Games–like world of junior tennis — rankings shifting constantly, relentless travel, discipline early and real. He became a Top 10 nationally ranked junior and won the U.S. Boys’ 16 Doubles title.

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By Michael J. Critelli | MakeUsWell Newsletter, 

Within the next two weeks, we will begin inviting some of you to use our new food intelligence product. Over the past several months, we have been exploring a deceptively simple question: why is it so hard for people to know whether the foods and beverages they consume are actually helping them?

The answer is that nutrition is not one decision. It is a chain of decisions, conditions, and uncertainties. A food or beverage does not have a single fixed value for every person in every circumstance. Its effect depends on where it came from, how it was grown or produced, how it traveled, how it was stored, how it was prepared, what else we consumed with it, and what was happening inside our bodies and minds at the moment we ate or drank it.

There are thousands of nutrition apps, food-rating systems, calorie counters, ingredient scanners, and diet programs. Many are useful. But the next generation of food intelligence must be more ambitious, combining artificial intelligence with human judgment, personal memory, and disciplined evidence review.

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