Prize draws and competitions

Oh My Lord, how gullible can you be? $35 for a bottle of Mangosteen juice!
I don't understand why I hadn't thought of writing this earlier.
I went to lunch several weeks back to catch up with an old friend that had been traveling around Asia. During the course of the lunch we were talking about his trip and the many wild and beautiful things he discovered, then he opens his bag and pulls out a bottle of Mangosteen juice that he had just bought in a nutrition shop. $35 Buck!
Unbelievable! He was pitched this amazing miracle health juice buy a tourist in South east Asia he had met, not being able to import food, he found a nutrition shop which sold Mangosteen juice. He is now on a bottle every three days @$35 a bottle.... seriously he make too much money.
Now we all know and if we don't we should, when it is too good to be true = IT IS.
So I did a bit of research:
Mangosteen is indeed a South East Asian fruit. Other than it was loved by Queen Victoria who paid a bundle of gold bullion for it, it has no greater nutritional value than say apple juice, if that. Yet I found it on the web for over $45! if people buy Mangosteen juice well... you know... its crazy.
If at the most it was used by Aborigines, Indians, Tribesmen, ancestral witch doctors or something of the sort... then maybe I would say there is something in it. After all, 80% of drug patents are derived from molecules found in plant life in rain forests, so, fair enough.
But not even the locals drink Mangosteen juice, other than kids perhaps that pick the fruit coming outta school and starving homeless people.
There is no scientific research or medical studies that back up the claims for any of the 200 million benefits companies trumpet that Mangosteen juice provides. Now if mangosteen sellers charged the same price for a liter of mangosteen juice as for a bottle of Evian mineral water it would be different, or even the price of a bottle of water from Fidji, (yes there is such a thing... don't get me started on mineral water from Fidji...). But seriously who follows this kind of advice, especially from some sundrenshed tomato red, sandle wearing, white socks wearing tourist?

At the end of that lunch, I swore that if I squinted my eyes and tilted my head to the left just like so... it looked like he had the word "Sucker" tattooed on his forehead.


Who is on a Mangosteen purification diet /treatment /experiment? Why do I bother asking? After the above, I doubt anyone has the courage to step to the comment plate.