What Can We Learn From Apple Cider Vinegar

The main character is based on a real person, Belle Gibson, who quickly rose to fame and “influencer” status in 2013 at the age of 21 when she launched an app called The Whole Pantry. Her story of living with cancer while treating it holistically was wildly popular – and created a huge following, especially on Instagram.

The series shows Gibson enmeshed in a mostly one-sided relationship with another wellness influencer named Milla Blake, which was based on wellness influencer, Jessica Ainscough. The series follows the rise and fall of Gibson while she continued to make outlandish claims about her health and cancer.

Besides telling a sick and fascinating story of about 10 years in Gibson’s life in which she went from rising star (even being invited to Apple so that her app could be on the Apple Watch) to a woman on the run who could not own up to her own reality, there are some pretty powerful lessons we should all heed.

Lessons Learned From the Series

Mainstream Media is Behind the Curve. I look at health and wellness headlines daily and most of them are inane rather than helpful, such as “Eating Only Bananas for a Week Will Help You Lose 10 Pounds.” The media seems to like click-bait headlines and articles rather than focusing on real health issues. In Gibson’s case, the media loved her and both Elle Australia and Cosmopolitan featured her as a rising “female-power” star.

Beware of Frauds in the Influencer Culture. Not all influencers with massive followings are frauds, but I strongly urge you to look behind the façade of a pretty face or six-pack abs to see if the person is authentic or simply wearing a mask. For example, in the show, both wellness influencers are seen eating sugary and ultra-processed foods when under duress or behind the scenes. In front of the cameras, it is all coconut water and sprouts.

Profits Prevail Over People Way Too Often. Gibson promised that the majority of the fees for downloading her app would be donated to various charities, including supporting the funding of a massive bill for a young cancer patient. All that money seemed to disappear in a “cash-flow” problem of Gibson spending for herself on expensive vacations, vehicles, and more. In fact, the real Gibson still owes massive court fines in Australia.

Social Media Can be Addictive. We know one of the great dangers of social media is that it makes us dopamine junkies, anxiously awaiting the next dose of likes, loves, and positive comments. Once we are addicted, which happens pretty quickly, we need that fix – and often replace real human interaction for that fix. In Gibson’s story, when things got tough or uncomfortable, she would turn to a self-promoting post that she knew her followers would react to positively, giving her thousands of hearts and a huge dopamine hit to lift her spirits.

Mental Health Issues Affect Us All. Just because someone is in a “helping” space like wellness, psychedelics, or healing, does not mean they are mentally healthy or stable or truly into serving others. In fact, ego expansion alone is enough of a problem for people who rapidly achieve success, but in Gibson’s case, she invented a lie about having brain cancer (and later additional cancers) that turned into her reality. Even when confronted countless times about the lie, she maintained she had been diagnosed and treated for cancer.

Beware the Wellness Industry. I follow many wellness influencers on social media platforms, and some of the snake oil and bizarre strategies they promote have me very concerned about the unfortunate people who buy into their schemes. Health and wellness is a huge market worldwide, estimated at almost $7 trillion in 2024 and expected to be near $9 trillion in the next three years as the aging population seeks ways to resist the inevitable.

Holistic Health Scares Some. I am a firm believer that chemotherapy was the worst medical procedure ever developed, basically poisoning the entire body and ruining the immune system in an attempt to kill all the cancer – and yet the theme of the series is that holistic measures are “silly” and “useless” for cancer patients. Medications have their place in extreme circumstances, but there’s a growing body of evidence that shows that nutrition and lifestyle can play a major role in overall health and keeping cancer at bay.

Apple Cider Vinegar is Healthy. The series makes light of Gibson’s claim that she healed herself from tapeworms by guzzling apple cider vinegar (ACV). And while ACV may not be a cure for tapeworms, it does have many beneficial qualities, including antimicrobial and antioxidant effects, as well as helping lower blood sugar, supporting heart health, aiding in weight loss by how the gut bacteria processes fats. Add it as a staple in your pantry. I don’t drink it (though many experts recommend it), but I do add it to some of my recipes.

Final Thoughts on Protecting Yourself

I strongly encourage you to always conduct your own research, whether it’s something discussed on Rogan or Huberman or something I post. We’re all human and can make innocent errors, but as soon as I see a wellness guru start selling their own line of products or hosting expensive retreats, I go deeper into the research to see if they are doing things correctly or simply lining their wallets with cash. Please always conduct your due diligence because you only have this one life.

There’s a limited series on Netflix about two young, female Australian wellness influencers who both supposedly had cancer and cured it naturally – all while racking up followers and money from the items they sold to naive customers. The fictional series is titled Apple Cider Vinegar and based on the book, The Woman Who Failed the World.