Don’t Believe Anything This Bot Says About Maternity Nutrition
I saw the promoted tweet last night. “Are you waiting? Questions about food? @CanIEatThisBot has advice from the FDA and the Mayo Clinic. ” But when I started asking questions, things got weird. Spoiler: This is a lie.
First, I asked him about deli meats that can tolerate Listeria, so pregnant women are advised to stay away if not cooked. Bot said this, but then added that you should also avoid deli meats unless they are “nitrite or nitrate free.”
What to expect? There is no particular concern about nitrite or nitrate during pregnancy. (They probably work for everyone else as well .) What else is this bot telling people?
It turns out a lot of rubbish. It states that eggplant “contains high levels of phytohormones that can stimulate menstruation when consumed daily.” This is not a thing . And when I asked him about mushrooms, he said to me: “Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa Also not a thing .
The bot cited an FDA page on fruits and vegetables that doesn’t mention eggplant. And that didn’t provide a source at all for the mushroom factoid. I reached out to Registered Dietitian Tory Armoul, author of Bun Appetite : A Simple Guide to Eating Well During Pregnancy , who confirmed that there is nothing wrong with eating eggplant or mushrooms while pregnant. (She has heard these myths before, though.)
So I asked the bot maker , reply.ai , what their sources really are. Co-founder Clara de Soto responded with a list that included the FDA, the Mayo Clinic, and now Parents.com. (Fun fact: the bot’s response to the question “Can I eat brie?” Quotes an article on Parents.com, but it draws the wrong conclusion.)
I asked about the eggplant and mushroom trash (more neutral) and de Soto admitted that they used MomJunction, an Indian parenting website, for those “more specific products.” MomJunction does not cite any sources, and the articles themselves are a mess; the one on eggplant is actually titled “ 7 Health Benefits of Eating Eggplant During Pregnancy” and says it prevents birth defects but has a “side effect” of miscarriage.
Just stop.
Do not rely on this bot’s advice while pregnant. He wants you to ask him about oysters, but does not mention that the actual FDA claims raw oysters are dangerous. He gives a dismissive and useless answer when you ask him about beer or wine. In short, he does his job very poorly.
So why would anyone build a bot to educate pregnant women about nutrition and feed that bot with useless information that has no source? Why don’t you at least run it with a nutritionist or some knowledgeable health professional? Why do you claim to receive information from the FDA and then say the exact opposite of what the FDA says?
“We’re a tech company, not pregnancy experts,” de Soto told me over the phone. She confirmed that no medical professionals were involved in creating the bot, although the co-founder’s doctor advised her not to eat eggplants. They also didn’t come up with any guidelines as to what counts as an authoritative source and felt that something would be fair if it appeared on multiple websites on Google searches. After I raised concerns about accuracy, de Soto said she would ask the team to attach a disclaimer to the eggplant response.
Basically, this is just a Mother’s Day themed trick to advertise the reply.ai bot creation service. Here’s what the press kit says:
Our incentive for building a bot is that we still see a large gap between consumers in understanding what bots are, how to use them and how to benefit from them (for example, my dad still believes that bots are the reason that Hamilton tickets are so expensive.!). We believe that using such a useful knowledge base helps fill this gap.
A way to use pregnant women in their zeal to sell bots is reply.ai. Do you think it’s okay to create a customer service bot that tells people the opposite of what is company policy? Probably not, because money will be at stake, and not something unimportant, for example, human health, right?
I’m just going to be here counting all the ways companies prey on parental (and especially women) insecurity about their kids in order to make a quick buck.
PS. Here are the real answers pregnant women want when they ask, “Can I eat this?” Perhaps you could even create a bot that tells everything about them.
Update from 05/15 at 10:00 AM : Somewhere on Sunday (Mother’s Day!) Two days after this article was published, the bot stopped answering food questions. Instead, it now says, “We are currently updating our database to make sure all responses are safe and accurate.” Let’s hope they do the right thing.
Update 28.06 . The bot still doesn’t work. I think they forgot about it. At least until next Mother’s Day?