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What would you think is in a product called Vitaminwater? You’d probably guess water, and vitamins. Right? Not so fast:
“For too long, Coca-Cola has been exploiting Americans’ desire to eat and drink more healthfully by deceiving them into thinking that vitaminwater can actually prevent disease,” said CSPI litigation director Steve Gardner. “In fact, vitaminwater is no more than non-carbonated soda, providing unnecessary added sugar and contributing to weight gain, obesity, diabetes, and other diseases.”
First off, let me say that CSPI [Center for Science in the Public Interest] is not one of my favorite references. They are a special-interest group that routinely pushes a vegan and vegetarian agenda, distorting or ignoring evidence in favor of the health benefits of eating animal products. (Oh boy, going to get some hate mail for saying that.)
But in this case they’re right. Like they say, even a blind squirrel occasionally finds a nut. And the nut here is that vitaminwater isn’t any better for you than a can of Coke:
It’s important to keep in mind that Glacéau has listed one bottle of Vitaminwater as 2.5 servings. That means you would have to drink less than half a bottle to get what the numbers on the back say. If you drink the whole bottle, though — which will probably be the case, since the bottles are fairly small — you have to multiply each number by 2.5. Right away the packaging appears to be misleading.
Here are the nutrition facts and ingredients from a bottle of “charge” Vitaminwater:
Nutrition Facts:
- Calories: 50
- Total fat: 0g
- Sodium: 0mg
- Potassium: 60mg
- Total carbohydrates: 13g
- Sugar: 13g
- Protein: 0g
- Vitamin C: 40%, Vitamin B3: 20%, Vitamin B6: 20%, Vitamin B12: 20%, Vitamin B5: 20%
- Potassium: 150mg per bottle
Ingredients: vapor distilled/deionized water, crystalline fructose, citric acid, vegetable juice (color), natural flavor, ascorbic acid (vitamin C), vitamin E acetate, magnesium lactate (elecrolyte), calcium lactate (electrolyte), zinc picolinate, monopotassium phosphate (electrolyte), niacin (B3), pantothenic acid (B5), pyridoxine hydrochloride (B6), cyanocobalamine (B12)
The big red flag here is the amount of sugar. There are 13 grams of sugar in one serving, so an entire bottle contains about 32.5 grams of sugar. For the sake of comparison, a can of Coca-Cola Classic contains about 39 grams of sugar.
But they added vitamins, didn’t they? Well … sort of:
Now, let’s take a good look at the “vitamins” that are in this “nutrient enhanced beverage” of kiwi-strawberry vitamin water. According to the label, each serving contains 10% of your daily requirements for Vitamins A, B3, B6, B12, and B5 and a hefty 40% of your daily allowance of Vitamin C. The problem is that these “vitamins” are not attached to any whole food like strawberries or kiwis.
Remember, those whole foods were missing from the ingredients. Therefore, the live enzymes needed to help your body absorb the vitamins into your cells are not there. It is a nutrition fact that whole foods like fruits and vegetables contain live enzymes, which act as catalysts for vitamins and minerals to work in your cells. Without those whole food properties, isolated vitamins are not easily absorbed by the body and are more than likely eliminated in the toilet. So, how many of those vitamins in the vitamin water are actually being put into use by the body? Probably about as many as you could get from eating cotton candy.
Now here’s the kicker. This story was just in the news because a judge ruled that the lawsuit can go forward. The reasoning was that:
Reasonable consumers should [not] be expected to look beyond misleading representations on the front of the box to discover the truth from the ingredient list in small print on the side of the box.
I think that’s a great point. But it’s government policy, driven by lawsuits, that makes manufacturers put those nutrition labels on to begin with. If you want to say that they can’t make misleading claims on the front of the bottle, that’s great. But if even the courts are saying nobody reads the labels on the back … what are they there for?
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13 Comments
Great post and it’s so true. My husband’s family love the labels on the back and even get nervous with my from-scratch cooking because they can’t “read” what in it… huh? Seriously… the food I make is real, I know every ingredient and probably where it came from and they doubt the healfulness of the dish. Some people are just brainwashed on packed goods and will believe anything they say. *Sigh*
“But if even the courts are saying nobody reads the labels on the back … what are they there for?”
I don’t think the courts are saying nobody reads the nutrition information on packages. The problem is that there’s such a big disconnect between the front of the label (i.e., marketing) and the back (facts?).
If the product was called “Vitamin-Enhanced Non-Carbonated Sugar Beverage”, it would give you a good idea of what to expect, and you could then check the facts in more detail if you wanted to.
Tom Naughton over at FatHead had a good point about that:
As I said over there, the difference (in my opinion) is that vitaminwater is making health claims. Although … he’s got a really good point about Grape Nuts.
Frankly, it shouldn’t be called “water” if it has more than zero calories and/or has a flavor. Once there’s flavor or calories it’s not water anymore, it’s juice.
I used to drink their stevia-sweetened version (not a lot in a day, because I don’t WANT extra vitamins), but I am avoiding stevia now. It was nice getting a soft drink that wasn’t sweetened with poison, or so I thought. The latest on stevia isn’t encouraging, though, particularly for breeding people like us.
Anyway, I was drinking it fully knowing it was a soft drink; just the same, I hate that kind of marketing a lot.
Regarding back labels on packaging — yes, they’re useless, and we are not good interpreters of them, but look at what happened to England when they tried to implement easy-to-understand front-of-package labeling. Not only were the labels lobbied off of the packages, but their FSA was lobbied right out of existence. The public can be irrationally fearful of knowledge. http://www.foodpolitics.com/2010/07/uk-government-to-eliminate-pesky-food-standards-agency/ and http://www.foodpolitics.com/2010/07/uk-food-standards-agency-stripped-of-responsibilities/ have details. The fact remains that packaged food is not going to be ideal for you, and is generally pretty nasty for you — and that fact is smokescreened as hard as possible in the interest of profit. Homemade beats all, when you have access to it.
I DO actually quite like the CSPI, but yes, they do have a firm position. Just remember that the lifestyle they recommend also has health benefits. It’s the middle course — avoiding meat, but eating lots of fatty carbs — that doesn’t help anyone.
I say hooray for anybody that calls anybody on nutritional flim-flam.
Companies spend a lot of money figuring out ways to sell their products and that includes flim-flam when it works, which it often does. These companies are out to win our confidence, which is, after all, what the same thing confidence men do.
For example, compare the nutritional analysis of Vitaminwater to the analysis of a medium banana (see http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/fruits-and-fruit-juices/1846/2).
Human nature being what it is, I don’t expect many people to even look at the required panel, much less spend the intellectual effort to understand, but I do. And I appreciate all those willing to do the same. Like Drew.
Went out today with my sister and we sat down and ate. The waitress looked at me funny when I said plain water. Bottled??? No plain from the tap water! It has gotten to the point where people really have no concept that our tap water is good! IF you do not like the taste of it then filter it! But, people want convience. And bottled water does that. My husband brought home the vitamin water and some of the other healthy waters. Every time I look on the back of the bottle and tell him or explain to him why I will not waste my money on it!
I tried vitaminwater when it came out, but wasn’t impressed enough to buy more: it was very expensive (nearly twice the cost of ordinary soft drink). Now I know why.
And I wonder if they judge meant that consumers should have the expectation that front-of-the-box claims are a) truthful and *not* misleading and b) actually match the consumer information panel on the back?
Well, of course they’re full of sugar! I don’t know why anyone blames companies for this type of thing. It’s at least partially up to the consumer to check labels for themselves to make sure they can consume food and drinks safely… I’m kind of baffled by this type of thing. Your blog is the perfect example of how completely possible it is to feed your family healthily despite all the processed and disgusting foods out there today!
I have no idea how or if the vitamins are able to be absorbed into the body, but just an anecdotal story… I’ve been hospitalized about once per month for years now for a gastrointestinal disorder which leaves me dangerously drained of potassium constantly. I started drinking the “Revive” Vitamin Water on a fairly regular basis and my potassium levels have remained consistently normal despite my illness getting worse. In fact, my doctors even pulled me off my IV potassium supplements. I haven’t needed one in over a year. I haven’t changed anything in my diet except for the Vitamin Water, and find it much easier to drink a bottle than to try to get down a potassium-rich banana or potato when I’m sick like that. Considering I’m grossly emaciated from the illness and could use the extra sugar and calories, I would MUCH rather enjoy drinking a fruit punch Vitamin Water than get pumped full of IV fluids. I like to pour the VW into small paper cups with a stick in them and put them in the freezer. They are smaller servings, but I suck on a popsicle whenever the thought strikes. They’re tasty! I really do believe the stuff helps. I can’t figure out any other reason for the potassium influx in my blood.
Alex, I’m convinced most vitamins or supplements, if they have any benefit at all, it’s for people who have some existing deficiency that needs to be corrected. In the best-case situation, the supplement is able to provide what you’re not getting anywhere else.
It seems you were the special case where you had a specific need. For the rest of us? Just an expensive juice drink.
The research is in: Fructose (outside of fruit) is of the scourges of “civilization” leading not only to obesity, but diabetes and worse, fatty liver disease. We look back at how the Romans poisoned themselves by drinking out of lead goblets. I bet history will similarly look back at this era of epidemic consumption of toxins in the form of fructose and transfats. Yet people insist on their “freedom” to do so. What a strange world we live in.
My grandma’s cooking wasn’t the greatest or the healthiest but I love that you are promoting real food. Keep up the good work!
http://diet4yourmind.com
I’ve learned over the years to simply ignore CPSI. I don’t trust them at all.
I like to listen to what they’re talking about, but don’t assume that they’re right.
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