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The Vitamin Water Deception
As more people are becoming health conscious and have started looking for alternative beverages for soda, flavored water, like Coca-Cola’s Vitaminwater, seems like a good choice. But just because there’s “vitamin” in the label of a product doesn’t mean it’s healthy.
At first glance, Vitaminwater looks like a “healthy” product, as it comes in beautiful and colorful bottles with catchy flavor names like “endurance,” “energy,” and “essential.” Glacéau, the maker of Smartwater, Fruitwater and Vitaminwater, acquired by the Coca-Cola Company in 2007, claims that Vitaminwater can reduce your risk of chronic disease and eye disease, promote healthy joints and support immune function.
Really now? Don’t be fooled because the truth is… Vitaminwater is nothing more than water laced with sugar!
What’s In Vitamin Water?
If you go to the Glacéau website, you won’t find the nutritional information on Vitaminwater, which isn’t surprising.
One bottle of Vitaminwater contains 125 calories and 33 grams of sugar. And they still call it “water,” though I’m not sure why. That means that Vitaminwater contains more calories and sugar than a 12 ounce serving of Coke (110 calories and 30 grams of sugar). So if you’re thinking you’re taking in less sugar if you drink Vitaminwater instead of Coke, think again. Thirty-three grams of sugar is over SIX teaspoons of sugar!
Vitaminwater’s sweetener of choice is crystalline fructose, which is produced when fructose is crystallized from a fructose-enriched corn syrup.
Fructose is a man-made sweetener and metabolizes to triglycerides and adipose tissue, not blood glucose. It does not stimulate insulin secretion, nor enhance the production of leptin, the hormone involved in regulating your appetite. Insulin and leptin are key indicators in regulating how much you eat as well as your body weight, suggesting that dietary fructose may contribute to increased food intake and weight gain.
A study on fructose showed that fructose is very quickly made into fat in your body and once your body starts the process of fat synthesis from fructose, it’s hard to slow it down. Fructose is also known to increase your triglyceride levels, putting you at an increased risk of heart disease.
Forget about Vitaminwater and Go Back to Basics
Sure, Vitaminwater does contain vitamin C, vitamin B3, vitamin B6, vitamin B12, vitamin B5 and zinc but these nutrients are chemically synthesized. The vitamin content of Vitaminwater is just neutralized by the amount of sugar and other additives it contains.
In fact, a class-action suit has been filed by concerned parties including the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) against Coca-Cola for “illegally marketing” Vitaminwater as a healthy product. According to CSPI nutritionists, the 33 grams of sugar contained in each bottle of Vitaminwater “do more to promote obesity, diabetes and other health problems than the vitamins in the drinks do to perform the advertised benefits listed on the bottles.”
There is no harm in adding vitamins to a drink but it confuses consumers into thinking that the beverage is healthy when it actually isn’t. Diet Coke fortified with vitamins and minerals is now known as Diet Coke Plus but can it call itself healthy?
Beverage companies like Coca-Cola aren’t really concerned about your health; they just want to make more money. Coca-Cola bought Glacéau for $4.1 billion to get the rights to market products like Vitaminwater and capitalize on the increasing number of people drinking lesser soda and switching to other beverages.
You can’t judge a food by its cover so make sure to read labels carefully to avoid being fooled by deceptive marketing from products like Vitaminwater.
Pure water is still the best beverage and is one of the most important elements of your diet.
If you really want to get vitamins into your system, the best way to do so is still by eating food – nutritious food, that is. Proper nutrition is the key because no miracle water or food supplement can provide you with all the nutrients that you need in order to stay healthy.
For Dr. Mercola, a multivitamin can be beneficial for your health but only those that come in a non-synthetic natural whole food form and not the synthetic types found in most energy drinks, flavored beverages and vitamin pills on the market.
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Tags: Coca-Cola, fructose, sugar, Vitaminwater
The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) and other concerned parties have filed a class-action suit against Coca-Cola for “illegally marketing” Vitaminwater as a healthy product.