Toxic Sludge Is Good For You
Are you guys really drinking this “Vitamin Water” shit? If you are, please stop. Despite the marketing that would suggest that you’re drinking regular bottled water that’s been “enhanced”, it’s really just Kool-Aid with a multivitamin in it. Take a look at the ingredient list for “Charge” :
Vapor distilled, deionized water and/or reverse osmosis water, crystalline fructose, citric acid, monopotassium phosphate (electrolyte), ascorbic acid (vitamin C), natural flavor, dipotassium phosphate (electrolyte), magnesium lactate (electrolyte), gum acacia, calcium lactate (electrolyte), niacin (B3), ester gum, pantothenic acid (B5), pyridoxine hydrochloride (B6), b-carotene (color) cyanocobalamin (B12)
Just like any other soft drink, the first two ingredients are water and sugar. Here’s what the trade group “The Sugar Association” says about “crystalline fructose” :
Crystalline fructose is produced by allowing the fructose to crystallize from a fructose-enriched corn syrup.
Now if that corn syrup were of the “high fructose” variety instead of being “fructose-enriched”, would it stop being a health drink?
Even more revealing is how Glaceau (and parent company Coca-Cola) use the oldest trick in the book to blur the drink’s nutritional value :
Serving size: 8 fl oz, Servings per container: 2.5; Amount per serving: Calories: 50;
Which, assuming you aren’t one of the few who only drinks 8oz of the 20oz bottle, gives you a calorie count of 125 (barely more than Coca-Cola’s 140 calories per can).
On their website, Glaceau’s slogan is “hydrate responsibly”. Good idea. You can start by avoiding this over-hyped sugar water.
23 comments »
Copy link for RSS feed for comments on this post or for TrackBack URI
Leave a comment
Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>
Agreed. But I still like Smartwater.
Comment by dAnimal — June 18, 2007 @ 5:58 pm
sneaky marketing, to be sure, but can’t really put Coke against the wall for this one. they only bought Glaceau maybe three weeks ago, so it’s hardly their portioning.
or, at least it wasn’t until now. i don’t anticipate change.
Comment by dan b — June 18, 2007 @ 7:50 pm
I follow W.C. Fields’ advice. When asked why he never drank water, he replied “Fish fuck in it.”
Comment by Henry — June 18, 2007 @ 8:01 pm
Ah, I’ve been drinking a bottle or two of Orange Vitamin Water every day for a few weeks now. I’m not worried about the calories, and I don’t want the caffiene and carbonation I’d get from soda.
“Kool-aid with a multivitamin” sounds okay, or at least better than most softdrinks or Gatorade. Can I ask why you brought this up?
Comment by Scott — June 18, 2007 @ 8:29 pm
Question– is high fructose corn syrup scary? I have heard yes, but have not done the homework. Is fructose scary? I have heard no but have not done the homework. Facts appreciated.
Comment by Pete — June 18, 2007 @ 8:36 pm
I saw somebody drinking one today and it struck me that the notion of “Enhanced Water” is as ludicrous as the “Ab Lounge”. If you want to be lazy and consume junk, fine, but the fact that crap is continually marketed as something that’s good for you is a big pet peeve of mine. It’s a good thing that people want to make healthy choices about what they consume, so I really can’t stand the idea that marketing departments take advantage of the fact that people are too lazy or ill-informed to read the fine print. It’s like how the financial services industry offers bait and switch credit monitoring plans or low interest rate credit that’s sneakily raised. The trickery of marketing assholes really makes me angry.
Speaking of, keep your eyes peeled for products being marketed as “green” that are anything but environmentally friendly. Now that Americans are starting to come to a consensus that the environment is worth protecting, the desire to be “green” is the next good intention to be exploited.
Comment by greg — June 18, 2007 @ 8:47 pm
I saw somebody drinking one today and it struck me that the notion of “Enhanced Water” is as ludicrous as the “Ab Lounge”. If you want to be lazy and consume junk, fine, but the fact that crap is continually marketed as something that’s good for you is a big pet peeve of mine.
Heh. I own an Ab Lounge, too.
My take on the Vitamin Water is that it’s less bad than the soda I had been drinking. I don’t think it will make my hair grow or stave off cancer or anything, but I think it’s not the worst thing I’ve ever poured in me.
Comment by Scott — June 18, 2007 @ 9:58 pm
I think you mean barely less.
Also, a guy I used to know made his own Gatorade with a quart of water, a tablespoon of sugar and a tablespoon of salt. (I may have the proportions mixed up, as it’s been several years.) It’s cheap and it doesn’t taste magically fruity, but it (according to him) fills the same purpose.
Comment by grendelkhan — June 19, 2007 @ 5:26 am
The fact that we’re having this discussion at all just shows how good a job the beverage companies have done at making us pay for something we grew up thinking should be free. To tie this in with green marketing, just think of the waste and environmental toll the plastic bottles cause.
Myself, I like Brawndo! It’s what plants crave!
Comment by Chris — June 19, 2007 @ 5:59 am
I agree that Vitimin Water is silly, but be careful, because you’re playing the same number-twisting game. A 140 calorie can of Coca-Cola has 12 oz. of soda in it, whereas a 125 calorie bottle of Vitimin water has 20 oz. in it. If you wanted to state your case fairly, you would’ve compared a 20 oz. bottle of Coca-Cola (which is becoming much more prevalent in convenience stores than the 12 oz. cans, anyway) to a 20 oz. bottle of Vitimin Water. In that comparison, the difference is more pronounced, with Coca-Cola weighing in at 250 calories to Vitimin Water’s 125 calories.
Essentially, Vitimin Water is the equivalent of Gatorade, weighing in at half the calories of an equal-sized bottle of soda, and without that nasty carbonic acid to eat away at your stomach lining. If you’re comfortable drinking a Gatorade now and then (i.e. you’re not on a low-sugar diet or what have you), you’ll be fine with Vitimin Water.
Personally, I think all of these vitimin-enhanced drinks have a gross chemical aftertaste. Propel (Gatorade’s equivalent of Vitimin Water) is worse in that regard, probably because it doesn’t have as much sugar in it (Propel has very few calories in it, something like 10 or 20).
Comment by Steve — June 19, 2007 @ 8:06 am
Also, I just realized I misspelled Vitamin like fifty times in the last post. My brain needs more vitamins, I guess.
Comment by Steve — June 19, 2007 @ 8:10 am
I have no direct comment on this post or related replies - I’d just like to remind everyone that unsweetened black or green iced tea makes a wonderfully refreshing drink. Simple, economical, healthy, and tasty. Long live Iced Tea!
Comment by Foo Barz — June 19, 2007 @ 10:17 am
Remember, fructose that comes from fruit is good, while chemically identical fructose that comes from enzymatic action on corn syrup is evil. We know this is true because the evil of corporate agriculture is transmissible to its products.
Recrystallisation of sugar also turns it from good to evil.
Comment by monoceros4 — June 19, 2007 @ 10:25 am
There’s a purpose for drinks like Gatorade, which is replacing electrolyte. In particular, you need some potassium, so Mr. sugar+salt is going to get some crampy legs if he is actually doing serious exercise. I typically drink it when I have a nasty tummy bug. I can still remember the first time I ever tasted it and liked it, which was 40 miles into a century ride, in Florida, in September. When you really do need it, it makes a big difference; otherwise, it’s pretty much empty calories. All this vitamin-enhanced stuff is just nonsense, and maybe even dangerous — there are vitamins that you can OD on.
Gatorade is hardly the only source of electrolyte, but it works fast, and you can keep it down better than OJ or a bite of banana or a prune.
Comment by dr2chase — June 19, 2007 @ 10:54 am
Gatorade is a great hangover cure.
Comment by dAVE — June 19, 2007 @ 11:58 am
I just want to point out that out of all of the incredibly inflammatory and just plain weird stuff that Greg has posted here since I’ve been reading, Vitamin Water gets fifteen comments. How jacked up is that?
Comment by Damien — June 19, 2007 @ 12:26 pm
Fuckin’-A Bubba! Now.. pass the Mountain Dew
Comment by Tim — June 19, 2007 @ 5:24 pm
How about we call it flat soda?
By the way, two of the concerns about high-fructose corn syrup are the way a beverage sweetened with it fails to trigger the “I’m full” reaction the way another sugary drink would and the way your liver processes it.
Comment by Pun Woman — June 19, 2007 @ 6:09 pm
Thank you for noticing this! I was drinking one the other day and noticed the 2.5 trick. 125 calories is a lot.
Comment by Toby — June 21, 2007 @ 12:43 pm
In response to dr2chase’s comment about potassium v. crampy legs:
I run six days a week for an average of one hundred and ten minutes per day, and all I ever drink while doing it it is a 700 ml bottle of half water/half juice with a couple of pinches of salt added. I never get crampy legs.
Is there a way for me to add potassium to my juice mix?
Comment by M. Johnson — June 22, 2007 @ 1:48 am
Totally awesome anecdotal evidence, I’ll never consume potassium again.
Comment by Steve — June 23, 2007 @ 8:19 am
I was asking how to ADD potassium to my water, Steve.
That’s why I wrote “Is there a way for me to add potassium to my juice mix?”
While you’re at it, try cutting snideness out of your diet as well.
Comment by M. Johnson — June 25, 2007 @ 1:58 pm
hi, i am a high school student from NH and we just got vitamin water in our machines. and trust me, we got ALOT. kids are putting insane amounts of money in the machines to get vitamin water and i bet it is taking a tole on their parent’s wallets/purses. vitamin water is good, XXX being my favorite; but having 33.5 grams of sugar per 20oz bottle? that’s sort of insane. don’t get me wrong, i am in love with the stuff and i have 2 bottles a day. i just feel weird to say that i consume 67 grams or sugar a day (that’s not even counting everything else i eat in a day.) also it makes me really think about diabetes.
also, to the person that said “the extra amount of vitamins can make you OD” or something was wrong. in a drink like this, you can only put water soluble vitamins in. water soluble vitamins are vitamins that in excess, would just not be absorbed by the body and passed through your urine. if you put fat soluble vitamins in and someone has too much, yes; they would get stored inside your body fat and could cause toxicity. and trust me, i know my science.
Comment by Joey! — December 9, 2007 @ 4:03 pm