Product Review - Vitamin Water

Their labels promise so much -  ‘focus’, ‘energy’, ‘recharge’, along with a long list of vitamins that just must be doing us good!!

With names like ‘vitamin water’ and ‘nutrient water’, the average shopper would be lead to believe they are getting something healthy that will pick them up and give them more vitality. In my option these flavoured drinks are nothing more than artificial concoctions of sugar and additives.

To prove my point just read the ingredients (if you can the writting if pretty small). There’s water, then fructose (which is fruit sugar), sucrose (ordinary cane sugar), followed by three food acids, flavour, vitamins (C, Niacin, Pathenoic acid, B6, B12), colour, magnesium lactate and calcium lactate.

Vitamin waters have 5-7% sugar (all added) which is half the concentration of soft drink (11-12%). So they’re lower in sugar concentration but this reduction is refuted by the sheer volume of the bottle. You get 500ml rather than 375ml in a standard bottle. While this is than those huge 600ml buddies that pass as a “single serve” of soft drink these days, you still end up consuming 6 teaspoons of sugar.

·  500ml bottle vitamin water (5% sugar)          25g sugar                             6 teaspoons sugar

·  375ml can soft drink (11% sugar)                   41g sugar                             10 teaspoon sugar

·  600ml buddy (11% sugar)                               66g sugar                             16.5 teaspoon sugar

Given the average women should consume only around 45g sugar (11 teaspoons) daily, which represents 10% of daily kilojoules, one 500ml bottle of vitamin water lands her with over half her day’s intake.

Two of the waters have added guarana (source of caffeine derived from a vine native to South America). Nutrient water contains 84mg caffeine which is the same level as energy drinks or one cup of instant coffee. The label says its natural caffeine’ but it’s not clear what this means (caffeine in coffee could be called ‘natural’ too as it’s from coffee beans).

There’s guarana and Taurine added as well – ingredients that you’d find in caffeinated energy drinks like red bull and V. Nothing natural here.

All these drinks come in soft pastel attractive colours which are targeted at young women (as are Alco pops such as cruisers and breezers).

Vitamin water Revive says its colour is ‘fruit and vegetable juice’ which is hard to comprehend. If that’s correct, then why isn’t the juice listed as an ingredient rather that down the end of the list in the tiny quantities of an additive.

Nutrient water energy contains carotene as its colour which is the yellow=orange colour of carrots and pumpkin. It has a good safety record – no problem with that one.

Smart water’s Jump Start Tahitian Lime has two colours – 102 is tartrazine and 133 is Brilliant Blue FCF. Both these artificial colours have had question marks hanging over them for some years now and are excluded from elimination diets that check for food sensitivity. Since the publication of the UK Southampton study, there have been calls to have them banned from foods aimed at children.

All have the same B vitamins added – niacin (B3), pantothenic acid (B5), B6 and B12/ it’s unclear why they don’t have vitamins thiamine (B1) and riboflavin (B2). Two have vitamin C added; one also have vitamin E.

The bottom line is that these drinks can hardly be called natural. There are about as far from natural as any mass-produced manufactured food can be. They are simply ‘artificial concoctions’.

What I disagree with most of all is the implied benefits from the words on the label ‘revive’, ‘smart water’. ‘Energy’, ‘enjoy vitamins’, recharge your batteries’, defence’, and ‘vitamins and antioxidants’ and the listing of vitamins. Guarana, Taurine, cranberries or pomegranate. All designed to give the buyer the impression that here is something good and healthy that will give tired over-worked consumers a pick-me-up.

They are marketed as a health-giving alternative to sugary soft drinks but they’re no-where near as healthy as the label would have you believe.

Together these all give the impression that there’s something extra in these drinks over and above ordinary drinks – where there isn’t. Any lift you get in energy levels is simply due to the sugar and caffeine hit.

I like the fact that they’re lower in sugar but why call them ‘waters’ when they have 5-7% sugar, the same as a sports drink like powerade. ‘Water’ implies that there’s nothing else except water plus a few vitamins thrown in – which is far from the truth.

Regard them as a cross between a sports drink and an energy drink. They’ve got the sugar level of a sports drink but the vitamins and caffeine of an energy drink!!!