The Co-op Food Stores

added 06/23/08

by Mary Saucier Choate, M.S., R.D., L.D., Food and Nutrition Educator

If a big cola company marketed a beverage as “Soda with half the sugar plus added vitamins and minerals!” would you consider it to be a nutritious choice or would you be surprised that they would try to pass it off as a health drink?

That is essentially what the very popular vitaminwater is: water plus about eight teaspoons of sugar and a small amount of added vitamins or minerals. Although they have names like orange-orange and peach-mango, there is no, or only a trace of, actual juice in them (zero to less than one percent juice content). Yet the cost of this “pumped up” sugar water is about 40 percent more than that of the whole foods which it seeks (unsuccessfully) to represent.

These drinks, and their knock-off imitators, may fool unsuspecting consumers into thinking that they are doing something for their health that is as good as, or better than, drinking or eating the real thing. Though vitamin-fortified waters are marketed with healthy descriptions of fruit and nutrients on the label, they are missing something that only the real thing can provide: food synergy.

Food synergy, as described by researchers studying the benefits of whole foods, means that whole foods and food patterns act together to decrease the risk of many chronic diseases in a way that isolated nutrients do not. Well-nourished people—those eating meals and snacks rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and other whole foods—seem to have the lowest risk of diseases such as heart disease, high blood pressure, many cancers, and diabetes. Studies looking at the effectiveness of individual supplements, especially at high doses, show no effect or possibly increased risk of some diseases or even death.

This is not to say that drinking a sweetened vitamin-enriched water drink with a snappy fruit title and clever ingredient description is harmful. In no way, however, is this kind of drink giving you the benefits of the actual orange, tea, or other whole food.

Let’s look at the very popular vitaminwater “essential orange-orange (c + calcium),” for example. With a name like orange-orange, you would expect it to have some orange in it. It contains no juice. It does have added sugar, however; the 20-ounce bottle will give you 33 grams of it—as much sugar as a 10-ounce cola.

This drink must have a decent amount of vitamin C and calcium, right? A 20-ounce bottle does have 250 percent of the daily value for vitamin C (150 milligrams) and 10 percent (100 milligrams) of the daily value for calcium. Ten ounces of fresh orange juice would give you that much vitamin C naturally, along with the trace vitamins and minerals naturally present, good amounts of potassium and folate, and those precious antioxidant phytochemicals. Researchers are still teasing out the benefits of these plant compounds. One thing is known for sure, however: phytochemicals are beneficial to our health, there are thousands of them, and we haven’t discovered all of them yet. There is no way for a manufactured food or drink to contain them all. Eating a real whole food or beverage means you are getting all of the nutrients, discovered and undiscovered.

Regarding the added calcium in “orange-orange/c + calcium,” about 2 1/2 ounces of milk (5 tablespoons) will provide 100 milligrams of calcium, plus nutrients such as vitamin D, B vitamins, and protein.

Warning for smokers: be aware that the added vitamin A in vitaminwater comes from Vitamin A palmitate. This form of vitamin has been shown to increase the risk of lung cancer in smokers. The form of vitamin A in orange and red-colored fruits and vegetables and dark leafy greens—beta-carotene—has no such effect. A bit of beta-carotene is used in vitaminwater for color, according to the package.

Bottom line, if you can fit the extra 125 calories into your daily calorie budget, go ahead and enjoy these sugared waters as a “fun food” extra; but if you are looking for the real deal, eat the real food.