Say What? VitaminWater

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So for all you athletes or those who are doing anything you can to be healthy including changing your diet, make sure to read the fine print on all food and drink items you buy and don't just go with a companies word that it's 'healthy'.

“The way that vitaminwater is marketed and positioned it’s made to look more healthful than other sugary beverages, but it’s not – it’s still just a soft drink,” said Margo G. Wootan, Director of Nutrition Policy

source

I along with the many of people who wanted to read those spunky quotes, and look all schnazy and healthy with my bottle of VitaminWater drank it a great deal my freshman year of college. I thought it was good for me based off the sole fact that it contained a great deal of my needed daily vitamins. And of course that it contained the word Vitamin. I mean come on, anything that has 'healthy', 'vitamin', or 'diet' in it is good for you right? This was before my nutritional class, and also prior to some research into the issue.

To start with, just check out the label on any bottle of VitaminWater. On average they each contain about 33 grams of sugar and 125 calories per bottle. That may not seem a lot to you so let me put it in plain words. That's more than a 12 oz. serving of Coke (source). Now do I have your attention? In addition, the second ingrediant is Crystalline Fructose. Ever heard of it? Neither had I. After some quick research I found that it is, “produced by allowing the fructose to crystallize from a fructose-enriched corn syrup" , which essentially is High Fructose Corn Syrup. (source)

So you're not really drinking something thats good for you. In fact, the majority of it is SUGAR. And not just any kind of sugar, but the kind of sugar that is known for causing serious damage to your liver, and it can make your aging process speed up. HFCS=early wrinkles. In addition to this kind of sugar being essentially HFCS, is specifically has trace amounts of arcenic, heavy metals, and lead.

Well what about all those awesome vitamins on the label? They're still good for you aren't they? Well there are two different types of vitamins and minerals. Water soluble, and fat soluble.

Those that are fat soluble vitamins to be absorbed and used by your body have to be ingested with a meal, or else they are just passed through your system (source). Additionally the water soluble vitamins that are included in VitaminWater are most of the time not needed in the typical american's diet as they frequently already have their daily required amount from other natural sources. Vitamins such as riboflavin, thiamin, and niacin are needed in such small amounts, that they frequently have already been acquired in a day and are also just passing through unneeded.

Granted, if you are a completely fast food eating, nutritionally starving person, some of the vitamins in VitaminWater would be benenficial. But for the majority of people, they don't need to drink VitaminWater to gain those essential vitamins.

So do the benefits outweigh the risks?

Ingesting arcenic, making my kidneys work hard to filter out those unneeded vitamins plus all that extra HFCS that I really REALLY don't need on my butt and thighs makes my answer a resounding no.

And besides, VitaminWater doesn't even taste that good.

p.s. the saddest thing of all of this is the VitaminWater can keep going on marketing that its good for you even though it really isn't. Read this article on their awful marketing ploys and see if you even want to support this company.

p.p.s. what kind of surprising things have you learned about some of the products you use that you wouldn't have ever guessed were an issue?