Is Vitaminwater really as good as it sounds?

As we all know, water and vitamins are two essential inputs of our body. But is their combination, as advertised largely, a miracle for our bodies?  Most scientists agree that Vitaminwater and many other enhanced energy drinks don’t provide all the health benefits the companies advertise. Here you can find a collection of facts, that may help you to find the answer:

• Glacéau (Energy Brands) is a pioneer of the enhanced water category and produces bottled drinks called “Vitaminwater“, a combination of distilled water with vitamins, herbs and flavors.
• According to Wikipedia, Energy Brands is owned primarily by it’s founder, employees, and small investors. Rap artist 50 Cent owns a 10% share of the company as part of an endorsement deal. Now Coca-Cola owns the company.
• Americans spend $750 million a year on energy drinks alone. In 2006, Glacéau was reported to have an annual sales revenue of $350 million

Vitamins are categorized into two main groups :

• Fat-soluble vitamins (Vitamins A, D, E and K) dissolve in fat, and excesses are stored in fatty tissues — since they are distributed slowly throughout our bodies, we don’t need to replace them daily.
•  Water-soluble vitamins (vitamin B-complex group and Vitamin C), dissolve in water and are required to replace them on a daily basis.

Vitaminwater Contents

It’s important to know that the numbers on the packaging are misleading and each bottle of Vitaminwater contains 2.5 servings! In other words, if you drink the whole bottle, you’d receive 2.5 times of the amounts mentioned on the back of the bottle.

“Here are the nutrition facts and ingredients from a bottle of “charge” Vitaminwater:

The big red flag here is the amount of sugar. There are 13 grams of sugar in one serving, so an entire bottle contains about 32.5 grams of sugar. For the sake of comparison, a can of Coca-Cola Classic contains about 39 grams of sugar. Because the sugar found in Vitaminwater or Coke is made from a refining (or purifying) process, it contains no nutrients or vitamins beneficial to our health. It instead acts only as a source of energy — once anything with sugar is ingested, the sugar skips digestion by passing through the stomach wall and raising blood sugar levels” , which may be a precursor to diabetes.

Besides this huge amount of sugar, each bottle has 100-125 calories. Comparing to a regular coke that contains around 140 calories, this is substantial. This sweet calories are so eager to increase your weight, if you drink Vitaminwater regularly.

Different colors and flavors of Vitaminwater contain different vitamins as shown in above table. But overall the benefits of these vitamins are much less than the harm of sugar and calories. The solution? If you want vitamins, eat natural and fresh ingredients, like fresh fruits and vegetables; And you’d never need any of these artificial drinks.