The latest soft drink: Embodi
September 3, 2008
Sandja, who works for a PR agency, wants me to know about Embodi: “What if you could have all the health and longevity benefits of red wine without the negative effects of alcohol? In fact, what if it came in the form of a delicious and antioxidant-rich fruit drink that you could enjoy daily?
I love the idea that red wine has special health benefits, especially at a really nice dinner. But here comes Sandbox Industries, a company devoted to dreaming up brilliant new business ideas, one of which is Embodi, a non-alcoholic soft drink fortified with polyphenol antioxidants like the ones in red wine. The ads say “now you can have all the benefits of red wine without the headache.” But I thought it was the alcohol in wine, beer, and spirits that was most strongly associated with reduction in heart disease risk.
Alas, Sandja did not send the Nutrition Facts labels and they are not on the website so what is in this drink is a mystery. But that’s not its point. It’s a business venture.
Update, September 4: After reading my post, the Embodi PR folks forwarded their well hidden Nutrition Facts label–90 calories per bottle from 22 grams of sugars. The ingredients? “Water, organic fruit juice blend (organic white grape, organic red grape, organic apple, organic pomegranate, and organic pear juices from concentrate), grape pomace extract, and natural flavors.” No wonder they don’t put this information on the website.
Update, September 6: Oops. The PR folks wrote again and I stand partially corrected. The Nutrition Facts label is indeed on the website. You have to click on the bottle label and up it pops. But the ingredient list part of the label is not (or if it is, I can’t find it). Sandja writes: “There is complete transparency of ingredients and nutrition facts. The grape pomace extract is what holds the health benefits.” I’d say partially transparent.” And the pomace extract is second-to-last on the ingredient list so there can’t be much of it.
A few months ago I heard about a juice made from wine grapes, called “First Blush.” At the time they didn’t tout the antioxidants, but given this story, I wonder if the benefits would exist?
I’m skeptical.
Comment by Laura — September 4, 2008 @ 12:03 pm
The Nutrition Facts are on the Embodi website, but as I have complained in the past-
1- Nutrition Facts don’t include ingredients, to me, (and you in this instance) it’s practically worthless. I don’t look at Nutrition Facts when I pick up (junk) food. Embody has 90 calories though. Of cane sugar? Of HFCS? Of cat pee? Who knows?
(There’s some weird bar graph listing Antioxidant Power Per Calorie of fruit juices on the product pages, perhaps that’s what’s inside that bottle?)
2- It’s on the website layered in a Flash presentation, so I can’t even really give you the link.
I clicked on the link in your post.
I clicked on products link at the top.
I clicked on the image of the product or product links on the top but not the colored product text descriptions on the side that look like links. Actually, that’s not so bad, I’ve struggled through worse food product sites. It’s not so bad for food products since the ingredients will be on the package, but it can be annoying to figure out what is inside fast food before going out to eat (not that I eat much, if any, fast food these days. Of course, with non-chain restaurants, it’s hopeless.)
I really think that all food producers should be required to have a standardized link location and ingredients listing layout (and Nutrition Facts if you insist) that is accessible by portable Internet devices (like cell phones.)
Oh and…
Embodi
Live longer • Live better
Major Health Benefits of Red Wine Grapes may include:
• Improved Cardiovascular Protection
• Cancer Prevention
• Increased Longevity
• Neurodegenerative Disease Protection
• Reduced Oxidative Stress
• Weight Loss
• Infectious Disease Protection
What a lot of speculative nonsense for an 8 ounce bottle of liquid to accomplish. I’m sure it will sell very well. Seriously, it’s no different than all the vitamin beverages on the shelves now except that it pimps the latest health fashion of red wine antioxidants. They’ll probably add omega-3s in a year to refresh the product line.
Don’t forget, Coke and Pepsi were originally marketed as health tonics.
Comment by Hylton — September 4, 2008 @ 6:26 pm
While perhaps not involving the exact same ingredients, this sounds similar to claims being made for blended fruit juices that include the South American açai berry - both tout “off the charts” ORAC values.
Here is a link to an msn.com story on that - their tone is, of course, a bit “gee whiz” compared to the measured skepticism we prefer from whattoeatbook.com!
http://health.msn.com/nutrition/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100214451>1=31036
Comment by Bob Bannister — September 5, 2008 @ 4:35 pm
100% juices sound great, but can be very expensive–and you aren’t eating those skins that are so healthy (and also make it REALLY easy to drink down a lot of calories, if weight control is of concern).
“The resveratrol in red wine comes from the skin of grapes used to make wine. Because red wine is fermented with grape skins longer than is white wine, red wine contains more resveratrol. Simply eating grapes, or drinking grape juice, has been suggested as one way to get resveratrol without drinking alcohol. Some studies have suggested that red and purple grape juices have some of the same heart-healthy benefits of red wine.”
from: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/red-wine/HB00089
Comment by Daniel Ithaca, NY — September 8, 2008 @ 1:59 pm