Written By Lisa Breslin
Founders Dr. Alex Hughes and Josh Simon (left) with the Chairman and CEO, Manchester native, Dayton Miller
There are more than 100 variations of vitamin-enhanced (VE) water on the market, some of which are produced by a company headed by a Carroll County native.
VE water labels promise replenishment, increased energy, mental acuity, accelerated weight loss, a cure for hangovers and even an enhanced sex life.
The 16 to 20-ounce bottles, priced between $1 and $1.89 each, are packed with supplements including vitamins, minerals, electrolytes, herbs and other additives.
Marketing techniques are ratcheting up, too. This summer, Glaceau (now a subsidiary of Coca-Cola) rolled out four-packs of its vitamin-enhanced drinks, “Energy,” “Revive” and “Power C.”
Manufacturers like Glaceau, Gatorade, Pepsi-Cola, Arizona, Sobe, Snapple, Seagram, Nestle and a host of private labels are fueling the market, which has rocketed from retail sales of $1.5 billion in 2006 to $2.6 billion in 2007, according to Gary Hemphill, senior vice president of the Beverage Marketing Corp. consulting firm in New York.
Function Drinks, a burgeoning, LA-based company, jumped into the water wars in 2005. Dayton Miller, who grew up in Manchester, is chairman and CEO of the firm.
With names like Urban Detox, Night Life, and Light Weight, Function products, according to Annie Imamura, the company’s public relations rep, hope to disassociate themselves from VE waters and deserve a category of their own.
“Functional Beverages,” Imamura said. “Are not just multi-vitamin drinks, they have targeted functionality. Each beverage’s goal is very specific.”
Are vitamin enhanced waters nutritional wonders: convenient, effective and even, for trendy consumers, very cool? Or are they slick-marketed bottles of nutritional hyperbole? Shouldn’t just plain water suffice?
To help you wade through the fortified waters, Carroll Magazine recruited a panel made up of two nutritionists (Darlene Flaherty and Suzanne E. Wood), a chemist (Dr. Ahmed Hafez), the Supervisor of Food Services for Carroll County Public School (Eulalia Muschik), an athlete (Janet Shearer), and Jeni Anderman, a Hampstead resident who considers herself a “neutral, non-consumer.”
We also contacted a few VE manufacturers and let them select the four waters distributed to the panel: Urban Detox (Citrus Prickly Pear), SoBe Life Water (Orange Tangerine), Glaceau’s VitaminWater (Essential Orange-Orange), O Infused Water (Black Raspberry).
In the end, every panelist favored plain water over vitamin-enhanced water, but a few (including athlete Janet Shearer, and nutritionists Darlene Flaherty and Suzanne E. Wood) conceded that when training for a marathon or doing any “strenuous, sustained physical activity,” VE water can be beneficial.
“If I’m training, at mile 12, I’d drink vitamin-enhanced waters to replenish the carbs I’m unloading,” Shearer said. “I’m not quite ready to eat something, so enhanced water is a good quick fix. My latest grab has been, Gatorade’s G2- for taste.”
Chemist Ahmed Hafez said that the only water of the four surveyed that he would consider drinking after strenuous exercise is O Infused Black Raspberry, though he considered the taste “awful.”
O Infused Black Raspberry water had the fewest calories (74 calories per serving) and it has potassium, “one of the most important electrolytes that you need during physical exertion,” said Hafez.
Flaherty noted the importance of differentiating between sports drinks and vitamin-enhanced water. During intense exercise, she said, electrolytes, such as sodium, potassium and chloride, are lost through perspiration. This is when sports drinks offer more than water, but vitamin water is not a source of electrolytes, and while it does provide carbohydrates, it is not the same as a sports drink.”
Muschik applauded O Infused’s ingredients, magnesium, calcium and potassium, and Urban Detox’s infusion of calcium, noting “this drink would be a way to get needed calcium if [people] don’t drink milk.”
Shearer and others also noted that VE water can sometimes serve as a transition away from sodas. Many VE water options have half the calories and grams of carbohydrates compared with an equal serving of soda, and they also include vitamins that soda does not.
Anderman, the panelist representing the non-consumers of VE water, who considers herself generally neutral about the waters, became a fan of Function Drinks’ Urban Detox.
For people who frequent bars, she said, the beverage’s promise to “support your body’s natural ability to combat hangovers” appealed to her. She liked the taste and the logic behind ingredients like b-complex vitamins.
As for the drink’s promise to “rid your lungs and sinuses of certain airborne pollutants using Ôsmog-scrubbing’ antioxidant NAC and the natural power of prickly pear extract,” Anderman was more skeptical.
NAC stands for N-Acetyl Cysteine, which “supports the liver’s natural ability to efficiently clear toxins from the body,” according to Function Drinks’ promotional materials.
“I’d want to look up NAC and some of the obscure names on this drink and others,” Anderman said. “If I’m not familiar with an ingredient or I can’t pronounce it, I usually ask myself, ÔIs it good for me?’”
Other panelists were far less supportive of claims linked to Urban Detox, calling them “ridiculous,” “unsubstantiated claims.”
Flaherty said, “Toxins are removed from the liver without the help of this product. In turn, Ôplay hard and let detox be your shield’ implies that the drink can counteract effects of alcohol abuse!”
It is more than an implication. Alex Hughes, cofounder and president of Function Drinks, joins the other company founders, Dayton Miller and Josh Simon, in backing the promise that Urban Detox will support the body’s ability to combat hangovers.
Urban Detox was the drink that helped launched their $20 million business, which is thriving, Imamura said, because each of the company’s 11 drinks was created by physicians and based on a need. The roots of the nutritional elixirs can be traced back to 2004 when Hughes and Simon shared a house and an eagerness to find relief for hangovers.
At the time, Hughes, now an orthopedic surgeon, was completing his studies as chief resident of orthopedic surgery at UCLA Medical Center. According to Imamura, he paid attention to what doctors recommended to patients to fight dementia, or to protect the liver and kidneys.
“He started making concoctions in his kitchen and his friends were his guinea pigs,” said Imamura.
“Eventually they found a drink that worked and tasted good.”
But the panelists voiced concerns about “unnecessary” additives and “unknown” ingredients in each of the enhanced waters. In turn, each panelist had an additional concern: calories, calories, calories; especially calories in the form of sweeteners.
“Usually people drink the whole bottle, which is more than one serving size, so we’re looking at 100 to 125 calories in most vitamin enhanced waters,” said Shearer. “That is a lot for a drink. If I’m going to have 125 calories, I’m going to want something better.”
“Pure care sugar is the way God intended us to sweeten our beverages,” said Hamez. “Crystalline fructose or high fructose corn syrup is not an acceptable substitute. Health risks are debatable, but taste is everything. While your body will eventually break both down, the reason we’re not using cane sugar (sucrose) is pure economics. Ask the corn industry.”
The bottom line is that each panelist surveyed concluded that he or she prefers water over vitamin-enhanced waters, most, if not all of the time.
“I’ll stick to water,” said Shearer. It has no calories and I can get it anywhere.”
“I can get more from plain water and food plus a multivitamin,” said Wood. “If I’m engaging in sustained vigorous exercise, I could see consuming an electrolyte replacement beverage in moderation.”
Otherwise, the panelists agreed, vitamin-enhanced waters are “expensive” and “unnecessary.”
“All are empty calories,” said Hamez. “The same effect can be had drinking water throughout the day and taking a multivitamin once a day in the morning.”
Enhanced water manufacturers do not argue about plain water’s merits. Consumer Reports Health.org polled 10 manufacturers for a July 2008 article titled “What’s wrong with plain water.”
“None of their representatives dissed regular water,” the article states, “but they tended to say that the extras made water taste better and led people to drink more (a good thing) or made it more nutritious and therefore boosted health and happiness (ditto).”
In partial agreement, Function Drinks’ Imamura said, “I drink water every day, but I enjoy some of our beverages, too, based on what I feel like I need. If our customers need more endurance, or a mental boost, or an extra calorie burn, we have a drink for each of these needs. We are not trying to cure; we want to make lives a little better.”
The panelists concluded that the best source for health and happiness could be found in a well-balanced diet and just plain water. But for the diehards who contend that water is just too dull, there is a solution: Some of the panelists suggested that they lift the taste with lemon, orange or lime slices.
“To satisfy thirst, the best choice would be water. I would rather see people get their vitamins from food, because there are a lot of other benefits in addition to the vitamins the food provides,” said Flaherty.
“Americans typically do not eat the recommended amounts of fruits and vegetables now. Vitamin waters are not a substitute for fruit and vegetable intake, and consumers may think a balanced diet isn’t as important since they are supplementing their intake with the enhanced water,” said nutritionist Flaherty. “Vitamins don’t provide energy, food does.”
