Deceptive Food Choices: Part One

We are all trying to make healthier choices with the foods we eat, but often the marketing and packaging makes it hard to decide what is the best choice for us.

We all know that our bodies need lots of water. Especially if we try to exercise more, we make an effort to get enough water. We also know our bodies need vitamins.

So, when we come across a product named "Vitamin Water" which is marketed as a health drink, it seems to be an obvious choice for health conscious individuals.

But take a closer look and you begin to see some real differences.

The initial attraction to Vitamin Water might be to get some additional vitamins that your body may not be getting from foods.

The problem with this is that the vitamins used in Vitamin Water are inorganic, synthetic vitamins which are not easily absorbed by the body. It is also not a 'full spectrum' of vitamins as advertised, it is only a very few.

It seems that the addition of vitamins was thought up as a marketing strategy more than a desire to create a healthy beverage. It seems that the idea was to market a new drink, appeal to the ever growing population of people who are constantly overweight and dieting. The bright colors of pink and orange were not designed to appeal to the truly health conscious that would find those colors alarming (because the colors clearly come from synthetic dyes).

Vitamin Water's name and marketing would imply that Vitamin Water is an obvious healthier choice than a full-calorie classic can of Coke. This isn't necessarily true.

We know that the vitamins in Vitamin Water aren't doing much, but even if they were better quality vitamins, your body won't absorb the vitamins because there is an excessive amount of sugar in Vitamin Water.

Their Nutrition Label is a bit deceiving. While it may say there are only 13 grams of sugar in your drink, this is based on 2.5 servings per bottle. The assumption, though, is that you will be drinking the whole bottle - those 13 grams of sugar quickly go up to 32.5 grams of sugar.

When you consider a can of Coke has 39 grams of sugar, the difference isn't that great, certainly not enough to consider Vitamin Water a HEALTHY choice.

Now that we know that Vitamin Water is just as full of coloring and sugars as any soft drink, you can begin to compare and make choices.

You can't choose Vitamin Water because it's healthier - so that's out.

It's a sugary drink like any other. If you're going to give in and drink a sugary drink, get one you really like and enjoy drinking it!!

There's also something to be said for integrity. While Vitamin Water has tried to deceive the public into thinking it is a healthier option, Coke has never pretended to be a healthy choice. They market their drink as a nice social beverage - it has always been marketed that way.

I prefer to buy products from companies I trust.

When that trust is broken, it is hard to get it back.

But I will say one thing - seeing the blatant misleading marketing used in Vitamin Water has taught me something. You can't trust anything on the label. You need to read the fine print. You need to look at the serving sizes and ingredients (in this case: crystalline fructose, which is sugar). The company may tell you it's healthy - but that's up to you to decide.