Vitamin Water 10 now with 25 calories
Filed under: Food, Ripoffs and Scams, Health
Popular water replacement Vitamin Water got healthier recently with the introduction of Vitamin Water 10, a new low calorie drink which pitches itself as a great source to get your vitamins with fewer calories. The only problem with this claim is that a bottle of Vitamin Water 10 comes packed with 25 calories, not 10 calories.That's right.
Despite being sued for misleading consumers once this year Glaceau is branding its 25-calorie drink as Vitamin Water 10, opting to come clean on the nutrition label by breaking a bottle into 2.5 servings. Thankfully you won't have to do the math to figure out what the vitamin content is since; it's plainly listed in both per serving and per bottle increments. The drink's whitepaper (pdf) -- yes it has a whitepaper -- even refers to calories by serving but vitamins by bottle further muddling the true caloric content.
The new Vitamin Water 10 bottles even sports a handy list of things you can do to work off the calories contained within, per serving of course. To make it a little more consumer friendly we decided to carry the listed calorie burning activities out to cover the entire bottle, in case you can't just drink 8 ounces.
To burn the calories in a bottle of Vitamin Water 10 you'll need to:
- Brush your teeth 5 times
- Take a 25 minute nap
- 25 minutes of online "dating" (is this a euphemism?)
- 25 minutes of window shopping
It turns out that breaking a sports drink's calorie content down into 8 ounce servings is actually a common occurrence with Gatorade guilty of using the same serving hi-jinks on its G2 and Propel drinks. The only thing separating these two competitors is the fact that Gatorade hasn't decided to market its 32 oz. 100 calorie drink as Gatorade 25.
The fact that Glaceau is branding the drink as a 10 calorie drink when it really has 25 calories is puzzling for two reasons. First, 25 calories isn't that much; especially when you compare it to the original Vitamin water which had 130 calories and 33 grams of sugar! Second, what consumer is out there drinking their sports drinks in 8 ounce servings? If this practice was really that popular the market would be flooded with special branded 8 ounce bottles of performance enhancing fluids. A reasonable person would expect a 20 ounce bottle of a sports drink to contain 1, not 2 and a half servings.



Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
4-15-2009 @ 4:11PM
Stephani said...
This must be what they had to stay up all night working on.
Reply
4-30-2009 @ 8:33AM
doomtv said...
8oz seriving is the standard in the beverage industry. Look at anything you drink and it's broken down into 8oz serving.
Reply
4-30-2009 @ 8:36AM
Josh Smith said...
Not the can of pop in my fridge. :-)
5-07-2009 @ 3:32PM
hance said...
it's good for the body the same as anti aging products it's comes from natural...
Reply
5-08-2009 @ 2:45AM
Michael said...
It is not a misleading name. If it is 10 calories per serving any educated person can calculate their number of servings. Personally I like to drinking alkaline ionized water from my water Ionizer and mix it with propel powder.
This however can only be done at home. This low calorie vitamin water is a good alternative when stopping at the local gas station.
Reply
5-09-2009 @ 4:49PM
Ruth said...
This is a joke right? Are you running out of things to write about? Most foods and beverages list nutritional content by serving size and the label clearly states "per serving" in big letters on the front. BTW, you burned off the calories in one bottle of vitamin water when you wrote this article.
Reply
6-25-2009 @ 2:14PM
Barbara said...
I don't understand why you people keep making a big deal out of this water I think that this water tastes good and it is also good for you. Whether it is 10 calories or not I like the XXX kind because it has healthy antioxidants in it.
Reply
7-09-2009 @ 7:21PM
Cori said...
Do you not realize this is the way calorie count is listed on ALL products? It has always been this way- PER SERVING. They aren't pulling any tricks. I don't get why anyone would be "fooled" by this. Besides...25 calories isn't much.
Anywhoo- I picked up a bottle of the 10 calorie XXX the other day, and didn't like it. It said "no artificial sweeteners"- yes, they used natural sweetener (stevia) but I still can't get past that too-sweet-fake flavor. Fine in my morning coffee, but I think I'll avoid the 10-cal bottles from now on.
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