Richard’s Ramblings

If your email inbox or surfing habits are anything like mine, you have undoubtedly seen online testimonials or received emails that quoted something similar to the following:

“I have lupus, and for anyone who knows about it, it leaves me very tired and sleepy even after 8 or 9 hours of sleep. Also joint pain in a bad way. I drank MonaVie for four days and woke on day 5 and haven’t been [sleepy] yet. My family says I even talk faster. I have no pain, and have more energy than I have had in years. I love it it is the greatest thing next to Christ that I’ve experienced in my life. No more pain meds for me. YEAH!!!” — Susan

But what is this MonaVie stuff, anyway?

According to the official MonaVie website, they are purveyors of a juice blend that contains white grape, pear, acerola, pear puree, aronia, purple grape, cranberry, passion fruit, banana, apricot, prune, kiwi, blueberry, bilberry, camu camu, wolfberry, pomegranate, lychee fruit, açaí, and palm nut oil. While MonaVie will not disclose the percentage of açaí in their products, they tout them as premier açaí blends — under the implication that a large percentage of the juice blends is açaí.

Ever seen an açaí berry? Neither had I. The berries are produced by a palm tree known scientifically as Euterpe oleracea, common along Brazil’s Amazon River; almost all the açaí palms grow wild in deforested floodplains. When ripe, the berries are dark purple, about the size of a blueberry, and contain a thin layer of edible pulp surrounding a large seed. During the dry season when the fruit is plentiful, hundreds of men lug woven baskets filled with the shiny fruit plucked from the 80-foot-high palm trees that line the river. Demand is high for the staple of native Amazon cuisine, virtually unknown globally until 15 years ago when a pair of Californians recognized the economic potential of the regionally popular berry.

The Science

Along with the moniker as a “super food”, açaí berries are highly regarded for their amounts of antioxidants. A 2006 Brazilian study of antioxidants in the most commonly consumed fruits in Southern Brazil (mulberry, grapes, açaí, guava, strawberry, acerola, pineapple, mango, graviola, cupuaçu, and passion fruit) concluded that the highest levels of Trolox-equivalent antioxidant capacity (TEAC) were found in acerola (53.2 μmolg^-1 (micromoles of Trolox equivalents per gram)), mango (12.9), strawberry (9.2), grapes (7.0), and açaí (6.9). A similar 2004 study by the USDA among fruits common to the United States indicated total (lipophilic and hydrophilic) oxygen radical absorption capacity (ORAC) of cranberries (94.56 μmolg^-1 (micromoles of Trolox equivalents per gram)), wild blueberries (92.60), plums (62.39), and blackberries (53.48). An article in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry reported the ORAC of freeze-dried fruit pulp and skin powder of açaí berries as 1027 μmolg^-1 (micromoles of Trolox equivalents per gram), the same value used in marketing by MonaVie. While the studies used different assays (TEAC vs. ORAC), the measurements are 98% correlated in the above antioxidant studies due to the high capacity values (above 8 μmol/L (micromoles of Trolox equivalents per Liter)), after taking the length of the inhibition time into account.

What this means to the average non-scientist is that eating six to eight large strawberries (about 1/4 pound) or a few mango slices (about 1/6 pound) results in the same antioxidant potential as a one-gram pill of pure, concentrated, freeze-dried açaí berries or 1/3 pound of fresh açaí berries. Modern processes have been able to concentrate antioxidants per gram from açaí berries to the highest level of all fruits, but whole açaí berries are much farther down the scale than other readily available fresh fruits. With a vast number of juices and supplements competing for consumers’ money, it makes good business sense to tout ingredients with the highest measurable numbers — thus the trend towards using freeze-dried açaí berries instead of purees and pulps; the number 1027 sounds a whole lot better than 6.9.

Are açaí berries a good source of antioxidants? Yes. But if it’s only the amount of antioxidants you care about, the same USDA study points to other non-fruit sources of antioxidants such as pecans (179.4 μmolg^-1, or about 1/2 a nut to compare to the one-gram açaí pill), dried oregano leaf (2001.29, or about half a leaf), and cinnamon (2675.36, or 1/10th of a teaspoon). At the top end of the scale, a single drop of clove essential oil has an ORAC score of 10,786,875 μmol/L, the same amount of Trolox-equivalent antioxidants as in several spoonfuls of freeze-dried açaí berry powder.

The Marketing

MonaVie relies on the antioxidant powers of the açaí berry to market its products, but relies on its prolific multi-level-marketing (MLM) distribution channel to do the actual selling. Customers who use Monavie are encouraged to become independent distributors of the Monavie products by purchasing the right to resell for an initial $39 (annual membership renewal is $20 thereafter). Distributors try to bring in more distributors and get a percentage of every sale made by the downline distributors they recruited.

While the Monavie compensation plan is complicated, the general idea is that if you can bring in a network of people to sell juices, and they sell to their friends, and their friends sell to their friends, you will make money. The plan guarantees (in small print) that 50% of the total volume of purchases will be paid to its pool of distributors, and as long as you purchase $100 (or $200 for those deeper into the payment structure) of product per month, you’ll get a share of the proceeds. Obviously, the distributors on the highest branches of the tree earn significantly more than those at the bottom, and the majority of distributors do not make enough money to compensate for their monthly required personal purchase.

As such, with all that money floating around, there are a few disreputable and greedy distributors making illegal claims as to the benefits of MonaVie. Many of them tout the juice as a factor in curing everything from “inherited auto-immune disorders” to “joint pain and headaches”. Consider the following quote recently left by a MonaVie distributor on another blog:

“The crown jewel of this drink [is] the Acai berry… The Brazilian people have very little disease and certainly no cancer. They are very close to the equator and the people there although are very tanned are not suffereing [sic] from skin cancer and also do not have tons of wrinkles.” — Iris

In a misguided effort to convince consumers to purchase MonaVie, this distributor claims that açaí berries (thus, the MonaVie juice that she sells) prevents cancer and cures most diseases. Thanks to the proliferation of technology that allows anyone to have their own websites and shoot their own videos, many other MonaVie distributors make similar claims, citing benefits ranging from helping remove plantar warts to curing a dog’s arthritis.

The FDA has clamped down on unsupported claims made in the marketing of similar fruit juice blends. The official MonaVie website states that “it is not the purpose of a natural product like MonaVie to treat, cure, or prevent disease”, and sellers who make false claims are reportedly removed from the company’s compensation plan. Jeff Graham, managing director of product development for MonaVie, says, “We want to be around for a long time, and the best way to be around for a long time is to make the appropriate and well-defined and approved claims you can make for fruit-based products, which are really very few.”

The problem is that while MonaVie makes no claims to consumers of health benefits, nor does it allow distributors to make such claims, nothing prevents MonaVie from attempting to convince its own distributors of those benefits, nor does it prevent distributors from “educating” their recruits. Official training materials endorsed and presented by MonaVie’s Jeff Graham contain a slide that discuss decreased incidences of non-melanoma skin cancers in the Northern regions of Brazil as compared to the Southern regions. The same slide has a tiny footnote that reads “Acai grows and is consumed in high amounts in the Northern part of Brazil” — and distributors are left with a compelling but deceptive inference which they unwittingly propagate.

Personal Trial

Wanting to give MonaVie every chance to succeed or fail on its own merits, I purchased a case of four 750ml bottles of MonaVie Active off eBay for $97.50 (shipping and handling included) — a happy medium between the retail price of $45 per bottle and the distributor price which runs from $20 to $29 per bottle (plus shipping), depending on sales volume and marketing incentives. I later found out (during the research phase) that, per their US Policies & Procedures, MonaVie expressly prohibits sales of their products through infomercials, television, radio, or on any website where an auction is the mode of selling. Oops! I certainly did not intend to support someone who was intentionally violating the company’s established rules. However, if I’d relied instead on the spam emails in my in-box, I would have paid $135.15 for the same case.

I cracked open a bottle the day after receiving it from UPS, having let it cool overnight in the refrigerator. The general consensus online is to drink between one ounce (two tablespoons) and two ounces (1/4 cup) per serving, once in the morning and again at night. After vigorously shaking the bottle, I poured myself a bit extra on this first tasting (three ounces) in order to better describe the first experience. Once I untwisted the cap of the bottle that resembled one from a fine wine (and being somewhat relieved upon not finding a cork that needed to be extracted), I took a whiff.

The first thoughts that came to mind were of a tropical-blend-flavored cough medicine; I was unable to identify any specific ingredients by smell, but the contents were both fruity and medicinal at the same time. Once poured, visually it resembled a mildly thickened, opaque red wine with a moderate amount of sediment. The first taste hit me with a mildly acidic tang. Again, unable to positively identify specific components, my mind flashed on a few possible matches, including grape, blueberry and pomegranate — all ingredients within the blend. Not sweet and slightly sour, MonaVie is drinkable, if you can put aside the medicinal stigma.

Two weeks (and two bottles) later, I had mostly acclimated to the tangy tincture. Nighttime consumption tended to give me gas and heartburn, so I switched to drinking MonaVie in the mornings only, four ounces at a time. Since I started taking MonaVie, my bowels had been looser than normal, a condition reported by many other consumers of the blend.

At three weeks and three bottles, I’ve actually started liking the juice blend. I tried switching back to the recommended twice-daily dose, rather than just a morning dispatch, however the nighttime heartburn returned. Back again to once a day, and the heartburn disappeared.

A month into the trial, the case was gone. There was no positive difference in my overall health attributable to consumption of the juice — my energy levels had not increased, I was not sleeping any better, the few patches of dry skin I had were still dry, my bouts of back and neck pain had not lessened, daily doses of medication had not changed, and my sinuses were no clearer than usual. The introduction of loose bowels was still an issue.

Conclusions

MonaVie is drinkable, but I don’t like it enough to continue buying the product. However, I kind of miss the morning ritual. I believe I’ve given the juice a fair trial, but it has not done anything extraordinary for me. MonaVie is simply a blend of juices. Do not rely on health claims for any product unless the statement is approved by the FDA. Drink it because you like it, not because you (or your friend who wants to sell you the juice) are convinced it will cure anything.

Exercise common sense. After all, as the ubiquitous they often say, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

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