Ingredients:
(Dynamo Energy) purified water, certified organic evaporated cane juice, organic concord grape juice from concentrate, organic grapefruit juice from concentrate, citric acid, natural caffeine, calcium, natural; concord grape essence, potassium, vitamin c, magnesium, vitamin e, vitamin b-3, zinc, pantothenic acid (vitamin b-5), manganese (natural mineral), vitamin b-6, vitamin a, vitamin b-2, vitamin b-1, vitamin d, folic acid (vitamin b-9), biotin (vitamin b-7), vitamin b-12
Why it rocks:
It's local (Portland) It has 100% of your B complex vitamins and A, D, C and E. That's not to mention the minerals. It tastes great (it isn't super sweet). It's all natural. It has This particular kind is loaded with natural caffeine. I know, a lot of people consider caffeine the enemy. But, I work 10 hour shifts. Sometimes I work 12 hour shifts. And I have to be nice to people, the whole time. By the way, it isn't carbonated. So, you can drink it as slowly as you'd like. Viso has low calorie flavors, but they are currently flavored with Splenda. According to their website, that should eventually be switched to Xylotol or Stevia.
About Viso:
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| Source: drinkviso.com |
Not all varieties of Viso contain caffeine. They're intended as a boost in vitamins (B vitamins help regulate energy levels). I like the Organic Strawkey and Dynamo Energy the best so far. I'll be excited to try the natural low calorie options when they are available. From the website:
"VISO was founded in Portland, Oregon in 2001. Our mission at VISO has always been to provide consumers with the best tasting and most nutritious beverages on the market. VISO beverages are primarily a vitamin, mineral, and electrolyte delivery system, and are formatted in Energy, Organic, and Low Cal options. VISO Beverages now comfortably partake in the Vitamin/Mineral, Energy, and Organic Juice Beverage segments, offering customers a unique perspective on modern beverage architecture. For most of our history, we produced the beverage ourselves at our own tiny bottling operation in North Portland. Recently, we decided to begin flavoring our drinks primarily with Organic fruit juices at the Portland Bottling Company, a much larger, Organically certified facility in Portland. Our beverages are now available in 16 oz, environmentally friendly cans, and the beverages we design and produce are light years ahead of anything else available. No other beverages can compete with the Organically fruity flavors and great taste of VISO! We are currently available in the NW, but we will be expanding nationwide in the next three years with our constantly evolving product line."
this company sounds really good. And the products sound good too. I will have to try one of the non-caffeine drinks.
ReplyDeleteHi guys. Sorry to be a downer, but I had to say something about this stuff. According to their website, a can of this stuff (lemon-strawberry) has 45 grams of sugar. That's about 9 teaspoonfuls of sugar. Sugar is the great satan. It turns out that sucrose immediately gets metabolized (by stomach acid) to glucose and fructose, resulting in essentially the same effect as high fructose corn syrup. It doesn't matter if it comes from organic evaporated cane juice, or plain ordinary evaporated cane juice (otherwise known as refined sugar), or from sugar beets.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, according to wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee ), a shot of espresso has about 100mg of caffeine, and this stuff has 300mg, so you are getting the caffeine of 3 espressos -- almost enough to make the head of a normal person explode with a very loud bang.
I don't know about you, but after I've had 3 espressos, I don't have a lot of tolerance for people who annoy me, so while I'm sure it will keep you awake and alert, I'm not entirely sure it's so great for interpersonal relations.
Meanwhile, coffee itself has a lot of good antioxidants, which this stuff lacks.
So, my prescription is drink good coffee, and avoid this crap. In fact, in general, I'd say avoid corporate concoctions. This stuff is as artificial as Coke, which also, btw has no artificial ingredients.
BTW, even if it's sweetened with stevia or other such stuff, it is still going to cause pancreatic juices to release. You'll avoid the effect of fructose, and avoid most of those empty calories, but not other bad effects, and no one knows what these other sweeteners do to you long term, anyway.
Check out this interesting talk by a UCSF (med school) prof:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM about why fructose is the great satan. (But some people thinks he is overly monomaniacal.)
Oh, I forgot to mention the vitamins. If you have othewise proper nutrition, the vitamins in this stuff will have zero effect. Unless, of course, you are already taking other vitamins, in which case this stuff can be bad for you. For example, too much folate is bad. Too much vit A is bad. Too much vit E is bad. The one good thing is that it contains B12, which is typically lacking in vegetarian diets.
--peter
I'm not a big fan of vitamins. I believe that vitamins taken on their own will not be absorbed into the body the same way vitamins in a carrot will. It is chemical reactions and if the other elements aren't present then it will just pass through your system. An orange is good for you not because of the vitamin C but of all the elements of the orange.
ReplyDeleteAlso minerals freak me it. Many are minerals that can't be absorbed at all. Like iron in cereal: actual bits of the metal are not the same as iron the mineral. A science experiment with a blender and a magnet proved this. Gross!
And I'm with Peter on the excess sugar thing. If it has sugar in the first 5 ingredients it is too much sugar.