I have continued to get comments and replies to my blog post, Juice Plus a Lack of Common Sense = $$$. So if you haven’t read the post click here, if you are lazy I will post a short summery here.
As a homeschooler, I grew up on “the other side” of the medicinal tracks. And while I appreciate many aspects of the alternative health industry there is much of it that resembles quacks selling snake oil! But really all you need to create a cure is… 1/4 cup curiosity, 1/4 cup skepticism and 1/2 cup of common sense. Directions: apply and reapply as needed.
Juice Plus falls under the Snake Oil category.
Here is my latest response to two people who commented in favor of Juice Plus.
@Nutrition 101 – I’m not knocking you personally but please understand that a “personal experience” story shouldn’t convince anybody. For example I went to college where I stayed up later, ate more junk food and stopped taking herbs/vitamins/supplements/juice plus and I got healthier and had more energy. Does this mean I should everyone should stay up late and eat junk food? no it means I got healthier and I don’t know why. I’m glad your three year old eats gummies and is healthy but in the USA most 3 years olds are healthy regardless of “gummies”
Having been involved in the MLM world (shaklee/nature sunshine/amway/) as well as with the “evil” corporate world. Neither one “creates” unlimited income. Each contains people that go to work and their income is related to how hard and how well they work. There is no “magic formula” for wealth/health/happiness they all are a result of good old honest work.
And I’m not afraid of “satanic” companies trying to steal my soul through product placement at Wal-Mart. Seriously people.
@Linda – all nutrients and vitamins come from somewhere. They aren’t created ex nihilo in some test tube. All vitamins are found in nature and to make a vitamin you just concentrate the “natural” food to extract just the vitamin. What does Juice plus say they do… they take a whole food and concentrate it then extract a small portion of it and then say eating the smaller bits of an apple is just as good as eating a whole apple.
There are no studies/tests that compare eating Juice plus/vitamins/herbs/supplements to eating real whole foods. All the studies compare herbs to vitamins, juice plus to vitamins etc.
Too me it is just common sense to not try and shortcut the process. Our bodies are designed to eat and digest real food not concentrated food. So my common sense tells me to not look for a magic pill to allow me to… eat less vegetables or exercise less.
The same goes for business… don’t look for the magic formula to make millions of dollars that shortcuts real work and real products.
Isn’t it interesting that the people who desire easy and quick health are also the same people who desire easy and quick wealth?
I appreciate the comments and people trying to convince me of the error in my ways, it is only through such open discussion that we can hope to get anywhere so keep the comments rolling. Thoughts???
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
All you have said about Juice Plus is true, and then some. Thanks for shining the light on this true scam, which is mostly a profit-motivated load of garbage! Don’t be shy — you are right in what you say!
I just came from a Juice Plus demo. I went with checkbook in hand to buy a bottle of what I assumed was going to be overpriced vitamins. The presentation convinced me that the owners of the company were either crazy or frauds. One of the scare statistics was that cancer was a leading cause of death in children. That’s because current medical science has pretty well kept all the other diseases from killing kids. The presenter also went into a long talk about how fruits and vegtables have to be raw to be nutritious. I was curious as to how raw vegetables would fit in the capsules. She explained that the capsules contained dehydrated veggies. Last time I used my dehydrator to make snacks for the kids it heated (otherwise known as cooking) the apples. When I told her this she said that the dehydration in Juice Plus preserved the vitamins because it dehydrted them all the way down to a powder. I stopped asking questions at that point because I consider it unproductive to talk to a crazy person. More importantly I couldn’t keep a straight face anymore and though that it would be mean to laugh at my friends boss.