Choice Magazine article about Anti-oxidants

No doubt you have seen or heard the recent criticism of all ‘superjuices’ in the media stemming from the original CHOICE magazine article where they promoted their opinion that none of these juices are any good in any way because of their apparent low antioxidant test scores when tested in the CHOICE labs.

This original article compared the TAC (Total Antioxidant Capacity) of each juice and criticised the health claims and lack of research surrounding these popular products. FreeLife would like to take this opportunity to respond to these criticisms that are again being promoted by CHOICE as part of their self-promotion.

FreeLife has always taken the position that TAC (also called ORAC) is not an accurate test for the true antioxidant effect of any product. It is simply a measurement of the antioxidant potential of a food. There can be a tremendous difference between a food’s potential benefit and that which is actually delivered, and that is because many food-based antioxidants are poorly bioavailable and are not well-absorbed from the digestive tract.

The TAC/ORAC test does not take this into account because it is conducted in a test tube, not in a human. That’s why it’s called Total Antioxidant Capacity. In other words, it has the capacity to perform, but only if the body can find a way to absorb it.

Our scientists believe that to really obtain a compound’s antioxidant effect, tests should be conducted on actual effectiveness in the human body. Otherwise, consumers can be easily misled by foods that have impressive TAC/ORAC scores but little actual antioxidant performance. CHOICE declined to do such testing which would have given them radically different results.

We can surmise that the publishers of CHOICE wrongly assumed that, because our product is a juice, we must be marketing it as an antioxidant. We know better, and so do you. As Customers, you understand that the true benefits of Himalayan Goji Juice are attributed to the berry’s unique bioactive molecules called Lycium barbarum polysaccharides (LBPs).

Numerous published studies have shown that goji’s LBPs act as master molecules in the body and that, synergised together, they serve as directors and carriers of the instructions that cells use to communicate with each other. Improved cell-to-cell communication can have a powerful and positive effect on wellbeing.

Goji also has an impressive antioxidant function, but not one that can be measured in a test tube. That’s because the LBPs themselves are not antioxidants, but studies have demonstrated that they can dramatically increase the body’s production of its three most potent antioxidants, superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT) and glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px).

We believe that the body’s own antioxidants can do the job better than any dietary antioxidant, and certainly better than one that never gets out of your G.I. tract. FreeLife is the only company that has standardised the LBPs in every serving of Himalayan Goji Juice.

CHOICE’s published verdict was that all of the most popular selling Superfruit juices were just a fad, with little scientific evidence to back-up any of the claims that were “purely anecdotal.” CHOICE’s allegations of “few clinical trials” and “very little evidence to back them up” is a surprising professional estimation considering all of the information publicly available on scientific websites such as Scirus (www.scirus.org) and PubMed (www.pubmed.gov) where there are currently hundreds of ratified clinical studies on the recognised and accepted benefits of these highly-regarded superfruits.

Goji ‘Lycium’ alone returns 536 journal results on Scirus and 168 studies on PubMed, not to mention the numerous other studies returned by the other superjuices tested. All these publicly available studies were largely dismissed by CHOICE, even when they were directed to these studies by superjuice manufacturers previous to their published report.

There leaves little doubt as to the ethics and integrity of CHOICE when part of their correspondence to us over this matter states “We agree, however, that an ORAC score is just one aspect of a food, and that a high antioxidant score doesn’t necessarily guarantee benefits in vivo [in body].”

Even with this admission, CHOICE spokespeople have continued to use words such as “fad,” “scam,” “pyramid,” and “snake-oil” to describe all of the superjuices that remain strongly endorsed by many of the worlds leading doctors, scientists, nutritionists, and other health-care experts.

FreeLife knows goji better than anyone. We created the category, we were the first to identify the LBPs as the source of goji’s wellness-giving abilities, and we spent nearly a decade designing our proprietary Spectral Signature Process to ensure consistent potency, purity, and authenticity in every bottle. FreeLife has little concern for TAC/ORAC numbers, as “it is all about the polysaccharides.”

Soon FreeLife will be sharing with the world one of the most revolutionary announcements in FreeLife history that will take your FreeLife business to a whole new dimension in 2008. This announcement will accelerate FreeLife to faster growth than ever before and push us years ahead of any competition. Himalayan Goji Juice is about results!