Humiliated, as always thanks for bringing your experience and empathy to the conversation. I would like to suggest one correction if I may. You stated it is impossible to make money in this scheme. This technically is not accurate and could lead pro-Monavie folks to point to this as how little the haters on the Internet understand MLM. Rather than impossible I would say it is highly improbable to make money, as in less than 1% historically. It would also be accurate to say that if you are unfortunate enough to be one of the less than 1% who are cash flow positive it is only by inflicting losses of at least 20 times any profit earned upon your downline.

This form of acai powder (Opti-Acai) was used in 2 studies conducted and published by Schauss in 2006. The name Opti-Acai is a trademarked name owned by K2A.
http://www.trademarkia.com/optiacai-77600507.html

Since roughly mid-2010, Monavie stopped claiming that the juices contain Opti-Acai and started claiming instead that the juices contain “AcaVie”, which they describe as follows:

“AçaVie™ is an antioxidant packed ingredient that combines our patented açai and juçara freeze-dried powder and puree with Enlivenox™, a proprietary açai compound boasting 10 times more polyphenols than traditional açai.”
http://www.monavie.com/products/health-juices/essential/facts

“MonaVie now has a patented brand of acai; it’s called AcaVie, and it’s the most potent form of acai available anywhere in the world.”
http://monaviemediacenter.com/news/a-new-generation-of-monaviefortified-juice-blends

Note that “AcaVie” refers to a trademarked brand name (owned by Monavie) — NOT to a patented form of acai. I have found nothing in Monavie’s recent advertising materials that refers to either Opti-Acai or the patent/trademark number for that particular ingredient. Note also that Monavie refers to “our” patented acai and freeze-dried jucara powder”, which implies that they own the patent; however, this seems to be misleading since there is no evidence that Monavie ever owned any patent for any form of acai.

Also relevant is the fact that the freeze-dried acai referred to in the Opti-Acai patent has a lower ORAC score that that which Monavie was claiming in their advertising materials.
See: http://www.juicescam.com/monavie-uses-earthfruits-mid-grade-acai-and-doesnt-harvest-or-freeze-dry-their-own/#comment-4662

Incidentally, the company clearly lied in the past by claiming that they control every aspect of acai production from harvesting to bottling – they clearly do not and never did.

In summary, it’s not clear that Monavie is using a patented form of acai in their products, or that they ever did. And of course, even if they had, it wouldn’t mean much. Monavie does not have exclusive rights to produce freeze-dried acai powder, and in fact, it’s freely available from bulk suppliers in Brazil, some of which Monavie has used in the past to procure ingredients (eg, Liotecnica, based in Sao Paolo, Brazil).

Furthermore, it appears that the main acai ingredient in Monavie juices is not freeze-dried acai powder but rather frozen citrate-preserved non-organic acai pulp/puree, which is also purchased from non-exclusive bulk suppliers in Brazil and shipped by slow freighter to the U.S. for blending. The inclusion of frozen acai pulp/puree is at odds with Monavie’s promotional claims that acai is essentially nutritionally useless unless it is immediately “freeze-dried” using “their” patented process.

And to top it all of, Monavie now spikes the juice with several exogenous vitamins, so in essence the nutritional contribution of the acai itself appears to be nil – Monavie is now basically fruit punch with a cheap low-grade multivitamin added to it.

It doesn’t even matter that they have a patent (as MS says, it doesn’t mean it makes the juice any more valuable) because the juice is not the nutritional bonanza that they tell you it is. The two shots per day is equal to ONE serving of fruit and is very low in anti-oxidants.

Read the Wikipedia definition and the articles on this site, which will lead you to the Men’s Journal articles, studies done etc.. These articles will also show you how it is impossible to make any money with this pyramid scheme. I am sure that you were shown an extremely complicated binary system which appears to be credible because it all seems so complicated. It ain’t. It is a pyramid scheme dressed up like a complex, legitimate business model.

Talk about this with a neutral third party who has a background in science…just don’t accept what is being told to you without questioning it for yourself. Above all, don’t accept the answers that you get from Monvie website or the people that invited you to the party. A lot of the distributors simply trusted the people that got them involved (like myself) who in turn trusted the people that got them involved etc. and they are all being fed the same load of marketing crap from Monavie Corporate. Don’t fall prey to it!

I have learned so much about these “juice companies” (Monavie isn’t the only one out there making all these false promises of health and wealth) through these sites and educating myself elsewhere. But I learned the hard way. I would love to stop someone else from wasting their hard earned money and time on this worthless juice and pyramid scheme!