“When comparing ORAC data, care must be taken to ensure that the units and food being compared are similar. Some evaluations will compare ORAC units per grams dry weight, others will evaluate ORAC units wet weight and still others will look at ORAC units/serving. Under each evaluation, different foods can appear to have higher ORAC values. Although a raisin has no more antioxidant potential than the grape from which it was dried, raisins will appear to have a much higher ORAC value per gram wet weight than grapes due to their reduced water content. Likewise, watermelons large water content can make it appear as though they are very low in antioxidants.”

So in short, one must consider the amount of water in the food sample. The more water, the lower the ORAC score per gram of that food. When something that is freeze-dried the water is removed. With all the water weight taken out, you are left with a nutrient-dense power. This is the reason for the high ORAC scores.

So because MonaVie has freeze-dried acai as the first ingredient on the label, it must have a high ORAC value, right? Well, no. You’ll note that the first ingredient is actually “Proprietary blend of Acai (freeze-dried powder and acai puree).” There’s no way to know how much freeze-dried acai is part of that proprietary blend. It could legally be one-billionth of a gram. This would explain why AIBMR’s study by MonaVie board member Alex Schauss showed that MonaVie actually didn’t have a high ORAC score (getting trounced by an apple: MonaVie vs. an Apple).

Originally posted 2009-12-03 14:46:28.

According to this website and other research, freeze-dried acai berry supposedly has an anti-oxidant value of 102,700 per 100g. This is also the number that MonaVie’s Dr. Alex Schauss has referenced in the past. This number may be debated, but for sake of this article, let’s give MonaVie the benefit of the doubt and assume this fact to be true.

The AIBMR study done by Dr. Alex Schauss concludes “the total antioxidant capacity of the JB (i.e. MonaVie) measured by ORAC is 22.8 umol/mL.” AIBMR’s research is sponsored by MonaVie and done by MonaVie Advisor Dr. Alex Schauss.

Let’s take some freeze-dried acai and mix it with water (which has no ORAC value) in an attempt to make a liquid with an ORAC of 2280 per 100 grams just like MonaVie. How much acai would you need to create a liquid with 2280 ORAC per 100 grams? The required ratio is 2280 / 102,700 = .0222. This means that you need .0222 * 100g, or 2.22 grams of freeze-dried acai berry mixed with 97.78 grams of water to produce an acai berry juice with an ORAC of 2280 umol TE per 100g. If you added more freeze-dried acai to the mix it would have more ORAC than MonaVie… thus the maximum amount of freeze-dried acai is 2.22%

However, in the previous paragraph we assumed that we were mixing the freeze-dried acai with 97.88% water. MonaVie claims to not have any water in it (according to it’s label), and we can only assume that the rest of the fruit juice in MonaVie provides significantly more ORAC value (as all fruit juice does) than water. This means that there is much less than 2.22% freeze-dried acai.

Conclusion: Since MonaVie is SIGNIFICANTLY less than 2% freeze-dried acai, a wise consumer is better off focusing on what the other 98% of MonaVie is. Furthermore the consumer should be concerned that MonaVie appears to be violating FDA’s labeling laws, by listing freeze-dried acai so high on the list.

Originally posted 2010-04-25 11:09:40.