Balance of Nature Analysis
There is a whole food supplement in the marketplace today, Balance of Nature, getting a lot of media exposure. Ads hint that it can replace servings of fruits and vegetables. Healthy looking active people are seen in ads mentioning how much their life improved while taking these supplements. What is the WHOLE story behind this product?
United States Government Health agencies recommend that people consume 5+ servings of fruits and vegetables a day. These amounts are now specified as cups per day, that is 1.5 -2 cups of fruits and 2-3 cups of vegetables. This must be quite difficult since only 1 in 10 consume these amounts. ref
This fruit and vegetable supplement sounds like a simple way to increase servings without having to actually eat food. Obviously, fruits and vegetables contain many valuable nutrients. Here are amounts of fruits and vegetables equal to one serving.
QUESTION OF THE DAY
SUPPLEMENTS OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES
Thus, the question is how much of the nutrients in fresh produce get into these capsules? There is a fruit cap, a veggie cap, and a spice and fiber cap. Let's just look at the fruit cap first to get an idea of how much of the nutrients in fresh fruits can be put into 3 caps.
USING APPLE EXAMPLE
The 3 fruit caps hold just over 2,000 milligrams, or 2 grams. A medium size apple weighs about 6 ounces, or 168 grams (28 grams to an ounce). Taking out the 85% water weight, that leaves about 25 grams of dried apple solids containing the nutrients, including about 3% fiber. (list of water % for F & V) Since the company does not use extracts, if this apple powder was used to fill all three capsules, 2 grams, that would equal just 8% of a medium size apple. What about the other 15 fruits listed on the label that also need some space?
Realistically, does this apple example sound like this product could deliver a full fruit serving substitute in the 3 capsules at total 2 grams (2.011 mg.)? Maybe a good start for some types of high water fruits. There could be a healthy ORAC value, but that antioxidant value is not equal to a substitute for fresh fruit. If you can afford to pay about 300% over the real value of this type of product, by all means go ahead. At least it does not appear to have any negatives, unless one is allergic to an ingredient.
FYI: if you are taking the spice and fiber caps, be sure to drink sufficient water. Fiber absorbs water and could back up the elimination system. At 8 grams of fibers, this product supplies about 29% of daily requirement, a good amount, but less than the fiber content in 2 medium apples at 8.8 grams and slightly more than one apple at 4.4 grams and one banana at 3.1 grams. The FIBER caps just might be the most valuable product of the three.
If one looks at the bottle labels, while they list the fruits, there is a glaring absence of any vitamin and mineral content amounts. This may be due to the fact that they are quite insignificantly small.
ANOTHER EXAMPLE- Strawberries
One fresh strawberry, about 1 inch across with water removed, weighs about .56 of a gram. Since one fruit capsule on average holds .67 gram, or 670 milligrams, that means that 1 and a fifth dried strawberries would fill one capsule. A serving is considered 8 strawberries. 3 capsules of just strawberries would yield just under a half fruit serving, that is 3 and 3/5 strawberries.
BANANA DETAILS
The banana has the least amount of water, very difficult to juice. A medium size banana weighs 100 grams, thus 25 grams without 74.9% water. Just like the apple, about 8% of banana solids would fill one capsule. It would take over 12 capsules to get one serving of only banana.
So, the real value of this product must be in the combination of a little of 16 fruits to add up and equal possibly, depending upon the mix of fruit amounts used*, about half a fruit serving. Better than none. $70 for monthly price or $90 one time price of both the fruit and the vegetable bottles could buy quite a lot of fresh fruits and vegertables.
While vegetables seem solid, they actually have a higher water content than fruits overall. If each capsule had equal amounts of 15 items, that would mean just .14 gram of each. This would equal about 3% of an apple serving, 3% of a banana serving, 3.1% of a strawberry serving. If this holds for most of the other fruits, this would equal almost half a fruit serving and the vegetable bottle would also equal about the same half a serving. Such small amounts are not likely to have a significant impact on the health of an adult size body.
Caution: Veggie capsules contain soy. Soy simply has too many negatives to be included.**
Since this company says they do not cook the produce before freezing to maintain nutrients, they must rigorously test each batch after freeze drying for contamination. ref Plus, since the nutrients no longer have the protection of the skin shell around the fruit, the freeze dried fruit powders are exposed to greater levels of oxidation. Rapid processing into capsules is necessary and each bottle needs to have desiccants added for protection while in the bottle. Every time a bottle is opened, oxygen enters. Of course, the low water content of freeze dried fruits limits microbial growth, but any microbes present could survive and get reactivated once they get in a water environment inside the body. Fresh fruits also have this possibility. One reason a strong immune system is needed for protection.
The freeze drying process appears to be very intensive and requires a very clean environment. Do any of the produce suffer structural changes and what impact would these have on produce nutrition? These possible activities might not be large enough to influence the body, and it may not pose problems for short term use, but longer term use could increase risks. This and other challenges present the opportunity to gain benefits from probiotics. ref
Good Bacteria destroy and control Bad Bacteria.
Wrap UP! While the ingredients are good, these Fruit and Vegetable caps under deliver on quantity at an excessive cost, and use meaningless promotional testimonials. The fiber & spice product is the only one recommended, but is double the expected price. There are other cost effective alternatives. The spice blend is unique and may add some value. Some individuals have to be careful with too much psyllium. Drink enough water with this product.
This product is not equal to a number of fruit and vegetable servings. Most likely the fruit and veggie servings of 3 caps each yield almost a half serving at best. How could half an apple and a medium size carrot yield such amazing benefits as the testimonials claim??? And at $3.00 a day makes for a pretty expensive apple and carrot price per pound. These are serving size equivalents and not really half an apple. Remember just 8% of an apple solids would fill all 3 capsules while a half serving of strawberries would fill all 3 capsules.
General Info on Soy
**CAUTION: The vegetable caps contain soybean seeds. Yes, the amount is very tiny and not enough to have any impact. Overall, soybeans are not to be used raw as they contain anti-nutrients. Some of which are toxic in higher amounts. Why this ingredient was included is a perplexing mystery.
Yes, soy has many beneficial nutrients, but the anti-nutrients usually overplay the benefits unless soy is cooked for a very long time and then fermented to eliminate the anti-nutrients. But there are still isoflavones with phytoestrogen activity to monitor. ref Just too many fires for some subsets of people to be careful using soy. After 50 years of research, the soy history simply is too thorny.
Updated informaiton (January 2024)
Some other websites writing about Balance of Nature said the fruits and vegetables were all from organic sources. But the company website does not now mention organic. The part of a product label that is inside the square black line box is the only part that has very strict regulations. Current label boxes for the fruit product do not list organic anywhere. The source of fruits is not organic.
The next papagraph was in the inital article, now removed and included below for general information only.
Possible Downside of Freeze Dried Organic Fruits
Raw foods sometimes contain microbial organisms. Organic growing methods actually increase the possibility of pathological microbes. article Why? Commercial growing methods use chemical pesticides to kill pests and artificial or synthetic clean fertilizers. Organic growers use less chemicals and more natural methods, such as predator insects which are not quite as effective and natural fertilizers as animal (or human) and plant wastes, a potential source of many microbes. Some of these microbes might survive the freeze drying methods unless the food is heated at some point. ref
Next is the freeze-drying method that says the material is first sent through a fine screen that eliminates any impurities, such as bacteria. ref While bacteria are quite large, it is the much smaller virus that needs to be evaluated.