by Debora Chaves

Created on: January 05, 2009

Ruby Reds: A Highly Advanced Super Food

I have a girlfriend who always seems to know about the latest Big Thing. She's especially good at discovering new and innovative anti-aging products in the health and beauty category. I benefit, because she always shares what she's discovered with me! It was no different a couple of weeks ago, when she called to tell me about her most recent find.

She told me that while channel surfing on TV, she stopped to watch an infomercial about a new dietary supplement called Ruby Reds. I admit to only half listening to her at first, but snippets of "...and I didn't feel hungry all day!" as well as, "...it's only been a couple of days, but I actually feel better already!" penetrated my sleepy brain. Actually, what really woke me up was when she said that the dietary supplement was a powder not only containing vitamins (such as vitamin C, B-1, B-2 and B-6 ) and minerals (zinc, calcium and magnesium) but also contained lots of fruit and even some vegetables. She even promised to bring over her container of Ruby Reds and make me a smoothie!

I don't know if you are like me, but I don't get enough fruits and vegetables in my diet. I'm lucky if can I get one or two servings in on a regular basis, and the food pyramid says we should be getting five daily! Hey! That doesn't leave me much room for my chocolate and potato chips...

Ruby Reds Contains Lots of Fruits and Veggies!

Being a skeptic, first I wanted to read the label on the container. The label said that Ruby Reds is "the best powdered super food" because it's health benefits come from being "phytonutrient and antioxidant-rich" and "providing vitamins, minerals, enzymes and probiotics." I immediately liked that Ruby Reds had so many fruits and vegetables in it; I counted over 30 different kinds of them listed on the label. Among the many fruits and vegetables were 1625 mg of tomatoes, 550 mg of carrots, 50 mg blueberries, 500 mg of red raspberries, 300 mg of strawberries,125 mg of pomegranates, and 100 mg of bilberries, just to name a few.
Then I noticed the label said, "Over 4500 ORAC value and goes on to explain that "a product's ORAC value is a measurement of it's total antioxidant power. In every serving of Ruby Reds there are 4500 ORAC units, and the same serving size of apples would give you 124 ORAC units, and carrots would equal 44 ORAC units."

I looked at my friend and said, "let's look up the term ORAC!" According to Wikipedia, "Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity," (ORAC) is a

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