Water is water, right?  Well, not really.  There’s sparkling water, flavored water, filtered water, well water, hard water, flouridated water, tap water, bottled water.  Over the weekend I purchased a bottle of SoBe Lifewater Acai Fruit Punch.  It sounded good, was from SoBe and has fun and smart marketing on the bottles.

I should have checked the ingredients before I bought the drink, but I didn’t.  I assumed it was water with flavoring and would have just a few ingredients at most.  I was wrong and I am disappointed in the number of ingredients in it.  The ingredients are in very small words and there are lots of them.

Here is a list of the 20 ingredients in the Acai Fruit Punch SoBe Water: filtered water, erythritol, natural flavor, citric acid, ascorbic acid (vitamin C), xanthan gum, calcium lactate, potassium citrate, reb A, modified food starch, cochineal extract, natural apple extract, vitamin e acetate, calcium phosphate, gum arabic, calcium pantothenate, acai fruit extract, niacinamide, pyridoxine hydrochloride (vitamin B6), cyanocobalamin (vitamin B12).

I don’t know what many of them are.  It appears that several are vitamins.  There appears to be a little acai extract, although it’s way down on the ingredients list.  I don’t know why there is xantham gum in the water.  It’s a thickening agent and keep ingredients from separating.  I don’t know why there is modified food starch in the drink.  I don’t know what the gum arabic is used for and why there are so many  ingredients in what I thought was water.

I do know that it is “manufactured by independent producers for South Beach Beverage Co” which means someone/(s) is making it for them.  I think it’s fine that they have partnered with companies to produce their drinks.  I just wish that they did not market a “vitamin enhanced water beverage” that has so many unknown ingredients to the average person.