“Spark” is advertised as a low-cal energy drink that is sugar free and doesn't give you jitters.
Just the words “sugar free” and “low-calorie” raised a red flag in my mind. So, I started digging.
The products list on the advocare website lists the “key” ingredients, but it is by no means a full list, which made me think they had something to hide.
It turns out they have a lot to hide. That is, if they want to continue advertising this garbage as healthy!
I finally did find it. In a small tab under the “key ingredients” is “all ingredients”. You click the tiny button to the left and it will reveal the actual, comprehensive list, revealing the top offenders:
“natural and artificial flavors, sucralose.”
Click HERE and click the + by the ingredients to see for yourself.
Wah..wah…there they are are: the nasty little ingredients that they don’t really want you to know are in there. The ones you have to dig to find.
Just because something is a “natural” flavor doesn’t mean that it is good for you, and artificial flavors cause a host of issues and illnesses:
including headaches, ADD, hyperactivity, tumors, neurological disorders….I could go on.
Sucralose is just the generic name for Splenda, a toxic artificial sweetener. Take sugar (often derived from GMO sugar beets) process it with chlorine, and voila:
sucralose. It was actually originally created as an insecticide, but once chemists discovered that it was so sweet, they abandoned the insecticide idea and marketed this chemical as a healthy sugar alternative.
Seriously. Why? Because the diet & weight loss industry is way
more profitable than the pest-control industry.
“But sucralose is FDA approved! It even says so on the Advocare website!” you might say.
Honestly, that means
nothing! The FDA has approved a host of horrible chemicals (including asparame!!) that are killing us. They give the thumbs up to lots of other chemicals posing as food that other, healthier countries have long ago banned. Plus, the study that they did before approving sucralose included 23 humans for only 4 days…
how irresponsible is that when passing off an insecticide as a food product?
***Sucralose has been downgraded from “safe” to “caution” because of it’s link to leukemia***
I’ll go further in-depth about the dangers of artificial sweeteners in a future post but for now, here are the most common side effects of this sweet chemical:
it reduces the good bacteria in your intestines (which causes a cascade of other problems)
and raises the Ph in your body. It also…wait for it…is linked to weight gain because of
it’s propensity to cause carb cravings, stimulate appetite, and increase fat storage in the body.
It is also linked to a laundry list of other symptoms like migraines, dizziness, kidney stones,
seizures, rashes, stomach pain and diarrhea, anxiety and depression.
So, I am not even going to go into the rest of the questionable ingredients, or bother with researching how they derive the vitamins and minerals in their products. I don’t see anywhere where they are “raw” or “live” or “food-sourced” or “organic” so they may just be synthetic or derived from GMO plants laden with pesticides. Honestly, I don’t care,
because the presence of artificial flavors and sucralose is enough to convince me that these products are not only unhealthy, but not designed with whole body long-term health in mind.
And, in my opinion, any company who would make finding all of the ingredients in their products difficult and who markets harmful chemicals as health products is lacking in either integrity or basic knowledge of long-term health.
If you need an energy boost in the morning Beachbody's Energize. Also consider
why you are lacking in energy. This is often because of a mineral or vitamin deficiency that can be
healed through proper diet which Beachbody's Shakeology is a great help with.
It's better than suppressing the symptoms with a shit storm chemical drink.
Alright, I’m really not wanting to step on any toes. I’m just looking out for ya!
