Fortified with nonsense

The blog Consumerist has recently been poking some holes in the idea that Naked Juice is as natural and healthy as it claims to be. One astute reader noticed that the nutrition label for Strawberry Kick showed that it contained zero vitamin C, even though it supposedly contained 14 whole strawberries, a fruit packed with vitamin C. The company responded that the vitamin C is lost during pasteurization, but added that another Naked Juice flavor, Power-C Machine, has “added boosts” of vitamin C.

“Added boosts” is a fancy way of saying a food has been fortified — artificially enhanced with dietary substances. (This is in no way natural, so how Power-C Machine remains “naked” is a mystery.) Fortified foods are nothing new — think iodine in salt — but only in the past five years have manufacturers really applied the idea to any and every food item they can (i.e., vitamin-fortified 7Up and marshmallows with collagen).

But is it all necessary?