In the original report issued by Fraud Discovery Institute on Usana Health Sciences, Usana’s claim that its TenX Antioxidant Blast Bar had 10 times the antioxidant power of any juice was debunked.
The Usana website made this claim:
With 10 times the antioxidant power of any juice products currently on the market†, TENX™ ANTIOXIDANT BLAST is unlike anything ever seen before.
And the below video by Usana (starring none other than Myron Wentz) touted the antioxidants and emphasized a serving when Wentz said, “…packed into one delicious serving.”
Note these comments by Wentz in the video:
We asked ourselves, “What if we could create a product that was more convenient and more portable than any juice, yet offered ten times the antioxidant power.”
Well, I’m happy to tell you that we’ve done just that. We have developed a product that is more nutritious and more delicious than the best juices on the market today. Once again, Usana has applied real science to the quest for true health.
With these statements in mind, an independent laboratory tested one TenX bar and one serving of Langers Grape Juice. The lab found that the antioxidants in TenX bar were only actually 2.6 times higher than the grape juice. Repeat… the bar wasn’t ten times higher. Only 2.6 times higher.
Usana cried foul! The company claimed that the reported result was fraudulent. The company then changed the website to say this:
Ounce per ounce, TenX™ Antioxidant Blast has 10 times the antioxidant power of most juice products currently on the market.†
Ounce per ounce? So you’re supposed to compare a sip of grape juice to a couple bites of a bar, and that’s how the comparison works?
The original statement on the Usana website implies “per serving” as any normal nutrient comparison would be done. It is simply silly to later change the game and say “that’s not what we really meant.”
The Fraud Discovery Institute went back to the independent lab for a clarification of the results of the testing. And Analytical Laboratories in Anaheim, Inc. sent a letter saying:
First, I would like to simply clarify some of the apparent misunderstandings surrounding the comparison testing of the TenX Antioxidant Bar against Langers Grape Juice. The comparison experiment was based on one serving (40g/bar) of TenX vs one serving (8 fl) of Grape Juice. The result is: 15,360 umolTE vs 5,861 umolTE. It means the antioxidant ability of TenX BAr is about 2.6 times stronger than one serving of Langers Grape Juice.
The letter also goes on to affirm the original findings from the testing of the Usana Health Pak 100 and the Universal Animal Pack.
Sounds to me like Usana is doing some fancy footwork to try to make their original claim stand up to scrutiny by fraud investigators. But I’m not buying it.
