Whether you’re a health-conscious consumer, constantly looking for a diet and weight loss aid or a couch potato looking for an easy way to lose weight, Nestle and Coco-Cola have a new carbonated energy drink perfect for the job. Enviga, the lovechild of green tea and sparkling water, is a carbonated green tea energy drink with different fruit flavors designed to actually burn calories and help the drinker lose weight.
According to enviga.com, consuming three 12-ounce cans of the energy drink (which only contain five calories each) a day (incorporated into a full, healthy diet) has been shown to burn an extra 60 to 100 calories in healthy 18- to 35-year-olds.
So how does it work? Is it just another energy drink? Will it really help you diet? Or is it worth the pricey sticker (approximately $7.00 for a package of six cans at Publix)?
According to the Enviga company-conducted study, “healthy 18 to 35-year-olds of normal weight who drank three cans of Enviga prototype per day burned an extra 106 calories on average.” Then, four additional studies were conducted using EGCG and caffeine levels comparable to that in each serving of Enviga. The energy boosting combination of EGCG and caffeine in those studies was shown to burn 60 to 100 calories.
Even without the extra calorie burn, Enviga only has five calories per serving, which is drastically lower than other sodas and bottled teas. And even though diet soft drinks contain no calories, they have been clinically shown to decrease the body’s metabolism, which can counter-act weight loss actions. So, even if you debate the weight loss or energy benefits, the Enviga drink is a good alternative for a diet drink.
In addition to the metabolism and energy boosting, calorie burning benefits, each can of Enviga also contains 20 percent of the recommended daily value for calcium and is naturally rich in antioxidants like Epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG). Antioxidants are nature’s way of fighting the free radicals, which run rampant in the average American’s diet and cause cancer and early aging. Each can of Enviga contains 90 mg of EGCG, which the company says is more than any other marketed, ready-to-drink tea.
EGCG is also a natural metabolism booster. Combining the effects of EGCG with caffiene, three cans of Enviga will gently increase your metabolism to burn those extra calories. The company does note that consuming additional beverages will not have an added affect.
Neither Nestle nor Coca-Cola are claiming massive weight loss benefits from consuming Enviga. Instead, they are promoting the product as a simple, easy choice to provide an extra energy boost and move you toward a more healthy lifestyle. It’s a gentle way to keep extra calories from building up, not a quick fix for weight loss. It’s a positive way to easily add calcium and antioxidants to your daily diet, not a diet cure-all. The new Enviga energy drink is available in three flavors: regular green tea, peach and berry.
Not everyone is buying the new Enviga energy or weight loss claims. Although both Nestle and Coca-Cola stand by their studies’ findings of calorie burning, they also say they are not marketing the product as a quick-fix for weight loss. Skeptics criticize their ad campaign, which promotes “less than nothing is better than anything,” to the extent that the Center for Science in the Public Interest plans to sue Coca-Cola and Nestle if they do not stop the weight loss ad campaign for the energy drink.
Doctors also express concern that the caffeine levels in three cans of Enviga go beyond an energy boost and are enough to cause jitteriness and elevated heart rates. They are also concerned that consumers will rely on the marginal calorie-burning, weight loss benefits to counter-act a sedentary lifestyle. The Enviga marketers hold fast to their statements that Enviga is perfect as an addition to a healthy lifestyle and say they never claimed it should replace diet and exercise for weight loss.
For more information and to read the clinical studies on the energy drink Enviga, log onto enviga.com.
