My wife has been an active member in a nation-wide, young adults group. The groups goals are very noble - to help members with public speaking and event planning skills while raising money for the local community through local businesses. My wife went to a recent meeting and received a surprise. One of the most respected members turned it into a presentation of an energy/antioxidant drink called MonaVie.

MonaVie is a blend of 19 juices with the most referenced being the acai (a-sigh-eee) berry. The acai berry supposedly has many, many antioxidant properties. I like to be as healthy as I can, so sure I would incorporate MonaVie into my diet, right? Wrong.

The drink is not cheap. Its $40 a bottle - and that bottle lasts only one week. You can expect to pay around $175 a month for MonaVie. For quite a few people, thats a car payment. If Im paying this kind of money, I want a guarantee. Perhaps a popular, publicly-traded, pharmaceutical company should stand behind it. At the very least, the company should publish how much of the acai berry is each bottle.

Beyond the drinks being expensive, MonaVie is marketed through a controversial system. First, you cant buy it in stores. It is sold only through distributors. These distributors compensation is based on a multi-level marketing structure. Some of you may be familiar with Amway, Quixtar, Mary Kay, or Tupperware. If you are, then you probably understand how this works. A distributor holds a party to try to get his/her friends to buy the product. Usually the party is a hard sell and the attendees feel like they have to buy the product.

The distributors are obvious extremely vocal about the virtues of the product. They have a tremendous reason to be biased towards believing that MonaVie is not a scam. Even if the distributors are not conscious of this bias, it could be there. I dont mind products that can objectively prove their value like Tupperware and Mary Kay. With MonaVie a placebo effect could be in play - you just have no idea if its working or not.

Is it possible that MonaVie is not a scam? Im sure it is. However, Im putting the burden of proof on MonaVie to show me that it deserves the pricing premium over vitamins or other anti-oxidants.

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