Arkovital® ACEROLA 1000 Natural vitamin C is a food supplement packaged in 2 tubes containing 15 tablets each for a total of 62 grams of product.
Ingredients:
Acerola berry juice powder (Malpighia glabra L.) - Bulking agent: sorbitol - Sucrose - Xylitol - Fructose - Coloring: beet red - Natural flavor - Anti-caking agent: magnesium stearate - Sweetener: Steviol glycosides.
The label of this supplement highlights the natural origin of the vitamin C included in the formula.
So you would expect the other ingredients to be "natural" as well. They are not.
Sorbitol - Xylitol - Natural Flavor - Magnesium Stearate - Steviol Glycosides are chemical compounds, however little harm because, as we will see, they do not cause harm,
Let's also take a look at the nutritional information as reported on the package:
Let's note right away that "Acerola 1000 natural vitamin C" written on the package does not mean that we will find 1 gram of vitamin C in each tablet. We will only find 170 milligrams of vitamin C per tablet. The 1000 refers to the "Acerola juice powder" which contains 170 milligrams of vitamin C.
So let's explore all the ingredients to know what we will be taking with this supplement in order of quantity, as indicated on the label.
Acerola belongs to the Malpigaceae family and is a fruit native to Central America. It has high concentrations of vitamin C, A, B1 and B2 and has carotenoids, anthocyanins, lycopene, proteins and flavonoids.
Sorbitol, labeled as E420 in the list of food additives, is found, in nature, in fruits such as pears, apples, cherries, rowanberries, plums etc. but it is industrially obtained with a chemical procedure based on glucose. It is an artificial sweetener, a sugar alcohol with six carbon atoms, widely used in the industrial preparation of sweets for its sweetening properties.
Xylitol is a five-carbon sugar alcohol that has commercial uses in medicine and food applications as an alternative sweetener for people with diabetes. It is an artificial sweetener of vegetable origin that replaces sugar, also called E967 as a food additive or "wood sugar" as it is made from some types of trees and corn.
Fructose is a natural sugar, a monosaccharide that occurs naturally in fruits, vegetables, honey and is also found in breast milk. It has 4 kcal per gram and is used as a sugar substitute in the food industry. Fructose is another component having an innocuous and inviting name, but whose excessive consumption can create health risks. This ingredient is often included in sweets, food drinks etc. with the purpose of increasing the sweet taste and we find it in glucose-fructose syrups, fructose syrups and also pure. I do not know how many milligrams of Fructose are contained in each tablet, but I notice this ingredient is in the 4th position in the label, therefore not in minimum quantity, I suppose. This however is an argument that should be discussed with one's doctor because, pathological problems apart, in this case it is about minimum quantities. Another case is the so called "total" intake and that is adding, during the day, quantities of fructose taken from carbonated beverages, sweets, fruits, candies and so on. In these cases, the sum of small quantities of fructose is not recommended.
Sucrose is common sugar, an ingredient which should not be abused. It is not understandable the quantities included: in the list of ingredients in Italian, it is in the 5th position, whereas in the list of ingredients in English it is in the 2nd place.
Beetroot red is a natural food additive also called Betanin and is included in the list of food additives as a dye with the number E162. It is extracted from red beets (Beta vulgaris) by pressing. The coloring is purple red and is commonly used in foods and beverages. It is unstable as it tends to degrade with light, but is harmless to human health.
Natural flavor. Question: about what? Which ingredient are you referring to? A premise: the term "Aroma" or "Flavors" is generic, therefore it does not mean that the aroma or the aromas included are obtained by natural means, but it is a mixture of substances or preparations, obtained by means of chemically derived systems. However, in case the wording is "Natural aroma of..." it is a synthetic product, therefore chemical, however at least it contains a natural extract of the ingredient to which it refers to. In this case we cannot determine whether this "Natural Flavor" is really natural as it is not specified which natural product it refers to.
Magnesium stearate is the magnesium salt of stearic acid (octadecanoic acid) and is a chemical compound added in the formula with the function of anti-caking agent, i.e. to avoid possible lumps in the production of the tablets' dough. Harmless.
The steviol glycosides are extracted from the perennial plant Stevia reubadiana Bertoni, from the Asteraceae family, native to the subtropical regions of South America, Paraguay and Brazil, which has a very high sweetening power, about 200 times the sugar. They are considered safe by EFSA.
Final Thoughts
A supplement that, from the premise of the packaging, I thought was more effective because I had linked the value "1000 natural vitamin C" to 1 gram of vitamin C. In each tablet there are only 0.170 grams of vitamin C.
Another note concerns sweeteners: between natural sweeteners and synthetic sweeteners, that is chemicals, there are, in my opinion, too many.
Flavors usually occupy the last position in the label, which means they have the least quantity of all the other ingredients. In this formulation "Natural Flavor" is in the third last position and it does not make clear to us which natural ingredient it refers to.
The packaging reads: "Its 100% plant origin formula, chemical ingredient free, contains 1000mg of acerola powder, rich in natural vitamin C, for optimum assimilation by the body". However, I wonder if Xylitol, Sorbitol, Magnesium Stearate were extracted naturally and not by chemical process.
On the other hand, on the positive side, the vitamin C included in the formula is stated to be "100% natural of plant origin". Therefore, it is not the chemical ascorbic acid.
