Dr. Sandy,
please stop telling everybody
it's "R.A.W."
Himalayan Goji Juice: Goji Secrets They Don't Want Us to Tell You
Dr. Sandy Says
Meanwhile, Dr. Sandy Boice, longtime spokesperson for Himalayan Goji Juice, continues on with a claim of no heat processing.
Dr. Sandy Boice is a "Royal Ambassador #1" - one of FreeLife's top Distributors who makes up to $2.4 million a year or more (source: FreeLife).
Here's what she said on a big Himalayan Goji Juice conference call:
Audio Clip 6
Dr. Sandy Boice
"We keep it alive by not heat processing it."
Listen:
Source: Himalayan Goji Juice conference call October 8, 2007, 10-11:00 pm, EDT, theabundancegroup.com.
Transcription:
Dr. Sandy Boice: "...we process in such a way as to keep the integrity of the berry alive. Um... I've used an acronym over the years in educating people. I used the word R.A.W. as an acronym for Real, Alive, and Whole. And that's a perfect description of the way we choose and process the ideal goji berry to bring it to marketplace. And quite frankly to bring it to our refrigerators available to each and every one of our bodies. We keep it alive by not heat processing it."
(Yellow highlights ours.)
We wonder if Dr. Sandy Boice is aware that FreeLife has now informed us that Himalayan Goji Juice is both heated and sterilized.
We at breathe would now request that Dr. Sandy Boice discontinue the use of the acronym "R.A.W." because it may confuse consumers and distributors and lead them to a wrong conclusion that Himalayan Goji Juice is unheated. Certainly we can now show that many people have already wrongly concluded that no heat is used in the processing.
Since Dr. Sandy Boice likes acronyms, we have two new suggestions:
S.T.E.R.I.L.E.
Stop Telling Everybody Raw, It Lacks Enzymes
or
H.E.A.T.E.D.
Heat Enzymes And They Entirely Disappear
Also, the "W" in Dr. Sandy's acronym stands for "whole." Himalayan Goji Juice has had the pulp from the berry removed, so many health-conscious people will not consider that the final juice product is a whole food.
We at breathe would now also request that Dr. Sandy Boice immediately discontinue the practice of saying or implying that their product is kept "alive by not heat processing it." Even if you start with a truly raw berry, by the time it gets into "our refrigerators available to each and every one of our bodies," the final bottled juice has obviously been heated and boiled by aseptic flash sterilization.
Of course, it's fine if Dr. Sandy Boice has a personal philosophy about sterilized juice as being "alive." Every person is entitled to their unique viewpoints.
However, since FreeLife seems to rely so much upon science, we cannot see any science which would describe a heated and sterilized juice as "alive." By definition, any sterilized juice is lifeless and dead.
sterilization: the destruction of all living microorganisms, as pathogenic or saprophytic bacteria, vegetative forms, and spores. dictionary.com
See also the Aseptic Solutions definition of sterilization (below).
We believe strongly that the natural food community at large will not accept Dr. Sandy's viewpoint that a heat sterilized juice could ever be classified as "alive" or "raw." This liberal interpretation of the word alive goes counter to our experience of what most natural foodists and raw foodists strive to teach.
If people want to claim that Master Molecules exist in the juice which make it "alive," then they are free to do so if that is their belief. But that is a personal position; there is no scientific basis for claiming that a sterile juice is "alive."
If FreeLife and Dr. Sandy Boice persist in a view that sterilized juice is somehow "alive," we predict the natural food and health-conscious community at large may rebel against that notion.
Not True!
Audio Clip 7:
Dr. Sandy Boice says they choose preservatives to avoid boiling the juice.
Listen:
Source: Himalayan Goji Juice conference call October 8, 2007, 10-11:00 pm, EDT, 32:57 - 33:30 in 55:42 minute talk, theabundancegroup.com.
Transcript (yellow highlights ours):
Dr. Sandy Boice: "In order to sell a product, a nutritional product, it has to have a proven two-year shelf life."
"Well, there are only two ways to do that: you can either add a preservative or you can just, you know, boil the heck out of it, hot fill it in glass bottles and basically you've killed anything that's going to grow bacteria. Which means you've certainly spoiled what we were hoping to take into our bodies to nourish them and help them be healthier."
"So, ah, FreeLife had chosen, with current technology, to use less than 1/10 of one percent of a naturally derived sodium benzoate and potassium sorbate in Himalayan Goji Juice."
Dr. Sandy Boice explains in the above clip that there are only two ways to bottle juice for a two-year shelf life:
1. add a preservative
2. boil the juice and hot fill it in glass bottles
This statement is not true.
Firstly, option 1 is not possible. A representative from Aseptic Solutions informed us that preservatives will not give juice a two-year shelf life.
Secondly, option 2 is not the only way to bottle juice for a two-year shelf life. Another way is aseptic heat sterilization, which is how FreeLife is already bottling its juice at Aseptic Solutions!
Dr. Sandy Boice claims that to avoid boiling the juice (option 2 above), they have elected to add preservatives (option 1 above).
The truth is that Himalayan Goji Juice is actually boiled - flash heat sterilized - to achieve the two-year shelf life requirement.
(Dr. Sandy Boice fails to inform consumers that the current technology FreeLife uses is a third option for bottling, and that this option is a heat process, which raises additional issues for us. Further, this option does not require preservatives for a two-year shelf life. Preservatives help kill bacteria that might enter the juice after opening. For more info on preservatives, see The Preservatives Police.)
If the above quotes by Dr. Sandy shock you, listen to this one from another Himalayan Goji Juice spokesperson:
Audio Clip 8
Dr. Matt Silver claims the juice is maintained at 34 degrees (!)
As we said, even FreeLife has now admitted that their juice is heat sterilized at Aseptic Solutions.
The puree is combined with natural[*] ingredients and then subjected to a proprietary chill blending process that maintains the temperature at exactly 34 degrees in order to preserve the balance and contents of the active polysaccharides.
Who told you that the juice is maintained at exactly 34 degrees?
We'd like to know.
Dr. Sandy's comments also reminds us of an audio clip we had heard from Dr. Peter Lazarnick, a Himalayan Goji Juice spokesperson and distributor:
Audio Clip 9
Dr. Peter Lazarnick talks about enzymes
We are not sure why Dr. Lazarnick uses the following statements to bolster sales of Himalayan Goji Juice (which is not pasteurized, but in fact heat sterilized at even higher temperatures).
When you pasteurize the product, especially a juice, you destroy much of the enzymatic activity of that juice, of that fruit, and therefore compromise it's nutritional value.
Remember that enzymes are extremely important in the body. They are what are responsible for all the chemical reactions that take part in our body which are absolutely hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands, maybe in the millions. And enzymes are important to make that happen in the body. If you destroy most of the enzymatic activity, the enzymes in that juice, in that product, then you are absolutely compromising the nutritional value of that product.
Dr. Lazarnick's sales pitch is promoting the value of live, active enzymes!
So does Dr. Lazarnick actually believe that active enzymes remain in bottled aseptically sterilized goji juice? (The heated enzymes are in fact destroyed.) Like many of FreeLife's doctor spokespersons, Dr. Lazarnick is not a qualified medical doctor - he is a chiropractor.
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations says that with aseptic processing, "the rapid heating and cooling of the product guarantees microbial and enzyme destruction." (Source: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations)
When a fruit is alive, it has "live" enzymes that begin to degrade the fruit immediately after picking. Enzymes are also what make seeds sprout. Sprouts are one of the richest sources of enzymes.
Enzymes are delicate dynamos. Delicate because they are destroyed by temperatures over 118 degrees (some by as little as 105 degrees). (living-foods.com)
Researchers continue to test the outer limits of temperature that enzymes can survive in any given food. But there is no life in a sterile juice, and no "live" enzymes, so there is no need for preservatives.
According to Aseptic Solutions:
Sterilization refers to the non selective killing of every living organism, good or bad in the product for its storage conditions. Irreversible coagulation of (microbial) proteins. Aseptic Solutions
The living message of the raw food community has been quietly spoken for decades. (See rawspirit.com as example.) But these days, we hear their voices rising ever stronger. Only now, some of us are truly beginning to hear it.
We ourselves at breathe are not raw foodists. Of course, we have always favored salads, fresh squeezed juices, and a significant portion of our diet as raw food. But now, ever since breathe came to life, we find ourselves even more drawn to the value of living, fresh foods.
We feel it both strange and magical that somehow we find ourselves now championing truly raw foods that have truly never been heated.
Dr. Sandy Boice 
Audio Clip 8 