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Himalayan Goji Juice:

Goji Secrets They Don't Want Us to Tell You

IT ALL STARTED in June 2007 at Papayas, our local natural food store on the garden island of Kauai, Hawaii...

While shopping, we were approached by a pleasant fellow who asked if we'd like to try a sip of Himalayan Goji Juice. Sure, OK, why not?

He told us all the reasons why we should be drinking Himalayan Goji Juice every day. After listing a parade of benefits, he invited us to not only order monthly supplies for ourselves, but also to become distributors of this $50 business-in-a-bottle.

The primary pitch to us was the claim that Himalayan Goji Juice is the only raw, unheated goji juice on the market. And just because it has never been heated, it is the only goji juice that has all the natural healing properties and "Master Molecules" of the true goji berry. So you just can't buy another juice anywhere like it.

Pretty tall tale. We didn't believe it for a moment.

First of all, we are long time natural food enthusiasts, and we knew that no juice purchased in an unrefrigerated bottle could possibly be raw or unheated, even with supposedly "whole, unrefined natural preservatives" that he said were added to keep the juice fresh.

We told him we'd need to see proof of these claims, said thanks and left the store. We really didn't think much about it after that.

But people started talking about the raw miracle juice with the "Master Molecules." And we'd hear that the reason the juice was so powerful is that it is never heated, so it maintains all its healing energies.

We go undercover to get the "raw facts"

We decided to go contact the factory where the juice is made. After a little googling, we located Aseptic Solutions, the plant in California where the juice is processed.

Our undercover reporter called Aseptic Solutions and spoke to the Executive Vice President.

That's when we discovered that Himalayan Goji Juice is far from raw and unheated. Actually it is 1) pureed and dried in Asia, then 2) reconstituted and HEAT STERILIZED at the Aseptic Solutions plant in California.

Our Aseptic exec confirmed that Himalayan Goji Juice is indeed processed at his plant. We asked him if ALL juices at their plant undergo their proprietary flash heat sterilization process which kills all bacteria, pathogens, and live enzymes in the juice.

"Yes, we always use flash sterilization," he told us. "We have never attempted a raw product."

We asked if his company would ever consider packaging a raw juice. The answer came crystal clear:

"Absolutely not," (his emphasis). "The risk is potentially too high."

He explained that flash heat sterilization utilizes even higher temperatures than pasteurization and employs a different process.

A different company rep clarified the aseptic flash sterilization process. He told us that the juice is heated to between 260 and 286 degrees Fahrenheit. The process uses an "essence recovery system" (his words) to recapture the boiled-off juice vapors which are then condensed back into the final juice product.

The sterilized juice is then chilled down to about 40 degrees and chill bottled in sterile packaging. He said that the entire process from start of heating to cooling and bottling takes about 11 seconds.

By comparison, he explained that hot filling and pasteurization reaches temperatures of about 180 degrees Fahrenheit, although for a much longer time period. Yet at these much lower temperatures, some life remains (see below).

Aseptic sterilization completely destroys ALL living organisms in the juice by heating to a juice-specific target temperature. The pharmaceutically sterilized juice leaves absolutely no trace of life (see chart below), including raw, living enzymes:

From the Aseptic Solutions site:

We were shocked. But not for the reason you may think. The fact that the juice is heated didn't phase us at all. We already knew that before we made the calls.

What shocked us was the sudden realization that yes, Himalayan Goji Juice distributors are actually pitching their juice with fantastic fairy tale selling propositions. And people were actually buying the story along with the bottles.

What's going on here? we thought again.

As longtime health-conscious people, it was a mystery that both intrigued and outraged us, so we wanted to find out more...

Next: 

We head straight to the top of the corporate ladder ...

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