GoChi or No-Chi?
You decide.
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This is UPDATE PAGE 4.
GoChi & Himalayan Goji Juice: Our Report Continues
GoChi:
Can you really store Chi in a bottle?
We previously reported that Himalayan Goji Juice berries are not grown in the Himalayas, as the name might imply, but are actually grown in China.
Well, FreeLife has finally dropped the Himalayan idea and reintroduced its bottled goji juice as "GoChi" - a name that hopes to capitalize on the Chinese idea of life energy, or chi.
[During its rebranding phase, FreeLife also dropped goji guru and spokesperson Dr. Earl Mindell, who received his Ph.D. from an unaccredited institution offering "Public Paid for Bogus Degrees," according to the Washington Post - see The "Doctor" will see you now. FreeLife also removed the preservatives we complained about, which, as we reported long ago, were NOT required to maintain a 2-year shelf life - see Dr. Sandy Says and The Preservatives Police.]
What's in a Name?
We find this new name "GoChi" a misnomer; the way we see it, GoChi does not contain any chi at all.
As we reported months ago (read our saga from the beginning), Himalayan Goji Juice and GoChi are both heat sterilized and therefore neither bottle contains any life or any "live chi."
We'll explain why...
What is "Chi"?
According to Chinese philosophers and healers, chi is the life energy possessed by all living things. Chi is called prana by the yogis of India. (See and this chi note.)
Chinese medicine extols chi as the essence of life. When chi is abundant, you are healthy, happy, and alive. When chi leaves the body, the body dies.
 Chi - the
Breath of Life
Chi gives life and breath to all living beings. To breathe is to flow with chi, to flow with life. The secret of life is in the breath, in the chi.
Chi (or qi) is sometimes actually translated as "breath."
In martial arts, practitioners often build up their chi with special breathing and meditation practices, similar to yoga and Buddhist techniques.
Naturally, we at breathe.org appreciate the breath and the concept of chi very well.
GoChi or No-Chi?
Chi dissipates quickly after picking a fruit or cooking. Compare the fresh energy you get from a tree-ripened peach with the dull energy of canned peaches and you will feel the value of chi in fresh foods.
FreeLife's goji juice is highly processed. FreeLife admits that their goji juice is "pharmaceutical grade," which frankly, we wouldn't brag about if we were them. The processing and bottling of fresh fruit juices completely alters their chi value.
Says Paul Pitchford in his book Healing with Whole Foods:
"The modern denaturing of foods through massive refining ... deranges their pranic-qi [chi] life force..." p. 641
How do you feel when you eat corn fresh off the cob - compared with canned corn? Anyone who has a vegetable garden will tell you there is a difference between fresh fruits and vegetables and canned or packaged foods. Even if the package label reads the same "nutritional value" as fresh corn, you'll still find there is something missing inside the can. Science has yet to discover this missing factor.
The missing factor is the life force, or chi.
According to Ayurveda, the life force wanes soon after processing or cooking, which is why raw and freshly cooked foods are advised. This has been the entire message of the raw foods community for decades. The living life force - chi - is maximum only in fresh foods.
Chi is not the calories in a food. Chi is a much more subtle energy than can be measured by laboratory tests. There is no chi in a box of Cheerios, which was processed and cooked weeks ago. There may be calories you can burn for energy, but there is no life force.
Similarly, there is no life force in heat processed, bottled juices. Raw food enthusiasts proclaim that you need to consume fresh juices immediately after juicing to receive the juice's maximum prana, life energy, or chi.
Go ahead and test it out for yourself:
1. Juice some fresh grapes and drink the juice right away. Can you immediately feel the freshness and energy in this juice, which is high in chi?
2. On some other occasion, drink some bottled grape juice. Do you feel a different quality of energy in your personal experience?
According to Eastern philosophy, chi nourishes the most refined levels of the nervous system called "nadis" - subtle energy channels that science has yet to discover.
Chi is Not Polysaccharides
FreeLife distributors have told us that their GoChi and Himalayan Goji Juice is alive with chi because it has "bioactive polysaccharides."
But "bio active polysaccharides" have absolutely nothing to do with chi. This "chi-polysaccharide" talk is all a brand of Eastern mysticism that FreeLife's marketing department has cooked up to sell its heat processed juice.
(Note: Speaking of polysaccharides, FreeLife has not met our public challenge to prove that nondegraded LBP-1, LBP-2, LBP-3, and LBP-4 polysaccharides exist in their juice. See FreeLife Fails to Show Proof of Polysaccharides.)
According to Chinese philosophy, chi is a much more subtle force than any physical structure like proteins, carbohydrates, or polysaccharides.
Chi is the very breath of life that cannot be scrutinized under a microscope or analyzed in any chemistry lab.
Do you believe in "bottled chi"?
Our understanding of chi is from decades of personal experience with Eastern culture.
FreeLife's mileage may vary. FreeLife is free to concoct its own personal views about chi in order to sell you its expensive goji juice. We are all fortunate to enjoy religious and philosophical freedoms.
There's no such thing as a "chi meter" that can scientifically measure the chi (or lack thereof) in FreeLife's GoChi goji juice. So we suppose we could debate the subject endlessly.
But to debate with us, FreeLife will have to leave its claims of science even further in the dust to ponder the finer points of Eastern thought. We would welcome an open dialogue.
Meanwhile, we're not big believers in chi-in-a-bottle.
Next page:
How our story began ...
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February 2010 YOU CAN HELP US:
Do you feel you deserve a refund?
Have you been told any of these claims?
FreeLife used their own employees as test subjects for their GoChi research (we're not kidding). View all four UPDATE pages
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4. GoChi or No-Chi?