Juice Plus+ Juice Plus Plus? Plus what? Juice Plus+ claims to be the “next best thing to fruits and vegetables.” They state that their products are made from juice powder concentrates and oils from a variety of fruits, vegetables, and grains.
Website Navigation
The Juice Plus+ homepage is not the most informative if you are coming here as a customer like us. The homepage has no valuable information if you are curious about their products. It looks more like a blog or as if it is meant for doctors, not consumers.
On the homepage, there is a “Featured Product.” This made us think that this particular item would be on sale but it was not.
There is a What is Juice Plus+? section, which goes into more detail about their products, what they offer, and why you should take their products. The information found here would be much more capturing on the homepage.
We were very interested in finding out about the Juice Plus Clinical Research section. While it looks impressive to have that much research, we found it really wasn’t much when we read through it. Everything the research claims to find isn’t very clear and sometimes even seems to contradict itself. According to a Healthline article on Juice Plus+, “It’s also worth noting that many of the studies on Juice Plus+ have been widely criticized for being industry-funded and poorly designed. It’s common for companies to fund research on their own products, but the results of these studies should be interpreted with skepticism – as they may be biased.” They spent a lot of money to get Universities to say what they wanted to hear. This leads us to be very hesitant in their research. The fact that they have a lot of research means that most people aren’t going to read very much if any of it. Customers might just assume that because they have research that it is legit… this is not the case. If you look into their research you will notice that they use very small sample sizes, heavily study smokers, no solid comparison to other products or foods, and more.
The Buy section allows you to browse all of their products. It would be better for them to have all of their products at the top of the page rather than just one of their sets. Some people might not scroll down and realize that they have other products. With their products, they do not have any reviews. We would like to see people’s honest opinion on the website.
The About Us section is helpful in giving a history of the company and its values. We are big fans of giving back and Juice Plus+ donates and volunteers with St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Volunteers of America, Boys & Girls Clubs of America, and Children’s Hunger Fund.
The website adjusts to mobile with a similar layout to its desktop website.
While the website is laid out fairly well, it can be hard to find the information you are looking for. A lot of things seem kind of hidden. As we mentioned before, it doesn’t necessarily seem like a website made for customers. They seem to really focus on and push their Clinical Research, which really isn’t impressive.
Catalog
Overall Juice Plus+ has 21 options with some of these being the same product in different flavors. We purchased the Fruit & Vegetable Blend Capsules.
They offer capsules, nutrition bars, drink mixes, and chewable in adult and children versions.
The adult and children options for the gummy is kind of confusing because it is the exact same product. The product itself doesn’t change but if you order the child version it comes with 1 carton and is a 4 month supply. The adult version comes with 2 cartons and is a 2 month supply. They are the exact same product with the exact same label. Why don’t they just have it listed as safe for children and adults and sell the 1 carton or 2 cartons in one place so that people don’t get confused looking at it?
Juice Plus+ only has 4 categories of products with not many options in each category. This is good as you have options to choose from but it is not overwhelming. You can also choose a form of product that best fits your preferences or needs.
Packaging Information
The bottles that the Juice Plus+ Vegetables and Fruit come in have good information. We mentioned at the beginning how it is weird that their name is Juice Plus+ (plus, plus), we also noticed the name of their products we got are Vegetable Blend + and Fruit Blend +. The fact that they use the + on everything just keeps making us think that there are things added to their products. This will be discussed later on in the quality section.
The actual nutrition label on Juice Plus+ is good as it shows the calories, nutrition facts, vitamins, and daily values.
They do list all of the fruits and vegetables in their products as well as any other ingredients. This helps you to see any added vitamins and minerals.
We thought it was strange how they have a Vegetable Blend + and a Fruit Blend + but both of these products have both fruits and vegetables in them. Wouldn’t you put the fruits in the fruit capsules and the vegetables in the vegetable capsules? The Vegetable Blend + has tomatoes and lemon peels which are fruits. The Fruit Blend + has beets which are a vegetable.
The capsules state, “Keep out of the reach of children,” and the chewables state, “Please keep out of the reach of children to avoid over-consumption.” If their products were actually natural, children would be able to consume as many pieces as they wanted without over-consuming. If they only used whole food with no additives, you wouldn’t be able to overdose.
Juice Plus+ states that their products are vegan, gluten-free, made from all non-GMO ingredients with no artificial colors, flavors, preservatives, or starch. The products are also Strict Kosher Certified and NSF Certified. The packaging also states an expiration date which we appreciated.
While Juice Plus+ does not make claims on their actual product, they make claims throughout their website with their Clinical Research. This research is not significant or accurate in any way, but they use it to make claims they otherwise would not be able to. Juice Plus claims to help with tings including dental health, heart health, immune system, DNA, oxidative stress, healthy skin, systemic inflammation, quality of life, obesity, and lung health. The same Healthline article mentioned in the website navigation above also states, “The company that sells Juice Plus+ asserts that it can provide serious health benefits — though scientific evidence does not always support their claims.” Because this research is not meaningful, these claims are quite extreme.
The overall packaging of Juice Plus+ is nice. It has a clean feel too it and has the lift tab lids that we prefer. The shape of the bottle and the lid kind of reminds of us a disinfectant wipe bottle.
Customer Service
When emailing Juice Plus+, it took about 2 days to get a response. We asked several questions and they answered all of them, however, some of their answers were a little confusing. They are also active on Instagram and Twitter.
Juice Plus+ has a great return policy stated as, “We offer an unconditional, 100% money-back guarantee on your last shipment that was received in the last six months. If you’re not completely satisfied with your Juice Plus+® order, call the number below anytime Monday-Friday between 8:00am-5:00pm Central and our Service Center will take care of you.”
After we ordered this, we decided to call to cancel our recurring orders. Canceling was easy and they let us keep the product while still giving us a full refund.
Quality
The overall quality of Juice Plus+ is something that concerned us. Their process with the whole food includes juicing the fruits and vegetables and drying the juice. They then make it into a powder to put into their capsules. They claim to use whole food, but just juice is not considered whole food.
They do have this video that shows the process of how their product is made.
They then state that there is no juice utilized in the final product as the liquid is lost through the dehydration process. If we understand this correctly, they juice their product and then dry it which makes the juice disappear. Juice is full of sugar which means that the portion of the “whole food” that is left after their product has gone through their proprietary process, is mostly sugar with a few if any, nutrients.
Now that they have sugar from what started as a whole food, they add in synthetic vitamins. They claim to do this because it helps to make their product consistent. If they actually used whole food in their products, there wouldn’t be a need to add in what they took out. Now all of the plus signs in Juice Plus+, Vegetable Blend +, and Fruit Blend + make more sense…It’s plus synthetic vitamins aka chemicals!
The only vitamins and minerals found in Juice Plus+ products are small amounts of Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Vitamin E, and Folate. If their products were made from whole fruits and vegetables wouldn’t there be more nutrients from natural vitamins and minerals in the capsules? This means that even after adding in vitamins, they still have fewer nutrients than most multivitamins you can find at your grocery store. While these other multivitamins may not start with whole food, they at least give you more nutrients than Juice Plus+ would.
The previously mentioned Healthline article also states, “Considering the high cost of these supplements and the lack of evidence of any real health benefits, you should think twice before buying them.” If this trusted team of medical professionals doesn’t trust Juice Plus+, it makes us hesitant too.
Product
We wanted to taste this product to know how natural it tasted. We opened the capsule (which some people who have a hard time swallowing capsules would have to do anyway) to get a better idea of the taste. The smell and taste of the capsules seem like cheap natural things. They smell a little bit like cardboard. The taste of the Fruit Blend + is not as strong as we thought it would be. The Vegetable Blend + has a strange flavor that leaves a bad taste in your mouth. Everyone tried the Fruit Blend + because it was so strange, it almost tasted like nothing and had a sandy texture!
For an adult, the capsules seem like a good size that would be fairly easy to swallow.
Price/Month
Juice Plus+ costs $50 per month although they send you a 4 month supply. Because they send you a 4 month supply, you also have the option to pay in full which is $200. It only comes in a 4 month supply, so if you were hoping to try it out for a month and then decide, you will just have to call in and cancel. You will then be left with all of this extra product that you might not even want to continue taking.
You can purchase the products on Amazon but they are called Orchard Blend + and Garden Blend +. They are $114 which is is a lot more expensive.
This is a subscription service but that is not clear other than in super tiny writing underneath all of the information it says, “Your next 4-month supply of Juice Plus+ will ship automatically.” This could be very misleading and confusing to potential customers.
Experience
Furry Face and Organic Oscar took this product for 10 days. As they took it, they continued to live their normal lifestyle with no changes. During these 10 days, they did not notice any differences in how they felt.
Recommendation
We would not recommend buying products from Juice Plus+. While they have a lot of research and studies, they don’t mean anything. The quality of this product simply is not great. They aren’t using the whole food to get the maximum nutrition possible and then they add in synthetic vitamins to try and make up for it.
Contributors to this review: Furry Face, Organic Oscar, and Cute Cactus
Sources:
https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/juice-plus-review#ingredients
http://www.devingrayfitness.com/debunked-juice-plus-a-research-review/
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