Update: Yevo changed it’s compensation structure awhile ago which made it appear to be less like an MLM or a pyramid scheme. In a post on July 27, 2016, BehindMLM reveals that Yevo will shut down due to a “lack of success”. In my opinion, Yevo wasn’t viable without the MLM/pyramid scheme component. I don’t think people were interested in paying that $5.00 serving price for oatmeal.
Back in October, 2014 I wrote an article: How To Start a $500 Million Company the Easy Way. It was meant to be satire of the MLM/Pyramid schemes out there. I outlined how they worked and how you could pull off the same scam with misinformation.
So imagine my surprise when a friend wrote me the very next day saying, (paraphrased) “Did you see that Paul Myhill is starting a new MLM company?”
It turns out that this company is Yevo.
A Little Background on Paul Myhill and MLM
Previously readers could read more about Paul Myhill and LifeVantage, but this happened. Fortunately, he’s not very important in the Yevo story.
Enough of Paul Myhill, let’s talk Yevo
Yevo looks to be an attempt to bring a bunch of people who left LifeVantage back together. Yes, the people who pushed drinks through an MLM company called Zrii went an MLM, LifeVantage to sell pills, and have now moved on to a new MLM company, Yevo.
In my experience, this is what happens when the growth of recruiting new people into the pyramid stalls at one company. It really isn’t logically that the same group of people would go from one to another.
So let’s cover a few of these people. Unfortunately, because many of the top people at Yevo is
- Peter Castleman, Founder and Chairman of the Board – His claim to fame is being involved with Herbalife. Yes, the same Herbalife that is being investigated by every regulatory agency you can think of for being a pyramid scheme… FTC, SEC, DoJ, and FBI, check, check, check, check.
I guess they were unable to get someone from Enron or Madoff’s schemes?
Quite literally almost any other human on Earth would be a better choice. In fact, they’d have more credibility in my eyes if they named Curious George as Founder. As far as I can tell, he hasn’t been involved with anything even questionably a pyramid scheme. Maybe he turned down the job ;-).
- David Brown, CEO, Kirby Zenger, Chief Architect Officer, Gene Tipps, COO – They are all formerly from LifeVantage.
- Ben Seeman – Chief Sales Officer – Prior to LifeVantage he was associated with the pyramid company Metabolife with David Brown above. Here’s what Wikipedia says with citations about Metabolife:
Metabolife International, Inc., was a multi-level marketing company based in San Diego, California which manufactured dietary supplements. Metabolife’s best-selling product, an ephedra-based supplement called Metabolife 356, once generated hundreds of millions of dollars in annual sales.[1] However, Metabolife 356 and other ephedra-containing supplements were linked to thousands of serious adverse events, including deaths, which caused the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to ban the sale of ephedra-containing dietary supplements in 2004.
Subsequently, Metabolife’s founder was convicted of lying to the FDA and concealing evidence of ephedra’s dangers, and the company and its owner were both convicted of income tax evasion. A congressional investigation found that Metabolife had received thousands of reports of serious adverse events, many occurring in young and otherwise healthy people, and that Metabolife concealed the reports and acted with “indifference to the health of consumers.”
So Yevo’s management company has ties back to Herbalife and the stunningly illegal acts of harming consumers of Metabolife.
- Jason Domingo, Master Distributor – The term “master distributor” is given to someone at the top of the pyramid. This person gets partial credit for the sales of every other salesperson. If you were to describe a pyramid scheme a master distributor would be the guy at the top.
But What About Yevo’s Products?
One of their first products is oatmeal. It comes in at a wholesale price of $5.00 per serving.
A friend sent me this video showing just how ridiculous it is.
It’s true, you can buy the premium Nature’s Path Organic Oatmeal for around 50 cents a serving on Amazon.com (it’s even cheaper if you Subscribe and Save.)
So why pay ten times more than you have to?
Perhaps one of the reasons is that there’s deceptive marketing involved. For example, there are a number of results on Google pointing to marketers claiming: “But our oatmeal has 26 grams of protein (equivalent to a 16 ounce Rib-eye).”
Yet according to SparkPeople (and any other legitimate nutrition website) a 16-ounce Rib-eye has 79 grams of protein.
In this case, it isn’t just deceptive, it’s straight-out fraud.
And let’s not get into how it is easy it is to create processed foods with high protein… simply look at any protein bar. And let’s not get into how cheap rice protein is.
And then there’s the marketing of Yevo being part of the “trillion dollar food industry.” That’s the equivalent of putting on my son’s college application that his lemonade stand was part of the “trillion dollar beverage industry.” How much weight do you think that would have with admissions?
As my friend wrote me, “No legitimate business person would ever make such a ridiculous marketing claim. However, if your intention is to deceive people about a business opportunity it makes sense.”
Is Yevo a Pyramid Scheme?
There’s a great video about pyramid schemes from billionaire Bill Ackman’s company, Pershing Square:
When I watch that video, I see a lot of similarities with Yevo. However, let’s dig a little deeper:
Reviewing Yevo through the FTC Guidelines
For this section I’ll quote from the Federal Trade Commission’s advice on MLMs/pyramid schemes
“Not all multilevel marketing plans are legitimate. If the money you make is based on your sales to the public, it may be a legitimate multilevel marketing plan. If the money you make is based on the number of people you recruit and your sales to them, it’s not. It’s a pyramid scheme. Pyramid schemes are illegal, and the vast majority of participants lose money.”
If you looking into run a legitimate business, you MUST ensure that you can sell a lot of the above product over your own wholesale cost to balance the amount of money that is made by recruiting. Thus far, all the marketing I’ve seen for Yevo by Yevo distributors has been around recruitment. In fact, they started recruited people before they even announced products.
Red flags do not get any more red than that.
“Many companies that market their products through distributors sell quality items at competitive prices. But some offer goods that are overpriced, have questionable merits, or are downright unsafe to use. Find out what will you be selling. Are similar products on the market? Is the product priced competitively?”
Well, clearly the products aren’t priced competitively.
The reason why this is important is because pyramid schemes use the lure of the business opportunity of recruiting others to get people buy their overpriced product that they normally wouldn’t if it was sold in their grocery store. In this case, it looks like Yevo makes at least $4.00 per serving than it would otherwise. Most of the money it pays to distributors goes to the top 1%.
The people at the bottom end could end up paying $1825 per year for oatmeal that would ordinarily cost them around $180 (using our example above). The end result is that the consumer at the bottom loses $1645 per year.
That’s a lot of money that could be spent on better health choices or even giving to charity to help others.
“Many of these “quick cures” are unproven, fraudulently marketed, and useless.”
The video covering the oatmeal that I linked to above covered one such deceptive practice. The marketing of the amount of protein compared to a rib-eye is another.
“Find — and study — the company’s track record…. Find out: how long the company has been in business”
Well Yevo has a soft launch in a few days, so there’s no company track record to speak of.
I’ve covered the individuals leading the company above and clearly their track record is horrendous.
Conclusion: I could probably go through the FTC document in more detail, but even before this company officially launched it’s managed to hit many of the FTC’s red flags.
Summing It All Up
Given the above information, I don’t how anyone can claim that Yevo is NOT a scam. Any one area should be enough of a red flag, but when there is evidence after evidence, the conclusion becomes clear to me.
Alex Severn said: “Do I need to draw you a picture for you to get the math here? I proved that you need to consume at least 3 servings of Boost to get even part of the nutrients of 1 serving of Yevo Smoothie.”
Your argument couldn’t be more asinine. I explained already that the additives in Yevo EN-43 — like omega-3 (less than 8 cents worth), whey protein (worth a few pennies), and what amounts to a crushed up multivitamin — are dirt cheap (worth in total a couple of dimes at best) and do not justify the 2- to 2.6-fold price differential relative to Boost, especially since EN-43 is not ready-to-drink and is therefore less convenient (a justification for a lower price, which you asserted just last week).
Suggesting that 1 serving of Yevo is worth 3 servings of Boost is idiotic. A serving of Quaker Oats contains twice as much soluble fiber as Yevo oats, so by your flawed logic, I could argue that a serving of Quaker Oats is worth twice as much. Going a step further with this absurd line of reasoning, one could argue that a lemon is worth more than a pound of sushi grade ahi tuna because it contains more vitamin C, or that a single grape, which contains an infinitely greater amount of resveratrol than EN-43 (0 mg), is infinitely more valuable than a warehouse full of EN-43.
Yevo isn’t the first MLM to resort to this particular line of fallacious logic. The charlatans at the MLM Monavie used the exact same chicanery with their “miracle” acai berry elixir… http://image.slidesharecdn.com/mvflipchart1-12614199573316-phpapp02/95/monavie-presentation-6-728.jpg?cb=1264695121
…that is, until the “inventor” of Monavie, Ralph Carson, eventually came clean and admitted that the product was nothing more than “expensive flavored water”. Monavie’s demise followed soon after.
http://archive.sltrib.com/story.php?ref=/sltrib/money/53061545-79/monavie-company-distributors-percent.html.csp
http://www.sltrib.com/news/2491834-155/utah-based-monavie-faces-foreclosure-after-spectacular
Alex Severn said: “So uncommon that thousands farms all over the United States offer subscription produce at a discounted price”
Is Yevo running a farm and shipping ultra-fresh produce? No, they’re hawking shelf-stable ultra-processed powdered mutant food in plastic pouches. The farm example you provided has nothing to do with the two-tiered pricing structure that we were talking about. The line of discussion started when you erroneously tried to conflate Yevo’s auto-ship with subscription based-services like Netflix and ISP providers. I simply pointed out that it’s uncommon for people to “subscribe” to food, and that auto-ship, which foists a fixed consumption schedule on the Yevo buyer, is a net inconvenience relative to simply picking up less expensive retail products at the supermarket as needed. Your example does not impact my initial argument. It is uncommon for people to “subscribe” to food and virtually unheard of for people to subscribe to such a limited range of shit product offerings as Yevo is offering.
Alex Severn said: “If you are going to trash talk someone, you should at least know your facts. Here are 66 other listings for the exact same product on Amazon all at different “List” prices.
http://www.amazon.com/Blue-Desktop-Hard-Disk-Drive/dp/B0088PUEPK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1451946092&sr=8-1&keywords=1TB+wd+blue+drive
http://www.amazon.com/Blue-Mobile-Hard-Disk-Drive/dp/B00C9TEBJQ/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1451946092&sr=8-2&keywords=1TB+wd+blue+drive
http://www.amazon.com/Blue-Mobile-Hard-Disk-Drive/dp/B00C9TEBJQ/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1451946092&sr=8-2&keywords=1TB+wd+blue+drive
Trash talk? ROFL! Damn, you’re so incompetent it makes me wince. The first link you provided is for a WD model #WD10EZEX drive; the second link is for a different drive altogether – model #WD10JPVX; and the third link was a repeat of the second link – same URL, same drive, same seller, same price.
Your attempt at a rebuttal was so astonishingly inept it’s as though you weren’t even trying to make sense; just spewing out random words and URLs on the page. Maybe that’s your angle – trying to wage a war of attrition and punish us by having to continually respond to incoherent word vomit. It’s bad enough that you use losing arguments when you’re talking about Yevo (the topic at hand), but even worse when you veer off on tangents with crude analogies and somehow manage to F those up.
Alex Severn said: “The smoothie contains 30 g protein, not 25g”
Not according to this photo of the package. It states 25 g protein.
https://media.licdn.com/mpr/mpr/jc/AAEAAQAAAAAAAAICAAAAJDg3N2RjYTI5LTc4MjktNDI0ZS1hMTk3LWE3Nzc4YmM2MGMzMg.jpg
Splitting hairs though. I was simply pointing out a hole in your claim that you had ditched Yevo’s oatmeal for the EN-43 smoothie powder because you wanted “something high protein and what not in the morning.” In fact, the oatmeal contains 26 g protein, which is “high in protein”, and it’s either a gram more (according to my photo) or a few grams less (according to your webpage) than the amount of protein in EN-43. Either way the difference is minimal. So getting back to my original point, you can go back to your 14-fold overpriced “high protein” shit MLM oatmeal again without fear of depriving yourself of protein.
Alex Severn said: “You need to go back and get your facts straight. There’s nothing that says additional ingredients beyond water is required for this product. You ever eat Greek Yogurt? Ever add anything to it like fruit??? Same thing as the suggestion provided here for the Yevo Smoothie.”
Man, the arguments you’re using are pathetic. I never said anything about “required”. I stated a simple set of facts: (1) a smoothie is a drink typically made with fruit and some form of dairy product, like milk and/or yogurt; (2) Yevo EN-43 “smoothie” powder contains neither fruit nor milk/yogurt; (3) Yevo EN-43 shouldn’t be called a “smoothie” because it contains nothing even vaguely reminiscent of a smoothie. You could, however, make a smoothie using real fruit and dairy and add the EN-43 powder to it (as suggested in the Yevo marketing materials I linked to) as a booster of sorts, but then the cost of the EN-43 would be an add-on. Also, if you didn’t add fruit or milk/yogurt (the key ingredients that make smoothies taste good) to EN-43 it would taste like complete $hit, especially given that EN-43 contains 25-30 g whey protein powder (which tastes as good as chalk), a bunch of mineral salts, “fishy” smelling omega-3 FAs, and a meager amount of sugar (3 g).
Alex Severn said: “The oatmeal formula has evolved since it was first released at least 2 times that I’m aware of.”
Not surprisingly, you missed the point yet again. You claimed that you wanted to focus the discussion on the smoothies instead of the oatmeal because the latter, according to your reckoning, was a “Yevo Version 1 type product, or a beta test”; as though that would somehow disqualify it from further consideration. I simply pointed out that oatmeal is still a significant part of the Yevo product line (and therefore, it’s not a ‘beta’ product per se), and that there was no logical reason to exclude it from our analyses.
Now that you’ve had the chance to indulge in diverting the discussion to hard drives, fruit baskets, and the definition of terms like “MSRP” and “smoothie”, maybe you can get back to talking about Yevo: particularly their powdered mashed potatoes that sell for nearly 6-dollars a serving (nothing says healthy food like mashed potato dust in a box); their green tea that’s overpriced 30-fold; the reputations of the pyramid scheme recidivist/LifeVantage-Metabolife retreads behind the company like Brown, Zenger, Domingo, and Myhill (and the implications this has for product reliability); and how this horrifically awful processed $hit food is being marketed not only as a better option than eating “real” food (and, paradoxically, as both an aid for gaining and losing weight), but also as a remedy for Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.
Let’s also talk about how the fundamental concept that Yevo is pushing to sell their products (i.e., recommending a diet where 2 of 3 daily meals consists of eating overpriced, over-processed, vitamin-fortified, powdered Franken-food in a bag) is completely at odds with the advice of virtually all authoritative sources on nutrition, which consistently recommend a diet consisting mainly of fresh fruits and vegetable with lesser amounts of whole grains/legumes and animal protein, avoiding processed foods, and not relying on supplementation to fill gaps.
Lazyman said: “You had the same IP address as Joe Blace. The odds of that happening are one in several billion, and much, much larger if you consider the timing and that you both defend a relatively unknown company with very few product sales”
I reject your claim that I had the same IP address of this Joe character. This is impossible. Why don’t you pull up your web server logs and prove it?
FYI: There are not “billions” of IP addresses available to the US consumer. The number is but a very small fraction of this. The VAST majority of IPV4 addresses allocated in the US have been allocated to big corporations like Microsoft, Facebook, Google, etc. Even these are no where near the “billions.” You started off saying my digital finger print was unique in the trillions. Man, your facts are all over the board an nowhere near accurate
Alex said, “I reject your claim that I had the same IP address of this Joe character. This is impossible. Why don’t you pull up your web server logs and prove it?”
Okay, here you go: http://static.lazymanandmoney.com/images/2016/01/05064408/BlaceSevern.png
I didn’t say that there are billions of IP addresses available to the US Consumer. I simply said there are billions of them. Extending the odds that two different people would use the same IP to defend a small company that the vast majority of the country has never heard of clearly puts it in the trillions. Joe Blace changed his IP address frequently too. I’m sure you are saying it is just a coincidence that you both happen to travel the country a lot.
I’ve put up the evidence. Make with the drivers license or we can just add it to the pack of misinformation and lies you’ve spread here.
You guys are still actually arguing over this? I wrote you off when you thought Vogel’s comparison of Yevo instant oats to Quaker quick oats was more accurate than my comparison of Yevo instant oats to Quaker instant oats. Ridiculous.
How do I quit getting notifications?
Rachel, every email you receive has unsubscribe instructions at the bottom of it (probably called “Manage Your Subscriptions). Go to the page it tells you, click the check box to unsubscribe from the conversations listed and hit “delete”, “unsubscribe”, or whatever the verbiage is.
Alex Severn said: “I reject your claim that I had the same IP address of this Joe character. This is impossible. Why don’t you pull up your web server logs and prove it?”
You reject the claim??? ROFL! You’re a riot! Not only did Lazy Man prove that the IPs match, the Comcast IP traces to Oregon, the home state of Jodi Unruh (a Yevo “founding distributor”), who previously trolled this board using the same Comcast IP as two other aliases that posted comments here, and she just happens to be a Comcast subscriber. That’s some coincidence!
http://www.networksolutions.com/whois/results.jsp?ip=67.171.213.95
http://www.whitepages.com/name/Jodi-U-Unruh/Eugene-OR/6d4n3vg
Vogel, you are always coming up with the best stuff. I didn’t realize that Jodi ws from Eugene, OR. The “coincidences” are just piling up.
It’s crazy the lengths people will go to in order to promote their MLM pyramid scheme. Yep MLM just has a few bad eggs. LOL!
You guys are just a couple real comedians.
Looking at your blog comment history, it seems you like to develop aliases for commenters based upon who you think they are with no real proof. You’re pinning any comment you think is from a Yevo distributor on a few of the ones who pop up highest in the google rankings.
I never said I wasn’t associated with Yevo. Quite the contrary actually.
Lazyman said “It’s crazy the lengths people will go to in order to promote their MLM pyramid scheme. Yep MLM just has a few bad eggs. LOL!”
I have not promoted anything in my comments here. I was simply disputing the incorrect information you and Vogel are posting about Yevo products.
Instead of debating the incorrect facts you both are posting, you seem more concerned about conspiracy theories as if I’m some sort of a hacker trying to hack your blog.
I have nothing to be ashamed of nor embarrassed about in terms of anything I’ve posted here. I choose to write under a pen name just like the both of you. Why should I have to have my good name slandered by you two? Unlike Vogel, I’ve been polite and non-judgmental and attempted to discuss the topics here. Go back and read all of his comments. He attacks and name calls in just about every one of his responses.
You are proving the exact point that some of the other commenters have made here that you are more concerned about beating up MLM’s than protecting consumer interests. As a “neutral” blogger, why would you care who is posting as long as it’s on topic and respectful debate?
Your attacks on me only serve to prove the point that you are not out to protect the consumer.
Alex said, “You’re pinning any comment you think is from a Yevo distributor on a few of the ones who pop up highest in the google rankings.”
This is completely false. I’ve showed the IP address proving that you lied about being the same commenter going by the Joe Blace handle. It is notable that your scheming handles does come from the same 160,000 population city as one of the founding distributors.
Maybe you should have come forth and been open with your employee/distributor bias. You know the the FTC endorsement guidelines does require you to not mislead people by posing as just a happy customer, right?
I’ve been anonymous because I give details about my personal finance information and I’ve had my life threatened by MLM distributors. What’s your reason for being anonymous? You are so ashamed of being a Yevo distributor/employee that you don’t want people to find out.
You have not been respectful here, you’ve created multiple IDs. One of those ideas has threaten to hire a private investigator to harass me. That’s the exact opposite of being respectful and staying on topic.
I don’t think you’ve claimed anything I posted was incorrect. The exception was that you claimed that I had no evidence that you are Blace and I showed the IPs connecting you.
Anyone can read my 2000 articles and see that I’m a neutral blogger. They show that I am indeed out to protect the consumer. I also make no money if people buy Yevo or not.
On the contrary, your repeated proven deception shows the types of bad characters that MLMs attract.
Alex’s fallacious argument about the fruit vendor warrants some additional debunking. The comments of our discussion were as follows:
Alex Severn said: “As for the autoship comments, how is this any different from companies like Netflix or my ISP putting me on a subscription for discount pricing? This is very common.”
Vogel said: “It’s very uncommon with food. In fact, it is the exact opposite of common – it virtually never happens with food products except in the rarified world of MLM, because auto-ship is necessary to drive the scam.”
Alex Severn (completely missing the point) said: “So uncommon that thousands farms all over the United States offer subscription produce at a discounted price” http://www.farmfreshtoyou.com/
I subscribe to one of these in my local area and get the produce at about a 30% discount over going out and buying it from their retail store.”
The original topic of discussion that these comments centered around was the fact that Yevo uses a two-tiered pricing scheme and that the discounted distributor/PC price is contingent on committing to inconvenient monthly auto-ship, which I pointed out was very atypical for non-MLM food products. That apparently sailed over Alex’s head, who came back with an erroneous example of a fruit/vegetable vendor that has a one-tiered pricing scheme with no discounts for recurring monthly orders. This is another example of how Alex’s replies don’t pertain to what’s being discussed; just random crap thrown out on the page for others to clean up. Alex probably thought no one would do any follow-up fact-checking, or just didn’t care if their analogy was faulty. It was the same with the discussion about MSRP and Alex’s embarrassing faux pas regarding the hard drives on Amazon. This is someone who’s too dumb to understand the gist of a mildly complex discussion and/or purposely resorts to misdirection in an attempt to support their fallacious arguments.
Alex Severn said: “You and Vogel claimed that Yevo was pricing it’s (sic) products an order of magnitude higher than market value in order to pay commissions.”
I didn’t say that all of Yevo’s products were overpriced by an order of magnitude (i.e., a factor of ten) in order to pay commissions. I was very specific in making 2 key points: (1) that their products, and virtually all MLM products for that matter, are mundane overhyped/overpriced versions of comparable retail products and offer poor value because of the extraordinarily high operating margins (due to distributor payouts) baked into the MLM pyramid model; and (2) I specified the approximate amount by which specific Yevo products were overpriced relative to comparable retail products: i.e., 2-3 fold for the not-a-smoothie powder, up to 14-fold for the oatmeal, and 30-fold for their green tea. You completely ignored the latter two examples as well as Yevo’s $6-a-serving mashed potato powder, because you know that they are even more indefensible than the company’s overpriced not-a-smoothie powder.
Alex Severn said: “For the product in question, Yevo Smoothie, I’ve provided proof that this is not the case.”
You did nothing of the kind. You were shown that a serving of Yevo’s not-a-smoothie powder sells for 2-3 times the price of a serving of Boost (a more convenient ready-to-drink beverage). You came back with a fallacious counterargument that a couple of dimes worth of vitamins, protein, and non-USP grade omega-3s justifies the 2-3-fold price differential, even though it clearly doesn’t (and you also punted on the convenience issue). You then ignored the fact that the prices of Yevo’s other products like oatmeal, green tea, and mashed potatoes are hyperinflated by an order of magnitude (3 orders of magnitude in the case of the green tea). Finally, you ignored the issue of the not-a-smoothie powder, the least overpriced (only 2-3 fold) among Yevo’s product offerings, being used as a loss leader.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss_leader
Alex Severn said: “I have no doubt that you and Vogel will continue to crow that network marketing companies are the sourges (sic) of the free market system.”
Continue crowing? I never spoke such words even once. I merely said that MLMs cause considerable human misery, because it is a well-documented fact. Like most people, I think MLM cults are horrific for a variety of valid reasons, but I would never resort to pointless hyperbole and describe them as the scourge of the free market system – that’s more your style.
Alex Severn said: “Are there some bad eggs in the network marketing industry? Sure there are. Every sector of the free market system has bad eggs. Bad egg businesses in the free market system have been ripping off consumers for centuries.”
So? What’s your point? Is it that bad eggs in any sector of business should be criticized, which would validate our criticism of Yevo, or are you resorting to redicretion/fingerpointing to exonerate Yevo; ie., by invoking an argument that boils down “don’t criticize MLM (and my company) because other things in the world are bad too”? Epic fail if it’s the latter. Aside from all the serious and widely publicized problems with the MLM industry, the irony of your position is that one of the “bad eggs” that you speak of happens to be your CEO: i.e., David Brown, former CEO of (1) Metabolife, an MLM company that killed and injured consumers of its products, lied about it to the FDA, and had several of their executives sent to prison for tax evasion (their CFO shot himself in the head); and (2) LifeVantage, a snakeoil miracle-remedy MLM that issued a $12 million product recall as a result of metal shard contamination during Brown’s tenure.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metabolife
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protandim#Voluntary_recall
It’s also ironic that you have established yourself as one of MLMs so-called “bad eggs” by trolling under multiple user names; ignoring your legal obligations under the terms of your distributor contract; and for making so damn many glaringly flawed and specious arguments.
Alex Severn said: “You seem to enjoy posting links from Amazon with all of these great deals. Do you know why Amazon has great deals? Often times they are ripping off their vendors and suppliers…Why don’t you write some blog posts about Amazon ripping off the hard up author who poured soul into a literary work and used Amazon publishing to try and eek (sic) out a living? Or what about this reputable company: http://www.debeers.com/ These guys have made billions of dollars ripped off the little guy.”
Suggesting that this blog should divert into a deep analysis of Amazon (a non-MLM online retailer) and DeBeer’s (a non-MLM diamond company) is quite the red herring. This “don’t blame me, blame the other guy” defense that you keep invoking is pitiful.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_herring
Alex Severn (aka Joe Blace) said: “You guys are just a couple real comedians.”
OK, there’s throwaway comment number 1. Care to go for a few more?
Alex Severn (aka Joe Blace) said: “Looking at your blog comment history, it seems you like to develop aliases for commenters based upon who you think they are with no real proof.”
Atta girl! I knew you couldn’t go more than half a sentence without resorting to another fallacious argument. I don’t “make up” any aliases for anyone ever, but when Lazy Man spots what appears to be multiple users popping up in a conversation but which in fact are sock puppets aliases posting under the same IP address (data which identifies the user and which Lazy Man has sole access to), it’s only fair to identify the sock-puppet accordingly. Rather than bristling at the outing of sockpuppet rats, you should stop resorting to sockpuppetry.
Alex Severn (aka Joe Blace) said: “You’re pinning any comment you think is from a Yevo distributor on a few of the ones who pop up highest in the google rankings.”
That’s over-the-top absurd. User IDs associated with the same IP address are identified as such. It has nothing to do with Google or distributors who pop up in the rankings.
Alex Severn (aka Joe Blace) said: “I never said I wasn’t associated with Yevo. Quite the contrary actually.”
Ouch! A triple negative! I don’t have a F-ing clue what you’re trying to say, so you might want to take a mulligan on that comment.
Alex Severn (aka Joe Blace) said: “I have not promoted anything in my comments here. I was simply disputing the incorrect information you and Vogel are posting about Yevo products.”
Firstly, you’re a distributor discussing the product on this board; in the eyes of the law, anything you say about the product is considered promotional. Secondly, you’ve brought a mindboggling amount of misinformation to this board, so if your aim was to dispute any of my information, you have failed in epic fashion.
Alex Severn (aka Joe Blace) said: “Instead of debating the incorrect facts you both are posting, you seem more concerned about conspiracy theories as if I’m some sort of a hacker trying to hack your blog.”
Hardly, your deceptive use of multiple aliases has been mentioned a few times in passing because it’s noteworthy that a clandestine distributor troll vigorously defending their scam with flawed arguments would also resort to sock-puppetry. The only reason the mention of IPs and identities keeps coming up is because you keep bringing it up.
Alex Severn (aka Joe Blace) said: “I have nothing to be ashamed of nor embarrassed about in terms of anything I’ve posted here.”
Yes you do. You have repeatedly posted poorly researched material and misinformation, violated the terms of your distributor contract, and resorted to sockpuppetry. That alone is plenty to be ashamed and embarrassed about, in addition to being a participant in a blatantly silly exploitative pyramid scheme cult that fraudulently markets disgusting overpriced powdered slop as a better option than real food and a potential remedy for Alzheimer’s disease.
Alex Severn (aka Joe Blace) said: “I choose to write under a pen name just like the both of you. Why should I have to have my good name slandered by you two?”
I don’t have a problem if you pick ONE pen name. However, I justifiably have a huge problem when you post using multiple aliases pretending to be different people. In what way do you feel that your good name was slandered, and which name is it that you’re referring to? The alias Alex Severn? The alias Joe Blace? Or are you saying that you’re Jodi Unruh? Be specific.
Alex Severn (aka Joe Blace) said: “Unlike Vogel, I’ve been polite and non-judgmental and attempted to discuss the topics here. Go back and read all of his comments. He attacks and name calls in just about every one of his responses.”
Bully for you! You get a B+ for politeness but straight Fs for everything that matters most (like not playing the victim when you’ve been proven wrong time and time again).
Alex Severn (aka Joe Blace) said: “You are proving the exact point that some of the other commenters have made here that you are more concerned about beating up MLM’s than protecting consumer interests. As a “neutral” blogger, why would you care who is posting as long as it’s on topic and respectful debate? Your attacks on me only serve to prove the point that you are not out to protect the consumer.”
Other commenters? You mean that you and the other sockpuppet distributor aliases agree with your accusation? No one cares whether you participate in the debate as an honest player. No one minded your participation even after you were outed as a sockpuppet/distributor; but when you do something dishonest, you instantly blow your credibility, and the responsibility for that is yours alone. There’s also a point beyond which your steady stream of hopelessly flawed arguments become a time waster and no longer welcome beyond serving as a source of mild amusement and a mundane academic exercise in spotting fallacies of logic. Resorting to diversion tactics is not welcome either, but I don’t necessarily mind that you invoked these red herrings because it helps to illuminate how your scam operates. You have steadily progressed from invoking specious arguments, to outright disinformation and sockpuppetry, evasion, trying to change the subject, shifting the blame, pretending to be the victim, and now impugning the blog host. It’s a predictable progression we’ve seen time and time again in discussions about other nefarious MLMs, and it typically culminates with wild conspiracy theories and ultimately physical and legal threats.
As for protecting consumers, it is clearly in their best interest to avoid Yevo products like the plague. Deal with it.
Looks like Severn’s latest comment triggered Google’s warning that it may be a scam:
See this image.
I’ve given as much latitude as I can to someone who makes up multiple user names, threatens to harass me in my neighborhood (under his pseudonym of Joe Blace), doesn’t reveal his affiliation with Yevo as required by the FTC Endorsement Guidelines, and attacks people here rather than legitimately debate the points.
Any one of these points is enough to remove him, but combine them all and it was way past the tipping point long ago.
So to recap, prior to getting outed for sockpuppetry, Jodi Unruh (a Yevo “founding distributor”) was deceptively posting here under (at least) 3 different user names (her own name and as “Tim Robinson” and “Jeff Becker”), and then another user appeared, who may have been Unruh or someone affiliated with her, who was also trolling using (at least) 3 different user names (“Joe Blace”, “Frank Smith”, and “Alex Severn”).
To add insult to injury, the “Joe Blace” alias resorted to scum-baggery of the highest order by making personal and legal threats against Lazy Man:
Joe Blace said: “Hey everyone. We are working on getting some personal contact information for Lazy Man such as his employer, home address, etc. Few hundred bucks to a local PI his home town to go check up on him. We’ll get this information out to everyone and then we can all give his boss a call and let him know what we think, perhaps give a few neighbors a call, etc.
Joe Blace says: “Give me a little time bro. I’ll soon have your home address, phone number, etc. I’ll then spam it out to as many people as I can.”
Joe Blace said: “Just finishing my letter to Yevo Compliance with references to the Court Documents and Court Orders…This should make it relatively easy for Yevo to file similar legal actions against you because you are clearly up to the same shenanigans. I’ll email you a copy of the letter.”
Collectively, this conduct gives a frightening glimpse into the lack of ethics of Yevos organization (aside from all the self-serving misinformation posted by these sockpuppets).
Interestingly, I found a rather scathing complaint online against Unruh and her husband Greg Zartman, which alleges that they were running a skeezy MLM by the name of Best Cash Rewards, and – here’s the kicker – that they were using multiple aliases to spam various blog sites. The complaint was as follows:
“I find it amusing that Greg Zartman & Jodi Unruh Zartman are here complaining about some fictitious rip off! After all, they are the masters of the con. They ripped hundreds and hundreds of people off for thousands of dollars in a pyramid scheme they headed up. It was called Best Cash Rewards.
It took me a little time to track them down again, but here they are starting their con all over again, just like they did in Best Cash Rewards. And then those that didn’t play their game they crucified online just as they are doing now.
They are also masters of posting as dozens of bloggers on every blog they can find and also create their own fake blogs, just like the one listed here. And then they post total fabrications and they don’t allow anyone to post comments, because they are afraid of the truth.
Beware of these con artists, they will destroy your reputation of you don’t join in and play their con their way.”
http://www.ripoffreport.com/r/Amy-Freeman-MonaVie/Eugene-Oregon-97401/Amy-Freeman-MonaVie-Amy-Freeman-Is-A-MonaVie-Scam-Artist-Eugene-Oregon-356764
Needless to say, the pattern of behavior described in that complaint perfectly matches what we’ve witnessed here on this site.
Interestingly, I noticed that Greg Zartman is an IT/network admin.
http://www.guru.com/service/server-administration/united-states/oregon/eugene/2004784
As soon as I saw this, I remembered that one of the recent comments left by “Alex Severn” seemed to indicate that he/she had some degree of expert knowledge about networks and IP allocations; i.e…
Alex Severn (aka Joe Blace, aka Frank Smith) said “FYI: There are not “billions” of IP addresses available to the US consumer. The number is but a very small fraction of this. The VAST majority of IPV4 addresses allocated in the US have been allocated to big corporations like Microsoft, Facebook, Google, etc.”
It was also curious that Joe Blace admitted to routinely using a proxy server to hide his/her identity when visiting blog sites:
Joe Blace, (aka Alex Severn, aka Frank Smith) said: “Now you are lying. I never browse a site like this with anything but a proxy. It’s impossible that I’d have the same address of the Frank character.”
Also interesting was finding out that Unruh is marketing herself as an internet “reputation management” specialist, which is consistent with her trolling of this website and failed attempts at damage control.
https://www.thumbtack.com/or/west-linn/marketing-consultants/affordable-public-relations-social-media-expert
It’s clear that we’ve got some of Yevo’s “bad apples” infesting the site.
Was just checking out Jodi Unruh’s Yevo testimonial webpage and was alarmed to see that the company’s products are being positioned as a remedy for skin diseases, diabetes, Crohn’s disease, gastroesophageal reflux, pain/inflammation, hemorrhoids, ADHD/autism, cancer, etc., in apparent violation of U.S. law.
http://www.jodiunruh.com/reviews.html
Here are a few choice excerpts:
“I started the Oatmeal and the first 3 days I broke out worse then ever, BUT…I kept going with the Yevo and by day 5 all skin issues were disappearing. By one week they were completely gone!!! (I realized the first 3 days I was detoxing) And my skin is clear to this day!”
“So my BFF Ashly, who is also in Yevo has been on it since June. She has Non Hotchkins Lymphoma and she has gone down 7 points on her counts. Yevo is amazing and is doing amazing things in people’s lives. Love Yevo!!!”
“Yevo has taken the guessing out of what nutrients my body really needs. Without Yevo’s nutrients I would have to take Advil every day for my inflammation.”
“I am 71 years old and have had SEVERE hemorrhoids for a long time. I have tried many things WITHOUT any help! The only thing that helped for a short while was a particular soap. However, within a week of eating Yevo meals, I NO LONGER HAVE HEMORRHOIDS!”
“I haven’t been able to hold my left arm above my head for a year. In October of 2014 I had to have a double mastectomy and I had 3 lymph nodes removed from my left underarm…This morning, to test the theory, we went outside and I was able to hang on the monkey bars and put all of my weight on it. I can seriously only attribute this to Yevo as I haven’t changed anything else about my lifestyle.”
“After eating Yevo Oatmeal since February twice a day sometimes more because I absolutely love it I am excited to tell the world I have decreased my A.D.H.D medication more than half soon to stop altogether.”
Interestingly, the webpage includes the following disclaimer:
“All testimonies and experiences are the opinions and beliefs of individuals who have used YEVO products and are not necessarily the opinions or beliefs of YEVO International Inc. The testimonies are not intended to claim that YEVO products can be used to diagnose, treat, cure, mitigate or prevent any disease. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. These testimonies posted on this website are published for informational purposes only. This information should not in any way be used as a substitute for the advice of a physician or other licensed health care practitioner. Testimonials should not be construed as representing results everyone can achieve.”
What’s remarkable here is that the disclaimer is admitting that, at best, these are not typical outcomes that can be reliably achieved by users of the product. As such, the testimonials violate FTC regulations which require that product claims reflect results that a typical user can expect to achieve.
Lastly, I was alarmed to see the following claim on Unruh’s page from an alleged customer who experienced severe weight loss with Yevo products.
“21 Days into the 43 Day Weight Loss Challenge. I Lost 21 lbs in 21 Days…”
What’s alarming about this claim is that a healthy rate of weight loss is about 1 to 2 pounds per week. This individual purports to have lost a weight at an astronomical rate of a pound a day. Not only is this virtually impossible unless one is fasting, it’s extremely unsafe and can cause a variety of health problems.
http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/loseweight/Pages/should-you-lose-weight-fast.aspx
Sadly, Unruh’s is not an isolated example of this type of illicit marketing. The same BS testimonials are being peddled by other Yevo distributors like Cory Lesher, Dani Walker, Annora Brennan,
Scott Lee, and Alix Martinez, as seen in the examples below.
http://www.teamresourcehub.com/YEVO_Product_TESTIMONIES_from_03-22-15_Company_Call.mp3
https://www.facebook.com/Yevotestimonials
http://teamvisionlive.com/testimonials/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LzMOZhkD5M
http://www.successteamglobal.com/#!testimonials/c17qm
Check out these comments posted by Yevo distributor Alix Martinez on her Facebook page regarding the smell and taste of Yevo EN-43 not-a-smoothie powder.
“It smells gross, someone said fish food, I would say that’s accurate! The first three days I didn’t like the taste. I left my cup out for 24 hours and it got moldy. This is gross.”
https://www.facebook.com/my43nutrients/photos/a.1634673106788544.1073741828.1602177613371427/1666436163612238
“So I opened the bag and did what anyone else would do, I smelled it. I felt like I opened a bag of Fish Food. Ugh, how was I ever going to drink this. I was mad for not going to get the bananas. Reluctantly I moved forward. I put only Almond milk, Ice and the fish food in my blender.”
https://www.facebook.com/my43nutrients/photos/a.1634673106788544.1073741828.1602177613371427/1664699673785887
These comments echo what Alex Severn (aka Joe Blace, aka Frank Smith) said about the powder smelling fishy. As I pointed out before, the omega-3s in EN-43 (800 mg per serving) are not USP-certified, and the risk with lower grades of omega-3s is that they can be rancid. Rancidity is characterized by a fishy smell, and apparently EN-43 is so fishy smelling that even the product’s distributors feel compelled to admit that it’s overwhelming. This again strengthens the argument against EN-43 in favor of a Boost High Protein shake ($1.30) and 8-cents worth of a USP-grade omega-3 supplement.
Furthermore, it’s hard to imagine a leftover smoothie, dairy product, or any other type of beverage turning moldy in 24 hours, unless the product had mold contamination prior to use. Mold contamination is an ever-present risk with the many of the bulk ingredients used in supplement manufacturing.
I also noticed that every time the EN-43 not-a-smoothies were mentioned on Alix’s page, they were always mixed with actual smoothie ingredients like almond milk, coconut water, fruit, peanut butter, etc., presumably to give the mix some semblance of being an actual smoothie and to mask the bad taste of the EN-43 powder. Either way, this supports my previous assertion that EN-43 not-a-smoothie powder is an additive and not a stand-alone beverage product like Boost. All the ingredients that make the product palatable and smoothie-like would be add-on expenses.
https://www.facebook.com/my43nutrients/posts/1666853103570544
https://www.facebook.com/my43nutrients/posts/1672095326379655 https://www.facebook.com/my43nutrients/posts/1663159790606542
A quick follow-up is in order regarding Alex Severn’s claim that his/her conduct has been polite and non-judgmental.
Alex Severn (aka Joe Blace, aka Frank Smith) said: “Unlike Vogel, I’ve been polite and non-judgmental and attempted to discuss the topics here. Go back and read all of his comments. He attacks and name calls in just about every one of his responses.”
Vogel said: Bully for you! You get a B+ for politeness but straight Fs for everything that matters most (like not playing the victim when you’ve been proven wrong time and time again).
Seems I slipped up and was far too generous with that B+. Completely forgot that Alex Severn’s alternate alias Joe Blace (aka Frank Smith) made the following incredibly rude and judgmental comments:
Joe Blace said: “Hey everyone. We are working on getting some personal contact information for Lazy Man such as his employer, home address, etc. Few hundred bucks to a local PI his home town to go check up on him. We’ll get this information out to everyone and then we can all give his boss a call and let him know what we think, perhaps give a few neighbors a call, etc…Give me a little time bro. I’ll soon have your home address, phone number, etc. I’ll then spam it out to as many people as I can. The truth hurts when you have a belly full of lies…Just finishing my letter to Yevo Compliance with references to the Court Documents and Court Orders…This should make it relatively easy for Yevo to file similar legal actions against you because you are clearly up to the same shenanigans. I’ll email you a copy of the letter.”
Joe Blace said: “Every one of your comments are the same crap Forest Gump. I guess “Stupid is as stupid does” is quite applicable here…You and Lazyman are a couple bitter and bored men… Numskull. Just more hot air… You are some bored numskull that hangs out of a blog attacking people. In real life, you are very likely a weak and pathic (sic) little man. The two of you need to get a life… Vogel, you are too much of a knucklehead to even respond to…. you are starting to bore the hell out of me. Everything you say is basically the same crap regurgited (sic) over and over… basically just verbal vomit… I think all you know how to do is lie. You also aren’t real bright.”
Frank Smith said: “Nice try LazyAssMan. I actually like that. Assman. Perfect!”
That B+ for politeness has to be downgraded to an F-. If the option were available, I’d make you sit in the corner wearing a dunce cap before expelling you from school altogether.
Yevo CEO David Brown took the company’s traveling snakeoil medicine show to TV station WKYC for a promotional spot back in April 2015, and he committed the unforgivable transgression of illegally positioning Yevo’s products for the prevention of diseases. This is an excerpt of Brown’s Yevo pitch:
“The bottom line is essential nutrients are things that scientists have shown throughout the world are crucial for our bodies to have to function correctly; to grow, heal, and live. And if we have those essential nutrients in our food each and every day, we’ll be able to avoid many of the diseases that we’re plagued with out there and that’s why we created Yevo; to provide those essential nutrients in wholesome nutritious food.”
http://www.wkyc.com/story/entertainment/television/lakeside-live/2015/04/22/david-brown–43-essential-nutrients/26191351/
What he’s saying here is that Yevo was created to prevent diseases (a claim that’s both idiotic and in apparent violation of US law). It wasn’t, obviously; it was developed to make money for a bunch of degenerate recidivist pyramid scheme MFers. It would be fair to argue that the company’s attempts to convince people that whole foods are either worthless or bad for you, and that Yevo’s powdered processed $hit in a bag is a better choice than real food, is likely to inflict disease on their customers, who are instructed to eat 2 meals a day, ad infinitum, consisting solely of this ridiculous mutant Yevo garbage.
None of this is surprising though given that two of Yevo’s executives (David Brown and Ben Seeman) were formerly executives at Metabolife; the MLM company (started by two convicted methamphetamine dealers) that injured and killed consumers with dangerous supplements, lied to the FDA to cover their tracks, and had several of their execs sent to prison.
http://www.superfoods43.com/yevo/yevo-team-leadership.html#sthash.hNBLtIwP.F2L75BBT.dpbs
I was just listening to some Yevo distributor audio presentations featuring the company’s co-founder Chip Marsden and I came across some very interesting details relevant to our previous discussion about the products’ bad taste and smell. The excerpts from Marsden and my comments below are based on the following recording
“Episode 1: It Only Gets Better”
https://www.yevo43.com/episode-1-it-only-gets-better/
03:44 – Marsden: “Remember we don’t use any artificial flavors or preservatives. You know, it’s not like we’re making Oreos here. And as much as we try, sometimes the flavors are not always exactly the same. That we can’t help, but we go way out of our ways to make sure it all becomes a really good tasting product…We’re trying to put things together that no one has ever done.”
No one has ever done it before for good reason. A single 300-calorie serving of food becomes virtually inedible when you try to pump a half-day supply of exogenous protein, nutrient additives, and fishy oils into it, and there’s no good reason for trying to do so. Also, Chip’s admission that the products do not have consistency of flavor is remarkable.
04:23 – Chip discusses how the company tried to improve the flavor of their original oatmeal and rice products, but it seems that their distributors don’t agree that it tastes better now (or that it was ever palatable to begin with).
05:26 – Chip describes how the products were reformulated because the old versions stunk as a result of oxidation of proteins and fats.
08:58 – Chip talks about how the choline in Yevo also stinks.
10:15 – Marsden: “For us, humans need these 43 essential nutrients and there’s no hiding it – they don’t taste great — and we do our best job that we possibly can to deliver them every single time in a wonderful tasting, easy to use, easy to prepare product. Alright? And by the way, if you’re still not satisfied, we’re happy to replace this product with our no-sugar added versions, okay?”
So Chip repeatedly admits that the products stink for a variety of reasons and that “they don’t taste great”, but nonetheless tries to reassure distributors that the company is doing their “best” to mask the bad taste and smell. Adding insult to injury (but much to my amusement), he offers distributors, unsatisfied with the current products’ taste, replacement with sugar-free versions, which presumably would taste even worse.
13:14 – Marsden: “For those that do like sugar, a sweet tasting product, we are coming out with a no-sugar added product and this one uses, you know, something that I actually brought to the table. And it’s a product called acesulfame potassium. It’s also known as ACE-K. Now, most people don’t know this and it’s actually an important thing to know – but it’s a potassium salt. And I looked at it as twofold: it provides dual functionality to our products because it actually can provide potassium, which is important for us because we want to hit as much potassium from any source we possibly can, every chance we get. But it also provides a little sweetness because this potassium salt’s actually sweet. It’s been studied for years; it’s actually a really nice product. And people like world-renowned nutrition scientist Dr. Susan Roberts we work with at Tufts actually thinks it’s a great product.”
An alleged endorsement of ACE-K from someone who Yevo pays is hardly reassuring. Not everyone is convinced that ACE-K is nice or that it has been adequately researched. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1570055/pdf/ehp0114-a0516a.pdf
https://www.cspinet.org/reports/chemcuisine.htm#acesulfamek
http://www.medicinenet.com/artificial_sweeteners/page10.htm
Regardless, inclusion of this synthetic and at least somewhat controversial ingredient is totally at odds with Yevo’s paper-thin marketing premise that today’s foods are overly processed and unhealthy. Interestingly, the product label for Yevo’s no-sugar added oatmeal does not list acesulfame potassium/ACE-K as an ingredient. So either they have since reformulated the product yet again, or they are mislabeling the existing product by not disclosing an accurate list of ingredients.
https://myyevo.com/uploads/global/Oats%20No%20Sugar%20Nutrient%20Fact%20Panel.pdf
In fact, the inclusion of ACE-K is not only at odds with the company’s broader marketing concept, but also specifically contradicts Chip’s claim at 03:44 when he said “remember we don’t use any artificial flavors.” Seems that Chip failed to remember that in fact they do use artificial flavorings – ACE-K is a completely synthetic sweetener (developed in the labs of Hoechst AG chemical company in Germany in 1967). And this memory failing wasn’t a one-time accident either. He repeated the same “no artificial flavoring” statement in this promotional video (where he also repeats the lie about the product tasting good):
02:34 – Marsden: “Here’s some of the important things; that it’s no GMO, there’s no sugar added, there’s no bad stuff like artificial flavoring, artificial colors. But the most important thing is it tastes good.”
And just for the record, Chip’s claim that we need to get “as much potassium from any source we possibly can, every chance we get” is just too stupid for words; e.g., potassium chloride is an innocuous salt, potassium sorbate is a crappy preservative; potassium cyanide is a lethal poison. The sources of potassium must in fact be highly selective. But Chip doesn’t care; his only goal is to keep his lips moving for as long as he can regardless of whether or not the words he utters have any validity.
Getting back to the issue of the bad smell and taste of Yevo’s products, another recording from around the time that EN-43 not-a-smoothie powder was launched features Marsden saying the following:
7:06 – Marsden: “It is by far, one of the best tasting smoothies on the marketplace. It was developed to be made with only water but it can be made any way you like it. Take me for example, I make mine with chocolate soy milk, peanut butter and a banana.”
https://www.yevo43.com/episode-3-the-serious-the-not-so-serious-and-sharing-the-yevo-love/
It’s clearly not one of the best tasting smoothies on the market, based on Marsden’s other accounts of all the problems with smell and taste. It wouldn’t even make the top 1000 list, but it apparently could win the award for the foulest smelling/tasting smoothie impersonator on the market. What Yevo is offering is clearly not a smoothie, because it has no milk, fruit, yogurt, etc., but rather something that should rightly be called a “fortified beverage powder”. It’s ironic that even Chip can’t stomach the taste of the product on its own, as he admits that he can’t choke it down without adding chocolate soy milk, peanut butter, and banana.
I looked up Acesulfame Potassium (ACE-K) on Wikipedia and found this quote notable: “Kraft Foods has patented the use of sodium ferulate to mask acesulfame’s aftertaste.” (Source)
I often avoid talking about taste because that’s subjective. However, the aftertaste is so bad that a company (Kraft) has patented an additive to mask it… that’s objective proof. I haven’t had a chance to listen to the whole talk, but it would be notable if he doesn’t mention licensing the patent from Kraft.
Here’s a protein supplement drink mix (Isopure) that’s analogous to Yevo’s not-a-smoothie mix but is a far better value. It provides 50 g protein per 62-g serving (40% more than Yevo’s 30 g); has 50% RDA of a wide range of vitamins and minerals; includes glutamine (Yevo doesn’t); is lower in calories (210 vs 230 cal), carbs (0 vs 10 g), fat (1 g vs 10 g), and saturated fat (0.5 g vs 3 g); and comes from a manufacturer that’s very widely respected among athletes and has a 5-star rating (Yevo is not a widely respected manufacturer and by all accounts their products could never get an overall 5-star rating based on their price and bad smell/taste). Yevo includes less than 8 cents worth of bad smelling/tasting omega-3 FAs (800 mg non-USP grade), whereas Isopure does not contain any omega-3s.
http://www.allstarhealth.com/de_p_ref/712/pla712/NATURES_BEST_Isopure_Creamy_Vanilla.htm
https://www.yevo43.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/smoothie-bp.png
Overall, Isopure’s product is far superior to Yevo’s not-a-smoothie powder and it retails for well below half the price ($1.63 vs $3.53 per serving, shipping costs extra for both). Even at the lowest distributor discount price and shipping factored in (free on auto-ship with Yevo, $5.95 for Isopure), Yevo comes in at $2.50 per serving vs $1.75 for Isopure – a 43% higher price.
Notice also that even though these products contain similar ingredients and both are reconstituted in water, the honest marketing folks at Isopure have the good sense to call their product a “protein supplement” rather than calling it a “smoothie” the way Yevo does, despite the fact that EN-43 bears no resemblance whatsoever to anything even remotely smoothie-like. That’s but one of the many differences between highly respected retail manufacturers and the desperate snakeoil salesmen who plug ripoff MLM products.
Ironically Alex Severn referenced an article that listed competing products and Isopure was one of them.
Let’s shift our attention now to “43 For Kids”, an organization that seems to be masquerading as a charity that’s providing food aid to starving children globally. Their mission statement is as follows:
“Our Mission: 43 For Kids. Building healthy minds and bodies through life-changing nutrition.
We’re 43 For Kids, a foundation focused on a global crisis: children’s lives and health are being adversely affected from not getting proper nutrition. We provide the 43 nutrients essential for healthy growth, all in one food. And we measure the effects of our work through scientific studies to understand and confirm the outcomes that our efforts make. Our first market is the U.S. We will then quickly move to Mexico, South Korea and Japan – and then globally as the Yevo business expands.”
http://43forkids.org/our-mission/
Not only is that a vague mission statement but, amazingly, their website provides no information about donations/funding or tax-exempt status; no financial (e.g., IRS-990 forms) or management/personnel information; and no specific details about current/planned projects. Nor, does the site disclose any funding connection with Yevo. It’s also odd that they would use the word “market” in connection with what implied to be “charitable” activities; but then again, not at all that surprising given the source.
This blurb from the 43 For Kids website gives the impression that they are fighting against malnutrition and famine in third-world countries.
“Malnutrition is an underlying cause of death of over 2.6 million children each year – 1/3 of child deaths globally.1 in 4 of the world’s children are stunted, in developing countries this is as high as 1 in 3. Bodies fail to develop as a result of this malnutrition. Under nutrition accounts for 11% of the global burden of disease and is considered the number one risk to health worldwide.”
http://43forkids.org/facts
For the record, 43 For Kids does not appear to be a registered non-profit organization — nothing comes up under that name in a Guidestar search.
http://www.guidestar.org/AdvancedSearch.aspx
Here the real kicker — the Yevo website provides some additional (but vague) details about the funding of 43 For Kids that were absent from the actual 43 For Kids website.
“Yevo pays for 100% of staff expenses so 100% of the donations go to kids who need essential nutrients. We donate 1 essential nutrient meal to kids charities for every 10 Yevo meals sold. Many distributors commit a portion of their commissions to 43 for Kids, further building the reach of our organization.”
https://www.yevo43.com/our-battle/child-development/
A quick check of the domain registration for 34forkids.org shows that it’s registered to Eugene Tipps (Chief Operating Officer) care of Yevo and Food Matters, LLC (a company registered to Yevo).
http://www.networksolutions.com/whois/results.jsp?domain=43forkids.org
http://www.trademarkia.com/yevo-86461364.html
Jodi Unruh’s also had a novel detail about 43 For Kids that wasn’t mentioned on the latter’s website or on Yevo’s website:
“This summer 43 for Kids will team up with Harvard and Tufts University to provide children in the Boston School district and their families with two Yevo meals a day, which will provide all of them with 100% of daily 43 essential nutrients. Another group of families will then be provided with two basic meals a day. This three month study will then document the differences the families who were getting the 43 essential nutrients every day experienced in comparison to the other families who were not receiving them. And the great news is that every time any of us purchase a Yevo meal–a percentage of that purchase will benefit this new charity for children.”
http://www.jodiunruh.com/blog/yevo-international-announces-new-foundation-to-feed-hungry-kids-43-for-kids
That’s literally all that’s out there detailing the activities of the organization. What are we to make of it all? That Yevo is covertly running and funding 43 For Kids, which is apparently not a non-profit, and using it to extract donations from their distributors and to fund an alleged research project on Yevo products involving Harvard and Tufts, the details of which appear nowhere except on Judi Unruh’s website? That the company’s dubious claim that they are donating “1 essential nutrient meal to kids charities for every 10 Yevo meals sold” (i.e., 10% of sales??? BS!!) would, in the best case scenario, amount to donating product back to themselves to fund their own research/marketing activities? That a bunch of con artists are resorting to the long-standing snakeoil MLM tradition (e.g., Monavies More Project, Juice Plus Children’s Research Foundation, Mannatech’s Mannrelief, etc.) of exploiting images of doe-eyed hungry children to create a false image of altruism, and ultimately, drive recruitment and sales (like in the pandering schmaltzy Yevo video below)?
http://www.themoreproject.org/
http://www.childrenshealthstudy.com/juiceplus_childrenshealth.html
http://www.mannarelief.org/index.cfm?id=3ae11bd1-9b5a-489d-b92608c60927841a&programs.html
With all that in mind, I found this statement from the 43 For Kids website to be particularly galling:
“We focus on children ages 5+.”
http://43forkids.org/how
It’s bad enough when they inflict appalling scams like this on adults, but trying to rope 5 year-olds into consuming their unhealthy processed powdered $hit supplements-masquerading-as-food is truly unforgivable.
To follow-up on my previous comment about the inclusion of the artificial sweetener acesulfame potassium (ACE-K) in Yevo products, I dug up a few more relevant statements from Chip Marsland (a January 2015 distributor presentation — Episode 6: Sugar, Sweeteners and AceK) and from Yevo’s FAQs:
09:34 – Marsland: “My taste focus zeroed on ACE-K it was truly the safest bet in the bunch. So we went for a sweetener, and now have it in several products at Yevo you can buy anytime.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMchTNSylDQ
FAQ: “Why does Yevo use the sweet potassium salt acesulfame potassium, or Ace K, in its products?”
FAQ: “Are there any artificial flavors, colors or preservatives in Yevo foods? No. Yevo does not use artificial flavors, colors or preservatives in any of its products… Our food contains no Bad Stuff such as…artificial flavors…”
FAQ: “Why is your ingredient list so long? By law, the FDA requires that everything included in a packaged food be listed on its label.”
https://www.yevo43.com/more_about_yevo/#13
So what does this all add up to?
(1) Yevo’s FAQ’s and Marsland’s statements claim that ACE-K is used in Yevo products;
(2) Despite the fact that AEC-K is an artificial flavoring agent (i.e. a sweetener), Marsland and Yevo’s FAQ falsely claim that their products contain no “bad stuff” including “artificial flavors”;
(3) Yevo’s FAQs acknowledge that the FDA requires all ingredients to be included on the food product label;
(4) not one of Yevo’s product labels online (e.g., EN-43 smoothie, no-sugar added oatmeal) list ACE-K as an ingredient.
https://www.yevo43.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/smoothie-bp.png
https://myyevo.com/uploads/global/Oats%20No%20Sugar%20Nutrient%20Fact%20Panel.pdf
http://food.myyevo.com/shop/
By deduction, Yevo is either lying when they say that they add ACE-K to their products or lying on their product label by failing to identify ACE-K as an ingredient.
The following are some examples from Yevo’s FAQs showing how they are not-so-subtly trying to steer people away from real, truly healthy foods in lieu of Yevo’s scandalously overpriced over-processed mutant Frankenfood powders.
FAQ: “Why not just eat whole foods?…proponents of eating only whole foods miss the following points…Have a look at what whole foods you’d have to eat in one day to satisfy 100 percent of your 43 essential nutrient needs. Don’t forget: you’ll have to go shopping, weigh out the right amounts of each food, cook everything and clean up. Most of these foods don’t go together very well, either, so you probably won’t like what you have to eat…While eating only “whole foods” is a romantic notion, it is not a solution to the global nutrient deficit crisis.”
FAQ: “Are Yevo foods certified organic? Organic is not our battle…of course we also provide the 43 essential nutrients your body and mind require, which is much more important to your health than whether or not a food is labeled as organic.”
FAQ: “Why not farm-to-table?…Farm to table is not a solution, but rather a fad… Yevo’s solution is a simple means to feed millions, and doesn’t put any further strain the Earth’s resources.”
FAQ: “Why not just fresh fruits and vegetables?…The nutrient profile of the fruits and vegetables grown today is incomplete… In addition, we love Mother Earth, and we want to protect her. When we buy fresh produce it all too often spoils before it gets eaten. As much as half of all the fresh fruits and vegetables grown throughout the world end up rotten and thrown in landfills.
FAQ: “How is Yevo environmentally friendly?…One of the worst environmental issues is the amount of wasted vegetables and fruits…Yevo believes that reducing waste is the best solution…Yevo is trying to solve these incredibly important and complex environmental issues. We have virtually zero food waste”
FAQ: “Are Yevo’s products all natural? There is no real meaning of the term “all natural” — it is just a clever marketing ploy. Consumers seeking healthier foods are drawn to products labeled with all natural claims, erroneously thinking these foods must be better (and healthier) than other foods. But “all natural” is a made-up marketing phrase designed to promote products as healthy, when in fact they usually are no more nutritionally complete than other processed foods…Yevo supplements its foods with nutrients, vitamin and minerals because “natural” foods do not have enough of vitamins and minerals to provide the required levels of the 43 essential nutrients.”
FAQ: “Does it matter if Yevo uses synthetic or natural sources of vitamin and minerals? There is no “natural” or “synthetic” when it comes to vitamins and minerals — the source is immaterial…Our bodies absorb all forms of vitamins and minerals.”
FAQ: “How are Yevo foods made? Our foods are unique because they are made utilizing essential nutrients as the “base”.”
So did you get all that? Eating “whole foods” is just a delusional “romantic” notion — they are too inconvenient, “don’t go well together” and don’t have enough nutrients, according to Yevo. How about organic foods? Nah, never mind — not important and it’s “not Yevo’s battle”. Farm-to table? Nope, Yevo says it’s just a “fad”. All natural? Just a marketing ploy, according to Yevo, and natural foods are bereft of nutrients. Fruits and vegetables? Screw them — they’re environmentally catastrophic, raping Mother Earth, and don’t have enough nutrients, says Yevo. Basing your products on completely synthetic ingredients though (and artificial sweeteners like ACE-K)? A-OK in Yevo’s book.
It’s unforgivable that they are marketing their synthetic nutrient supplements (which is all the EN-43 smoothie powder essentially is — not food) by negative campaigning against whole, natural, organic foods and fruit/vegetables, but the idea that their crap is more environmentally friendly than fruits and vegetables on the basis that it doesn’t contribute to food waste is truly absurd. If Yevo products don’t contribute to food waste, it’s only because they are not actually food. Furthermore, in all likelihood, Yevo’s products probably routinely end up in landfills because they border on inedibility, and a lot will also sit unopened in the garages of distributors who got duped into buying the products to qualify for MLM commissions.
Vogel, is it worth covering the 43 “essential” nutrients themselves? Isn’t one of them just water? It seems like this might be what they are using: https://www.yevo43.com/what-are-the-yevo-43-essential-nutrients-and-how-were-they-determined/.
It seems that there’s no “nutrient crisis” in the United States according to the extensive scientific research here: Enough Is Enough: Stop Wasting Money on Vitamin and Mineral Supplements.
Just finished sifting through a particularly misleading Yevo pitch presentation by distributor Dani Walker from Oregon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bb3Yq_yHWPI
She’s apparently not a low-level distributor either, as she claims to be on the Presidential Advisory Committee for YEVO.
http://foodbiz43.com/yevo-leaders/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniwalkerlive
Below are key excerpts from Dani’s deceptive sales pitch:
00:33 – “You’re going to hear from Peter Castleman, the visionary behind this mission, the man who has been dreaming about this for 20 years. He’s been following the trend of bad food with Big Food and Big Pharma for 20 years…he’s also seen the rise in chronic illness as we all have. The CDC states that 70% of Americans alone struggle with at least one chronic disease, and these diseases are the most preventable. Well what can we do to prevent them? What is the key to helping prevent our children from struggling with diabetes and heart attacks and chronic illnesses like cancer and arthritis and asthma and autism, and list goes on and on? It’s a simple solution and that is start feeding our bodies those 43 essential nutrients that they need…well guess what guys – that’s what Yevo is.
Dani’s marketing claim above is quite explicitly saying that Yevo products prevent chronic diseases, and that claim is both false and illegal. She even doubles down on it later in the presentation:
03:44 – “Yevo is setting themselves apart…providing nutrient dense low calorie meals for busy people like you and I…trying to change and prevent chronic illness in a massive way across the globe.”
Moving on, the following claim was a particularly fun one to debunk.
03:09 – “Some things you may not know about the company. Number 1, Nutrient Foods is in Reno Nevada. It’s a hundred thousand square foot amazing manufacturing facility that I had the opportunity to tour with a group of really committed team members with Team Vision last week. We go to see where the foods are made; we go to see the cold baked process which is a patented process that only Yevo uses of using the only piece of equipment like this in the United States and possibly the world.”
Naifs like Dani and the goobers that run Yevo don’t realize that people have the means to investigate the validity of claims like these. Turns out that there is quite a rich evidence trail showing both the type and source of equipment that’s used to make Yevo products. These shipping waybills dated February 2015 indicate that Nutrient Foods (the parent company of Yevo) purchased ordinary freeze-drying equipment via two suppliers: Yantai True Cold Chain Company in China and High Dream Machinery LLC in Texas.
https://panjiva.com/Nutrient-Foods-Llc/36832726
https://www.importgenius.com/importers/nutrient-foods-llc
http://www.truecold-chain.com/
http://www.hdmachinery.net/
There suppliers do not provide equipment exclusively to Nutrient Foods LLC; rather they sell equipment to anyone who wants to purchase it. It’s not unusual equipment either, but rather the same type of mundane equipment that is commonly used for freeze drying by many manufacturers of dried food products. Furthermore, the elusive patent for “cold baking” that Dani referred to appears to in fact be nothing more than a trademarked name, rather than a patented manufacturing process.
https://trademarks.justia.com/owners/nutrient-foods-llc-2965509/
I’ll leave it to the reader to sift through the remainder of Dani’s brain-meltingly stupid sales pitch. But before closing this chapter, it’s worth highlighting one more of Dani’s more over-top claims.
09:01 – “I support Phillip Morris every time I buy Kraft. So do you…do you really think those big food companies care about our health. Just read the ingredients label and the answer, you’ll get your answer. These are fake, dead, highly-processed, highly-heated CANCER CAUSING FOODS – ITS IS PROVEN.”
Hmmm. Keep that up and Yevo won’t survive the year. A corporation like Kraft, and their amply-staffed legal department, might have a bit of an issue with a bimbo representative from another food company stating that Kraft’s foods have been proven to cause cancer. It’s a false claim, obviously, but the irony is that what Yevo is selling – highly processed powdered foods with vitamin fortification – is antithetical to the fruit- and vegetable-rich whole food-based diet that nutritionists recommend for optimal health.
Philip Morris (Altria) and Kraft split years ago. From Wikipedia, “On January 27, 2003, Philip Morris Companies Inc. changed its name to Altria Group, Inc. On March 30, 2007, a spin-off of Kraft Foods Inc subsidiary (publicly traded since 2001) was concluded through distribution of the remaining stake of shares (88.1%) to Altria shareholders. As a result, Altria no longer holds any interest in Kraft Foods.“
Lazy Man said: Vogel, is it worth covering the 43 “essential” nutrients themselves? Isn’t one of them just water? It seems like this might be what they are using.”
Sure, let’s dive into the “43 Essential Nutrients” marketing spiel that Yevo invented out of thin air. They claim the following:
“The 43 essential nutrients include: 14 vitamins, 14 minerals, 2 essential fatty acids, 12 essential amino acids, and water, which is added to Yevo products, at preparation. But how did we select these 43 essential nutrients? We at Yevo didn’t just make up the 43 Essential Nutrients. Rather, we consulted worldwide, authoritative research organizations and the most highly regarded book on nutrition: The World Health Organization (WHO), The Institute of Medicine (IOM), Modern Nutrition in Disease”
This is the full list that Yevo provides, which in addition to water, adds up to 43 nutrients:
14 Vitamins: Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Vitamin D, Vitamin E, Vitamin K, Thiamin (B1), Vitamin B12, Biotin (B7), Riboflavin (B2), Niacin (B3), Folate (B9), Vitamin B6, Panthothenic Acid (B5), choline.
14 Minerals: Calcium, Phosphorus, Magnesium, Iron, Iodine, Zinc, Selenium, Copper, Chromium, Manganese, Molybdenum, Sodium, Chloride, Potassium.
12 Essential Amino Acids: Leucine, Isoleucine, Valine, Arginine, Lysine, Methionine, Cysteine, Phenylalanine, Tyrosine, Tryptophan, Threonine, Histidine.
2 Essential Fatty Acids: Omega-3, Omega-6
https://www.yevo43.com/the-43-essential-nutrients/
They claim that “list of 43 Essential Nutrients was determined by the World Health Organization and the Institute of Medicine” and “Yevo didn’t just make up” the list, but these claims are false. Neither WHO nor IOM ever compiled a list of “43 Essential Nutrients”, nor have they ever even referred to the phrase “43 Essential Nutrients”. Rather, Yevo invented this list on their own based on data that they cobbled together (and misconstrued as I show below) from sources like WHO, IOM, etc,
Secondly, Yevo claims that each serving of their products “provides the 43 essential nutrients your body needs to grow, heal and live.”
http://foodbiz43.com/
But this too is false. One of the 43 essential nutrients on Yevo’s list is water, which the products do not provide because they are dry powders (the water must be added by the consumer). So right off the bat, we can see that Yevo would only provide 42 of those 43 allegedly “essential” nutrients (and of those 42, a serving of Yevo generally provides amounts far below the recommended daily intake and far lower than the amounts provided by a 3-cent name brand multivitamin (as shown in detail below).
The most glaring error in Yevo’s list is that there are in fact only 9 recognized “essential” amino acids (phenylalanine, valine, threonine, tryptophan, methionine, leucine, isoleucine, lysine, and histidine) — not 12 as Yevo claims.
https://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/002222.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essential_amino_acid
Among Yevo’s list are 3 amino acid that are misclassified as “essential”: i.e., arginine, cysteine, and tyrosine, when in fact these 3 amino acids are among a group of 6 amino acids (7 according to WHO) that are classified as “conditionally indispensable” amino acids; the others, which Yevo does not include in its list, are glutamine (often used as a supplement by weight lifters), proline, glycine, and taurine (the latter, according to WHO).
http://fnic.nal.usda.gov/sites/fnic.nal.usda.gov/files/uploads/DRIEssentialGuideNutReq.pdf
http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/43411/1/WHO_TRS_935_eng.pdf?ua=1
So now that we have established that Yevo’s “43 Essential Nutrients” is a flawed and misleading concept, let’s focus on how much of those allegedly “essential” nutrients Yevo actually provides. When I did the analysis of ingredient amounts, I was surprised to find out that a serving of Yevo’s EN-43 not-a-smoothie powder provides only about a third of the RDA for more than 20 of its ingredients. Worse still, an 8-cent Centrum tab provides significantly greater amounts of those nutrients and a much wider variety of nutrients overall. Below is the comparison of Yevo vs Centrum Silver.
http://www.centrum.com/whats-inside/ingredients
http://www.walmart.com/ip/Centrum-Silver-Multivitamin-Multimineral-Supplement-Tablets-220-count/23599936
1. Vitamin A: Yevo = 35%; Centrum = 50%
2. Vitamin C: Yevo = 35%; Centrum = 100%
3. Vitamin D: Yevo = 40%; Centrum = 250%
4. Vitamin E: Yevo = 35%; Centrum = 167%
5. Vitamin K: Yevo = 40%; Centrum = 38%
6. Vitamin B6: Yevo = 35%; Centrum = 150%
7. Vitamin B12: Yevo = 35%; Centrum = 417%
8. Riboflavin: Yevo = 35%; Centrum = 100%
9. Pantothenate: Yevo = 35%; Centrum = 100%
10. Thiamine: Yevo = 35%; Centrum = 100%
11. Niacin: Yevo = 35%; Centrum = 100%
12. Folate: Yevo = 35%; Centrum = 100%
13. Biotin: Yevo = 35%; Centrum = 10%Calcium: Yevo = 50%; Centrum = 22%
14. Choline: Yevo = 34%; Centrum = 0%
15. Iodine: Yevo = 35%; Centrum = 100%
16. Zinc: Yevo = 35%; Centrum = 73%
17. Copper: Yevo = 35%; Centrum = 25%
18. Chromium: Yevo = 35%; Centrum = 42%
19. Chloride: Yevo = 8%; Centrum = 2%
20. Iron: Yevo = 60%; Centrum = 0%
21. Phosphorus: Yevo = 45%; Centrum = 2%
22. Magnesium: Yevo = 40%; Centrum = 13%
23. Selenium: Yevo = 35%; Centrum = 27%
24. Manganese: Yevo = 35%; Centrum = 115%
25. Molybdenum: Yevo = 35%; Centrum = 60%
26. Potassium: Yevo = 0%; Centrum = 2%
27. Nickel: Yevo = 0 ug; Centrum = 5 ug
28. Silicon: Yevo = 0 mg; Centrum = 2 mg
29. Vanadium: Yevo = 0 ug; Centrum = 10 ug
30. Lutein: Yevo = 0 ug; Centrum = 250 ug
31. Lycopene: Yevo = 0 ug; Centrum = 300 ug
As you can see, Yevo get its ass kicked by Centrum with respect to 20 of these 32 nutrients (vitamins A, C, D, E, B6, B12, riboflavin, pantothenate, thiamine, niacin, folate, iodine, zinc, manganese, molybdenum, nickel, silicon, vanadium, lutein, and lycopene), and Centrum lists 6 nutrients that are absent altogether from Yevo (potassium, nickel, silicon, vanadium, lutein, and lycopene). For 4 of the ingredients, the amounts were a virtual tie (i.e., vitamin K, copper, chromium, and selenium). Yevo offers more of only 7 ingredients (calcium, chloride, iron, biotin, phosphorus, magnesium, and choline), only 2 of which are absent altogether from Centrum (iron and choline). However, most of the nutrients that Yevo has more of relative to Centrum are dirt cheap minerals and among the easiest to get from the diet — e.g., calcium, chloride, phosphorus, and magnesium – and Yevo essentially uses these as bulk fillers, with the difference in dry weight relative to Centrum amounting to over 1 g of these cheap minerals.
It also makes no sense to offer all of this unpalatable shit mixed into a bad tasting low-grade processed food powder that can barely be choked down without retching, when consumers can instead take a taste-free caplet, with a much better price and overall nutrient profile, along with a normal meal of one’s own choosing. What Yevo is offering is not a convenience; it’s the ultimate inconvenience.
So clearly, products like Boost, Isopure, USP-grade omega FA supplements, and Centrum offer far better value and reliability than Yevo’s products. I’d say the highest-quality alternative combination would be 30 g (the same amount as in Yevo) of a very-high quality clean whey protein powder like Isopure (added to a whole fruit smoothie for example), which would cost about $1.06 and is much better than what’s in Yevo (and provides all essential amino acids); a USP-grade omega-3 supplement, which costs less than 8 cents for a higher grade than what Yevo is offering; and an 8-cent Centrum Silver for the vitamins and minerals.
http://www.professionalsupplementcenter.com/Natrol-Omega-3-Fish-Oil-Lemon-1200-mg.htm
http://www.luckyvitamin.com/p-232402-nature-s-best-isopure-perfect-zero-carb-unflavored-3-lbs
http://www.walmart.com/ip/Centrum-Silver-Multivitamin-Multimineral-Supplement-Tablets-220-count/23599936
Total cost is under $1.22 and the combination is cleaner, far more nutritious, and can be consumed with any diet, but ideally one consisting of healthy whole foods (and lots of fruits/vegetables/whole grains), rather than having to consume those same nutrients in the form of Yevo’s gross shitty-tasting processed food powders like rice gruel and alfredo sauce, which happen to be sold by disreputable pyramid scheme scammers who probably care as much about your welfare as Metabolife (Yevo CEO David Brown’s old company) did about the customers they injured and killed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metabolife
Lazy Man said: Vogel, is it worth covering the 43 “essential” nutrients themselves? Isn’t one of them just water? It seems like this might be what they are using.”
Sure, let’s dive into the “43 Essential Nutrients” marketing spiel that Yevo invented out of thin air. They claim the following:
“The 43 essential nutrients include: 14 vitamins, 14 minerals, 2 essential fatty acids, 12 essential amino acids, and water, which is added to Yevo products, at preparation. But how did we select these 43 essential nutrients? We at Yevo didn’t just make up the 43 Essential Nutrients. Rather, we consulted worldwide, authoritative research organizations and the most highly regarded book on nutrition: The World Health Organization (WHO), The Institute of Medicine (IOM), Modern Nutrition in Disease”
This is the full list that Yevo provides, which in addition to water, adds up to 43 nutrients:
14 Vitamins: Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Vitamin D, Vitamin E, Vitamin K, Thiamin (B1), Vitamin B12, Biotin (B7), Riboflavin (B2), Niacin (B3), Folate (B9), Vitamin B6, Panthothenic Acid (B5), choline.
14 Minerals: Calcium, Phosphorus, Magnesium, Iron, Iodine, Zinc, Selenium, Copper, Chromium, Manganese, Molybdenum, Sodium, Chloride, Potassium.
12 Essential Amino Acids: Leucine, Isoleucine, Valine, Arginine, Lysine, Methionine, Cysteine, Phenylalanine, Tyrosine, Tryptophan, Threonine, Histidine.
2 Essential Fatty Acids: Omega-3, Omega-6
https://www.yevo43.com/the-43-essential-nutrients/
They claim that “list of 43 Essential Nutrients was determined by the World Health Organization and the Institute of Medicine” and “Yevo didn’t just make up” the list, but these claims are false. Neither WHO nor IOM ever compiled a list of “43 Essential Nutrients”, nor have they ever even referred to the phrase “43 Essential Nutrients”. Rather, Yevo invented this list on their own based on data that they cobbled together (and misconstrued as I show below) from sources like WHO, IOM, etc,
Secondly, Yevo claims that each serving of their products “provides the 43 essential nutrients your body needs to grow, heal and live.”
http://foodbiz43.com/
But this too is false. One of the 43 essential nutrients on Yevo’s list is water, which the products do not provide because they are dry powders (the water must be added by the consumer). So right off the bat, we can see that Yevo would only provide 42 of those 43 allegedly “essential” nutrients (and of those 42, a serving of Yevo generally provides amounts far below the recommended daily intake and far lower than the amounts provided by a 3-cent name brand multivitamin (as shown in detail below).
The most glaring error in Yevo’s list is that there are in fact only 9 recognized “essential” amino acids (phenylalanine, valine, threonine, tryptophan, methionine, leucine, isoleucine, lysine, and histidine) — not 12 as Yevo claims.
https://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/002222.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essential_amino_acid
Among Yevo’s list are 3 amino acid that are misclassified as “essential”: i.e., arginine, cysteine, and tyrosine, when in fact these 3 amino acids are among a group of 6 amino acids (7 according to WHO) that are classified as “conditionally indispensable” amino acids; the others, which Yevo does not include in its list, are glutamine (often used as a supplement by weight lifters), proline, glycine, and taurine (the latter, according to WHO).
http://fnic.nal.usda.gov/sites/fnic.nal.usda.gov/files/uploads/DRIEssentialGuideNutReq.pdf
http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/43411/1/WHO_TRS_935_eng.pdf?ua=1
So now that we have established that Yevo’s “43 Essential Nutrients” is a flawed and misleading concept, let’s focus on how much of those allegedly “essential” nutrients Yevo actually provides. When I did the analysis of ingredient amounts, I was surprised to find out that a serving of Yevo’s EN-43 not-a-smoothie powder provides only about a third of the RDA for more than 20 of its ingredients. Worse still, an 8-cent Centrum tab provides significantly greater amounts of those nutrients and a much wider variety of nutrients overall. Below is the comparison of Yevo vs Centrum Silver.
https://www.yevo43.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/smoothie-bp.png
http://www.centrum.com/whats-inside/ingredients
1. Vitamin A: Yevo = 35%; Centrum = 50%
2. Vitamin C: Yevo = 35%; Centrum = 100%
3. Vitamin D: Yevo = 40%; Centrum = 250%
4. Vitamin E: Yevo = 35%; Centrum = 167%
5. Vitamin K: Yevo = 40%; Centrum = 38%
6. Vitamin B6: Yevo = 35%; Centrum = 150%
7. Vitamin B12: Yevo = 35%; Centrum = 417%
8. Riboflavin: Yevo = 35%; Centrum = 100%
9. Pantothenate: Yevo = 35%; Centrum = 100%
10. Thiamine: Yevo = 35%; Centrum = 100%
11. Niacin: Yevo = 35%; Centrum = 100%
12. Folate: Yevo = 35%; Centrum = 100%
13. Biotin: Yevo = 35%; Centrum = 10%
14. Calcium: Yevo = 50%; Centrum = 22%
15. Choline: Yevo = 34%; Centrum = 0%
16. Iodine: Yevo = 35%; Centrum = 100%
17. Zinc: Yevo = 35%; Centrum = 73%
18. Copper: Yevo = 35%; Centrum = 25%
19. Chromium: Yevo = 35%; Centrum = 42%
20. Chloride: Yevo = 8%; Centrum = 2%
21. Iron: Yevo = 60%; Centrum = 0%
22. Phosphorus: Yevo = 45%; Centrum = 2%
23. Magnesium: Yevo = 40%; Centrum = 13%
24. Selenium: Yevo = 35%; Centrum = 27%
25. Manganese: Yevo = 35%; Centrum = 115%
26. Molybdenum: Yevo = 35%; Centrum = 60%
27. Potassium: Yevo = 0%; Centrum = 2%
28. Nickel: Yevo = 0 ug; Centrum = 5 ug
29. Silicon: Yevo = 0 mg; Centrum = 2 mg
30. Vanadium: Yevo = 0 ug; Centrum = 10 ug
31. Lutein: Yevo = 0 ug; Centrum = 250 ug
32. Lycopene: Yevo = 0 ug; Centrum = 300 ug
As you can see, Yevo get its ass kicked by Centrum with respect to 20 of these 32 nutrients (vitamins A, C, D, E, B6, B12, riboflavin, pantothenate, thiamine, niacin, folate, iodine, zinc, manganese, molybdenum, nickel, silicon, vanadium, lutein, and lycopene), and Centrum lists 6 nutrients that are absent altogether from Yevo (potassium, nickel, silicon, vanadium, lutein, and lycopene). For 4 of the ingredients, the amounts were a virtual tie (i.e., vitamin K, copper, chromium, and selenium). Yevo offers more of only 7 ingredients (calcium, chloride, iron, biotin, phosphorus, magnesium, and choline), only 2 of which are absent altogether from Centrum (iron and choline). However, most of the nutrients that Yevo has more of relative to Centrum are dirt cheap minerals and among the easiest to get from the diet — e.g., calcium, chloride, phosphorus, and magnesium – and Yevo essentially uses these as bulk fillers, with the difference in dry weight relative to Centrum amounting to over 1 g of these cheap minerals.
It also makes no sense to offer all of this unpalatable shit mixed into a bad tasting low-grade processed food powder that can barely be choked down without retching, when consumers can instead take a taste-free caplet, with a much better price and overall nutrient profile, along with a normal meal of one’s own choosing. What Yevo is offering is not a convenience; it’s the ultimate inconvenience.
So clearly, products like Boost, Isopure, USP-grade omega FA supplements, and Centrum offer far better value and reliability than Yevo’s products. I’d say the highest-quality alternative combination would be 30 g (the same amount as in Yevo) of a very-high quality clean whey protein powder like Isopure (added to a whole fruit smoothie for example), which would cost about $1.06 and is much better than what’s in Yevo (and provides all essential amino acids); a USP-grade omega-3 supplement, which costs less than 8 cents for a higher grade than what Yevo is offering; and an 8-cent Centrum Silver for the vitamins and minerals.
http://www.professionalsupplementcenter.com/Natrol-Omega-3-Fish-Oil-Lemon-1200-mg.htm
http://www.luckyvitamin.com/p-232402-nature-s-best-isopure-perfect-zero-carb-unflavored-3-lbs
http://www.walmart.com/ip/Centrum-Silver-Multivitamin-Multimineral-Supplement-Tablets-220-count/23599936
Total cost is under $1.22 and the combination is cleaner, far more nutritious, and can be consumed with any diet, but ideally one consisting of healthy whole foods (and lots of fruits/vegetables/whole grains), rather than having to consume those same nutrients in the form of Yevo’s gross shitty-tasting processed food powders like rice gruel and alfredo sauce, which happen to be sold by disreputable pyramid scheme scammers who probably care as much about your welfare as Metabolife (Yevo CEO David Brown’s old company) did about the customers they injured and killed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metabolife
The two Yevo meals per day that the company recommends represents two meals per day without fruit, vegetables, or whole grains/legumes, but the daily recommended serving requirements for those foods must still be met (because the exogenous nutrients in Yevo are not a substitute). However, after having already consumed two daily meals consisting of Yevo’s shitty powder, the only opportunity to meet those needs would be limited to the one remaining daily meal (plus snacks) – an virtually impossible task. Fruits, vegetables, and legumes/grains have a plethora of chemical constituents that are thought to be important for mediating the well-demonstrated health benefits of a low-fat plant-rich diet; e.g., plant phytochemicals like lycopene, lutein, resveratrol, allicin, sulforaphane, etc., not to mention soluble fiber, which is virtually absent from Yevo products.
This fact is completely ignored in Yevo’s misleading marketing pitch about 43 Essential Nutrients, which if put into practice, would represent a horrendously unhealthy and unjustifiably costly diet.
Vogel, you seem to have a lot of spare time for misconstruing marketing materials, maybe you would enjoy a little research on your favorite go-to multi multivitamin. The complaints about Centrum, by the way, would be echoed in pretty much all tablet form multi vitamins. As far as I’m concerned they are a….scam!
http://www.meghantelpner.com/blog/the-truth-behind-centrum-doing-more-harm-than-good/
Rachel,
Centrum is just one example of a multi-vitamin. That review is very suspect. For example, she says that it’s produced by Pfizer as if that is a negative thing. Pfizer is much, much more reputable than Yevo’s cast of characters using a selling system that appears to be a pyramid scheme according to the FTC guidelines.
She says that the “dosages of most nutrients are negligible.” I’m fairly sure that “dosage” isn’t the correct terminology there. More importantly, since it has much more nutrients than Yevo’s products, we can conclude that Yevo is especially nutrient bare.
Once again, this person recites the rumor that tablets are hard to absorb without citing sources or supporting research.
She then goes into the ingredients and tried to paint Pregelatinized Corn Starch as a negative because “It [is] most likely a genetically modified corn which presents a number of problems for sensitive people.” So she’s speculating what’s in it. Worse, the amount of a binder in a pill is negligible. Seriously, how much of a bad chemical are you going to get in a tiny pill vs. Yevo’s products?
Her tips for how to choose a multivitamin are completely opposite of anything that is recommended by reputable resources. For example, here’s what’s on WebMD by someone with at least a health degree.
In any case, this article isn’t about Centrum. It’s just one example of a smarter choice than Yevo’s products.
First, I want to say I agree with Rachel that Vogel seems to have alot of time on his hands to write the things he does.
I am a Yevo distributor and was also involved in Monavie, so I’m pretty familiar with MLMs. I wouldn’t say I’ve made alot of money working them, but I’ve not done too bad.
I remember reading Lazyman’s blog back when I was more active in Monavie and I recall him saying repeatedly that Monvavie was going to be shut down by the FTC. Similar statements to what he is now making about Yevo actually.
Out of curiosity, I looked on the FTC database for past violations and cases and I don’t see anything in there against Monavie: https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/cases-proceedings/advanced-search
My point for bring up Monavie is that they are a much bigger company than Yevo right now and they didn’t get in trouble with the FTC. What makes you think Yevo will?
I also take exception to all of the “facts” Vogel is posting, as if they are correct. As far as I can tell, he doesn’t seem to be employed or maybe he is retired. He seems to spend most of his time looking up things on the internet and posting here. Who is Vogel to say all of the things he’s posting is factual not his layman’s opinion?
It seems to me that it’s pretty common knowledge that diet effects health. Most of us have probably seen the supersize me movie where the guy created a documentary about eating McDonald’s for a month. There’s also alot common knowledge information out there that our food industry in general is creating foods that are bad for us.
Yevo isn’t the first company to create a product line that attempts to capture foods that are considered by health professionals as a “good diet.” Jenny Craig does similar things with some of their products: http://www.jennycraig.com/site/corporate/news/detail/2601134
Where I’m going with this is that Yevo is putting together food products that are targeted towards the things that are good for us and excludes the things that are bad for us.
I think we can squabble over price all day and post links to ebay or wherever to find things that might be cheaper.
Personally, I really like Yevo’s products. Maybe not all of them, but most I really enjoy eating and they have improved my health since I started replacing a meal a two a day with them.
Susan,
Some people waste their time watching re-runs of Seinfeld. Let’s praise Vogel for contributing something useful with his time.
With regard to the FTC, I misjudged the politics and government funding available. I blindly believed that the FTC actually read consumer complaints and acted on them based on whether they have merit. Unfortunately, this isn’t the case. They have a very small budget for all the things they need to do. There are 1400 MLM/pyramid schemes active and each one gets due process in court. The FTC has to spend millions of it’s budget to even shut one down. For this reason the Former FTC Economist is calling for a Federal Pyramid Scheme Rule.
That said, MonaVie is not a much bigger company than Yevo. MonaVie is out of business. It foreclosed for pennies as the pyramid collapsed on them.
And while the FTC didn’t act on MonaVie, it did act on its carbon-copy Vemma. The FTC halted Vemma alleging it is a pyramid scheme. Vemma is back and running under a new set of rules, but they are doing terribly now that they are forced to run something resembling a legitimate business. They paid out commissions to only 119 people.
Vogel is very good at citing the sources for the facts. If you think they are not factual, challenge him on them. If you do not wish to challenge them, then don’t presume he’s wrong. If you have difficulty discerning what is a sourced fact and what is his opinion, you probably shouldn’t be engaged in any kind of business.
I think that Vogel’s presented a lot of information that shows that Yevo is talking about putting good food products, but isn’t delivering. At the same time, they seem to be discouraging people from eating good foods as Vogel pointed out in the FAQ.
We can only squabble over price all day if someone is going to support $6+ oatmeal. If a gas station was selling $20/gallon gas, you wouldn’t even start to squabble. And yes, if a gas station tried to do such a thing making claims that it will make your car go 20x longer than ordinary gas, I’d certainly be writing about why its a scam.
I don’t see what’s different here.
Rachel said: “Vogel, you seem to have a lot of spare time for misconstruing marketing materials, maybe you would enjoy a little research on your favorite go-to multi multivitamin. The complaints about Centrum, by the way, would be echoed in pretty much all tablet form multi vitamins. As far as I’m concerned they are a….scam!
http://www.meghantelpner.com/blog/the-truth-behind-centrum-doing-more-harm-than-good/#sthash.O2iGsiXU.dpuf”
I’ll preface my reply by pointing out that you presented not even one single example showing that I misconstrued any marketing materials. Secondly, what you’re calling “research” on Centrum is not really research at all. It’s not from a reputable scientific organization or a peer-reviewed journal. Nonetheless, let’s go through it line by line and see if any of it is valid and how it pertains to our discussion about Yevo vs Centrum.
“Centrum is a product produced by the company Pfizer, one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world.”
If anything, being produced by a pharmaceutical company is a plus not a minus. No one has greater expertise or reliability when it comes to formulating compounds for human ingestion. Rachel is surely not foolish enough to suggest that a skeezy MLM supplement company like Yevo is more reliable. As I have pointed out repeatedly, Yevo’s CEO David Brown was formerly CEO of Metabolife, an MLM company started by two meth dealers, which injured and killed people with their supplements, lied about it to the FDA, and saw several of their execs sent to prison. Based on that pedigree, and a lot of other equally valid reasons, it’s impossible to argue that Yevo is more reliable than Pfizer, or that David Brown gives a flying F about your welfare.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metabolife
“The dosages of most of the nutrients in Centrum are negligible and not even close to therapeutic levels.”
For the vast majority of the nutritional ingredients in Centrum, the dosages meet or exceed the RDA amounts, and they exceed the dosages in Yevo’s products, so this argument fails miserably when comparing Centrum with Yevo. A serving of Yevo fails to deliver the RDA amount of even one nutritional ingredient.
“The forms that the nutrients are provided in are the cheapest and the least absorbable forms.”
First of all, that’s a very general statement with no corroborating examples provided. One is left to wonder which nutrient forms they are referring to. Second, there is no evidence that the nutrient forms in Yevo are any more expensive or more effectively absorbed than the analogous substances in Centrum. If you iwhs to argue to the contrary, you’ll have to put some evidence on the table to back it up.
“Supplements that come in tablet form are often hard to digest and contain binders and fillers (more on this below).”
It’s total BS that they are hard to digest, and not surprisingly, the author provides no citations to support this accusation. A pill dissolving in the GI tract is a phenomena that is so consistent and widely reproducible that it is a a cornerstone of modern pharmacy. As for binders and fillers, so what? For the most they are innocuous inert substances like corn starch, and they are used to improve the dissolution properties of the pill in the GI tract.
“Water-soluble nutrients (vitamin C and the B-vitamins) are either used or excreted within about 4 hours. Thus, a one-a-day multi is completely useless and a sure sign that it is of poor quality.”
Evidence? The author provided none. Even if B and C levels were elevated for only 4 hours per day, that would not make the multivitamin “completely” useless. Besides, no health authorities advise that the levels of any particular nutrient have to be elevated around the clock, nor would this occur with a healthy diet – levels naturally fluctuate throughout the day. More importantly, the amounts of vitamin C and B vitamins in a serving of Yevo only meet 35% of the RDA (vs 100% in Centrum), so even in the best case scenario, Yevo fails woefully. You’d have to choke down 3 servings of Yevo’s crap daily day to meet the RDA for vitamin C and B vitamins.
“Ferrous Fumarate. This form of iron is incredibly constipating.”
BS! If you want to press this argument, you’d have to put evidence on the table that the doses used in Centrum predispose to constipation.
“Pregelatinized Corn Starch. This is used as a binder to hold all of the ingredients together. It most likely a genetically modified corn which presents a number of problems for sensitive people.”
Speculation. There’s no evidence that the corn starch in Centrum is from a GMO source, or that it would pose any health risk even if it did.
“DL-Alpha Tocopherol. This is vitamin E and they are using two forms. The “D” form which is natural and the “L” Form which is synthetic. The “L” form is used to “water-down” the more expensive more bioactive “D” form.”
Epic fail on this argument. It is in fact the exact same form as the D/L form of vitamin E in Yevo.
“BHT. Butylated hydroxyanisole has been shown to be toxic to the liver, thyroid, kidney, lungs, and affecting blood coagulation.(2) BHT can act as a tumour promoter.”
I’m not crazy about BHT either, even in the extremely low amounts added to a pill, but it is an approved preservative. However, an argument like this is just as easy to apply to the ACE-K that Yevo adds to its products. Yes, it is an approved artificial sweetener, but a controversial one that some sources suspect is more dangerous than initially believed. This is no different than the situation with BHT. You can’t have it both ways. If you want to point the finger at BHT, you have to point it at ACE-K as well.
“Gelatin Vegetarians watch out!”
Yevo products contain dairy and milk protein. Not exactly vegetarian friendly either. Besides, vegetarians eat mostly plants, not the mutant crap powder in a pouch that Yevo sells. Be cognizant of your target demographic (poverty-stricken preppers, dolts with bad eating habits, and desperate pyramid schemers).
“Hydrogenated Palm Oil. Hydrogenating any oil turns the oil rancid and makes it into a strong free radical. Free radicals promote cancer and heart disease.”
Incorrect. This individual seems to know very little about free radical biochemistry. Hydrogenating oils does not convert them into free radicals – oxidizing them does. And by Chip Marsland’s own admission (see my previous comment for the quotes), Yevo has a big problems masking the rancidity of the oxidized fats and proteins (and the resulting fishy smell that has been widely reported) in their products. Thus, this argument fails as well.
“Nickelous Sulfate and Tin. I have never come across any nutrition book discussing a nickel or tin deficiency. Have you? We most likely don’t need to supplement it.”
Yes, in fact I have.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6398286
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1702675
Yevo’s marketing of “essential nutrients” is not based on whether or not deficiencies of those nutrients are common. The point is whether the nutrients are essential for optimal health – and both nickel and tin are. It could just as easily be argued that deficiencies of most of the so-called “43 Essential Nutrients” in Yevo are as uncommon as nickel and tin deficiency.
“Sodium Benzoate. A preservative that may cause organ toxicity.”
And is not present in Centrum Silver.
http://www.vitacost.com/centrum-silver-multivitamin-multimineral-adults-50-plus-220-tablets-2
“Talc. Has been shown to cause cancer. (5,6,7)”
Again, it’s an approved binder and there’s no reason to be more concerned about the talc in Centrum than about the ACE-K in Yevo. There is no reliable evidence that oral ingestion of minuscule amounts of talc poses a health risk, and in fact, one of the sources that was cited in the article (#7) was a study on inhaled and intravenously ingested talc, which has no implications whatsoever regarding oral ingestion. Misleading sloppy research to say the least.
“Sodium Aluminosilicate. Used as a food additive for its anti caking effect.”
Fail! Also not present in Centrum Silver.
“I recommend going to a health food store and talking to to a trained health practitioner.”
Since when did health food stores employ “trained health practitioners”?
In summary, there are a lot of incorrect and misleading statements in that wonky article, but more importantly the arguments presented in the article don’t make a case for Yevo at all. And if one prefers to buy a higher-quality more expensive multivitamin in addition to the protein powder and omega-3 supplement I recommended in lieu of Yevo, the combination would still be much higher quality and much less expensive. Ultimately though, I’m not a big proponent of supplementation. I advocate a balanced plant-rich lean whole food diet, as do virtually all of the most knowledgeable authorities on diet and nutrition. Yevo’s crap is the antithesis of that diet – essentially a multivitamin wrapped up in bag of processed low grade crap powder that’s barely reminiscent of what we think of as food.
I’ll close with a general note on preservatives and anti-caking agents. They are used to maintain shelf life and maintain the texture of processed foods during storage. I don’t consume a lot of processed foods, so I generally avoid these compounds, but they do serve a vital purpose. Yevo is advertised as having a ridiculously long 2-5 year shelf. I have grave doubts about whether their products could really have such a long shelf life in the absence of preservatives, but for certain, the products in bulk pouches would tend to spoil very rapidly once opened. You can’t defy the laws of chemistry.
Monavie was victim of a failing common to binary MLMs. They got top heavy, the economy softened, sales slowed, and then they couldn’t pay out the commissions they promised.
It seems to me that you are opposed to any and all MLMs, regardless of what they are selling.
Is this a correct statement?
Susan,
The economy has been on 6 or 7 year bull market. MonaVie was imploding just about the whole time as we can see with Google Trends. I never saw evidence that there really were any significant sales other than to people buying to remain qualified in the scheme. The only sales I saw was from people who had been illegally told it was a medicine for a medical condition (i.e. cancer, autism, etc.)
Please use these comments for Yevo-specific questions or points. If you want to talk about MLMs in general, I have other articles on that. For example Is Every MLM a Scam? would be a good place to address your question.
Susan,
I forgot to add… Don’t forget to thank me for correcting you on MonaVie and giving you the update on the FTC/Vemma ;-).
Susan said: “First, I want to say I agree with Rachel that Vogel seems to have alot (sic) of time on his hands to write the things he does.”
Congrats! That makes you as much of an abrasive ass as Rachel. I hate to have to say that, but it’s apropos. It’s mind boggling that either of you would think that that insipid thought was worth sharing.
Susan said: “I am a Yevo distributor and was also involved in Monavie, so I’m pretty familiar with MLMs. I wouldn’t say I’ve made alot (sic) of money working them, but I’ve not done too bad.”
Ouch! A double whammy of bad judgment. Fooled twice, shame on you!
While it’s easy to anonymously claim that you’ve “not done too bad” with Monavie and Yevo, the statistics indicate that you’ve probably made, at best, less than minimum wage (and that you are using an overly generous definition of “not done too bad”). Regardless, we can’t tell one way or the other unless you put some proof on the table, which you would have done if making a valid point actually mattered to you. I’m betting you’ve actually taken a beating. Monavie went into foreclosure, so whatever effort you spent “building the business” was wasted. You built nothing.
Susan said: “I remember reading Lazyman’s blog back when I was more active in Monavie and I recall him saying repeatedly that Monvavie was going to be shut down by the FTC. Similar statements to what he is now making about Yevo actually. Out of curiosity, I looked on the FTC database for past violations and cases and I don’t see anything in there against Monavie.”
Where did Lazy Man say that Monavie (or Yevo for that matter) was going to be shut down by the FTC? As I recall, he and others showed plenty of evidence that Monavie’s (and Yevo’s) claims violated specific U.S. laws that the FTC and FDA enforce, which would carry the risk of the FTC/FDA intervening and possibly shutting them down, but no one ventured so far as to suggest that it was inevitably going to happen. As it turned out, the company belly-flopped on its own, preempting the opportunity for regulatory intervention, and the inventor of the product admitted that it was nothing more than “expensive flavored water”. That means that you are a sucker of the highest order. You shelled out big bucks for that expensive flavored water and no doubt marketed it as a miracle elixir just like all their other greedy/sucker distributors did prior to the company going into foreclosure. If you had heeded our thoughtful warnings instead of ignoring them, you could averted being part of this disaster.
http://archive.sltrib.com/story.php?ref=/sltrib/money/53061545-79/monavie-company-distributors-percent.html.csp
http://www.sltrib.com/news/2500617-155/judge-wants-answers-halts-takeover-of
BTW, the FDA did take action against Monavie; but as I said before, Monavie died for financial reasons, so they never had to fully atone for all of the illegal miracle claims or the pyramid scheming.
http://www.fda.gov/downloads/Drugs/GuidanceComplianceRegulatoryInformation/EnforcementActivitiesbyFDA/CyberLetters/ucm056937.pdf
Susan said: “My point for bring up Monavie is that they are a much bigger company than Yevo right now and they didn’t get in trouble with the FTC. What makes you think Yevo will?”
Aside from the first part being wrong (Monavie is dead, not bigger), that’s a strawman argument. You seem to be implying that I said that Yevo was definitely going to be targeted by the FTC, when in fact I said nothing of the kind. I said that their advertising violates specific U.S. laws — laws which the FDA and FTC are tasked with enforcing — and that the company faces the risk of regulatory intervention as a result. Whether the FDA/FTC get around to doing anything about it is another matter entirely. So while you can argue that Yevo might get away with violating U.S. law, you can’t reasonably argue that the marketing claims I have highlighted are not in violation of U.S. law.
Susan said: “I also take exception to all of the “facts” Vogel is posting, as if they are correct.”
I totally understand that it’s frustrating for you to see me coolly eviscerate the latest shitty MLM product that you’ve staked your livelihood on, but using facetious quotation marks around the word “facts” doesn’t make my comments any less factual. If you want to actually dispute the factuality of anything I’ve written, then have at it.
Susan said: “As far as I can tell, he doesn’t seem to be employed or maybe he is retired.”
How would you know one way or the other, and how would it pertain to our discussion about Yevo? It’s mind boggling that you wouldn’t be able to anticipate how foolish you would appear by resorting to such worthless idle speculation. I can all but guarantee that my time (and expertise) is exponentially more valuable than yours, which you squander trying to scratch out sub-minimum wage by flogging snakeoil pyramid schemes. Donating my time to discussions like this is a public service and a mitzvah; a service that would be scorned only by someone who has a conflicting interest in Yevo, as do you.
Susan said: “He seems to spend most of his time looking up things on the internet and posting here. Who is Vogel to say all of the things he’s posting is factual not his layman’s opinion?”
Let me break it down for you in terms that you might have a faint hope of grasping. The lines of text with the “http” prefix I’ve been posting are called hyperlinks. Clicking on them takes you to other sites on the internet; i.e., the places that have evidence backing up the points I’ve been making. For instance, when I state as fact that Yevo or another product contains “x” and costs “y”, I provide the links to prove it. Or when I state a relevant scientific fact, I back it up by presenting links to credible authorities. And that in a nutshell is how you can tell the difference between a fact and layperson’s opinion. Can you really be so dense as to not understand any of this?
Susan said: “It seems to me that it’s pretty common knowledge that diet effects (sic) health.”
Wow, that was so blindingly unenlightening that just reading it once made me lose 5 IQ points. Stop please!
Susan said: “Most of us have probably seen the supersize me movie where the guy created a documentary about eating McDonald’s for a month.”
Why do you invoke these stupid red herrings? McDonald’s unhealthier food offerings support an argument against consuming unhealthy foods; not consuming Yevo’s processed powdered Frankenfood crap.
Susan said: “Yevo isn’t the first company to create a product line that attempts to capture foods that are considered by health professionals as a “good diet.”
Credible health professionals would never think that Yevo’s products represent a “good diet”; quite the opposite. These are the kinds of foods that experts advise avoiding in lieu of fresh whole foods. So yes, Yevo isn’t “the first”; because they haven’t even come close to doing it.
Susan said: “Where I’m going with this is that Yevo is putting together food products that are targeted towards the things that are good for us and excludes the things that are bad for us.”
And that’s a completely untenable argument. Yevo excludes fruit and vegetables and herbs; ergo, according to your line of reasoning, fruit and vegetables and fresh herbs are bad for us. But that’s clearly not true; they are pretty much the best things for us. And that’s a great example of why every marketing message that attempts to justify Yevo’s products fails in horrific fashion.
Susan said: “I think we can squabble over price all day and post links to ebay or wherever to find things that might be cheaper.”
Well, that’s precisely the point of this whole exercise isn’t it? Yevo’s marketing materials and the distributors who have posted here predicate their marketing on price comparisons and value propositions. So of course, any reasonable examination of those claims will also focus on price/value and composition.
Susan said: “Personally, I really like Yevo’s products. Maybe not all of them, but most I really enjoy eating and they have improved my health since I started replacing a meal a two a day with them.”
Um, BS. How did Yevo improve your “health” and why would you not have used the opportunity to provide tangible details instead of resorting to vague innuendo? BTW, I am led to immediately be skeptical of anonymous distributor claims that they “like” or “enjoy” the products, given that Chip Marsland and other distributors have made a point of emphasizing how fishy the products smell/taste. I believe you’d have no compunction at all about lying, but even if I were to give you the benefit of the doubt that you’re not, I’d have to assume that you’ve subconsciously deluded yourself into ignoring the taste/smell because you’ve staked your livelihood on recruiting people into the business, and it would be hard to follow through on that if you weren’t actively trying to suppress your gag reflex and the parts of your brain that control taste, logic, and moral reasoning.
The fact that the products contain as much protein, additives, fishy oils, etc. as they do makes it virtually impossible for them to taste good. That’s precisely the reason why “good” foods aren’t prepared by dumping all that shit on them. When you consider the question “why has no one else thought to add 25-30 grams of protein powder, a gram or two of fishy omega-3 FAs, and gram after gram of vitamin/mineral powder to a single serving of oatmeal, curry powder, or freeze-dried mashed potatoes, the obvious answer is because it would taste like complete and utter shit. I mean, c’mon for crying out loud, is anyone really stupid enough to not understand this? Even someone with the palette and culinary sophistication of a caveman would get it.
https://myyevo.com/uploads/global/Curry%20Nutrient%20Fact%20Panel.pdf
https://myyevo.com/shop/products/en43-mashed-potatoes-4025vus
Yevo isn’t doing something revolutionary with their products; they are merely doing something incredibly dumb with their products; something which the rest of the world has had the good sense to not do.
More detailed follow-up on ACE-K is in order. First of all, recall that I had stated that it was unclear whether ACE-K was added to Yevo’s oatmeal, based on the fact that it wasn’t listed on the ingredient panel, and I said that by deduction, it could be concluded that it either wasn’t in the product or that they simply failed to include ACE-K on the label despite its presence in the product. Well, while this still isn’t clear with the oatmeal…
https://myyevo.com/uploads/global/Oats%20No%20Sugar%20Nutrient%20Fact%20Panel.pdf
…I did manage confirm that ACE-K is in fact included in the EN-43 not-a-smoothie powder. The reason I didn’t see it on the first go around is that they listed it under a subsection of ingredients with the misleading title “Essential Vitamin and Mineral Blend”.
https://www.yevo43.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/smoothie-bp.png
Now why would Yevo resort to such deception by listing ACE-K as a vitamin/mineral, since it is neither, instead of as a sweetener or even as just a miscellaneous ingredient? The clue comes from the comment made by Chip Marsland that I quoted previously:
13:14 – Marsden: “For those that do like sugar, a sweet tasting product, we are coming out with a no-sugar added product and this one uses, you know, something that I actually brought to the table. And it’s a product called acesulfame potassium. It’s also known as ACE-K. Now, most people don’t know this and it’s actually an important thing to know – but it’s a potassium salt. And I looked at it as twofold: it provides dual functionality to our products because it actually can provide potassium, which is important for us because we want to hit as much potassium from any source we possibly can, every chance we get. But it also provides a little sweetness because this potassium salt’s actually sweet.
https://www.yevo43.com/episode-1-it-only-gets-better/#sthash.ipaZ9eDc.dpuf
Here Marsland seems to be attempting to provide a weak rationale that might explain why they tried to disguise ACE-K as a mineral on the product label. He’s presenting it as though it is a source of potassium (a mineral) that only happens, though happy coincidence, to also have a little sweetness to it. But this posturing is so blatantly jaw-droppingly deceptive that one has to wonder what could have possibly led Marsland to say it. Is he dumb; dishonest; gullible; unquestioning?
Even Yevo’s FAQ, which at least correctly identifies ACE-K as a sweetener, also tries to pass of this misleading idea of ACE-K being a significant potassium source:
“Why does Yevo use the sweet potassium salt acesulfame potassium, or Ace K, in its products? When selecting the best non-sugar sweetener for our foods, Yevo chose one that was not only sweet but also contained potassium, one of the 43 essential nutrients. Acesulfame potassium, or Ace K (so named because K is the symbol for potassium), is a sweet potassium salt that contains about 20 percent potassium.”
https://www.yevo43.com/more_about_yevo/#13
So let’s begin by deconstructing the argument that the ACE-K in Yevo EN-43 not-a-smoothie powder serves as a significant dietary source of potassium.
First of all, ACE-K, an artificial sweetener, is FDA-approved only as a “general-purpose sweetener and flavor enhancer”; not as a source of dietary potassium, and certainly not as a “mineral”.
https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cdrh/cfdocs/cfcfr/CFRSearch.cfm?fr=172.800
Second, and here’s the fun part, I’m now going to walk you through some simple standard calculations to demonstrate exactly why Yevo’s claim is BS.
We begin with this detailed textbook on ACE-K notes that when added to a beverage product as a stand-alone sweetener (i.e., not in combination with aspartame or cyclamates), ACE-K is used at concentrations of up to 200 mg/L (see p.217).
https://books.google.com/books?id=BTD6o22FXbYC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=falsee
Yevo’s EN-43 not-a-smoothie ingredient label does not list the amount of ACE-K added but it can be figured out by deduction. Let’s assume that a Yevo smoothie is reconstituted in about 12 ounces of water, a reasonable estimate for the size of a single beverage serving, which amounts to about 354 mL total volume. That would mean that, based on the maximum concentration of ACE-K specified in the textbook (200 mg/L), a serving would have a concentration of ACE-K not exceeding roughly 71 mg. The molecular formula of ACE-K is C4H4KNO4S, meaning that each molecule of ACE-K has only one potassium molecule. The molecular weight of ACE-K is 201.242 and that of potassium is 39.0983…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acesulfame_potassium
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potassium
…therefore, it can be calculated that ACE-K consists of 19.4% potassium (i.e., 39.0983 divided by 201.242), which is effectively the same as the 20% that Yevo stated in their FAQ. Multiplying the percentage of potassium in ACE-K with the amount of ACE-K (71 mg) in a 12-ounce smoothie works out to 13.8 mg potassium per Yevo serving — and that’s a tiny amount. According to the data that Yevo presents as the basis for its percentage RDA calculations (link below). The RDA for potassium is 3500 mg.
https://www.yevo43.com/essential-nutrients-determining-the-perfect-amount/
Therefore a serving of Yevo with its teensy 13.8 mg of potassium would provide a trivially insignificant 0.4% of the RDA.
While it’s always fun brushing up on our basic chemistry calculations; it’s also nice to have corroborating sources as a reality check. And lo and behold, what does this handy info sheet from the International Food Information Council Foundation tell us about ACE-K?
“The amount of potassium in acesulfame potassium is extremely small. A packet of tabletop sweetener containing acesulfame potassium has just 10 mg of potassium.”
http://www.foodinsight.org/Content/6/Everything-You-Need-to-Know-About-Acesulfame-Potassium.pdf
There’s the punchline reiterated. One packet of the artificial sweetener ACE-K — pretty much what you’d expect to be added in a single beverage serving — provides only 10 mg of potassium. So close to my deduced estimate of 13.7 mg that it’s scary!
So what does it say about Yevo when they: (a) try to bury a (at least somewhat controversial) artificial sweetener in their ingredient list by misclassifying it as a mineral; (b) repeatedly misrepresent ACE-K as though it’s a significant source of potassium; and (c) repeatedly misrepresent their products as containing no artificial flavorings, when in fact the FDA-approved use of ACE-K is a sweetening and flavor-enhancing agent?
Just one more piece among a growing litany of damning evidence.
Vogel,
I would like to recommend a book to you: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/how-to-win-friends-and-influence-people-dale-carnegie/1100370318?ean=9780671027032
1: I was making $10,000/month, plus or minus with Monavie.
2: The FTC letter you referenced was for the website http://www.acai-berry.com, which is a distributor’s website and not Monavie Corporate. This specific distributor was pretty well known for internet sales and not at all suprising that there were statements made that got him in trouble. I read the letter and it seemed more of a warning and not any real action against the person.
3: Vogel’s opinions: Your arragement of references and links to come up with factual conclusions are like taking a dumbster load of Ford car parts and tossing them in the air and having them hit the ground in the form of a Mustang. Your conclusions are just your opions.
4: There are nutrition professionals behind Yevo. This person here has a pretty impressive resume: https://www.linkedin.com/in/staceyjbell Where is your resume that gives you the right to call everyone who posts here names and make like everyone but you is stupid?
5: Lazyman said made all sorts of FTC comments and statements here: http://www.juicescam.com/
Susan,
I’m going to chime in on some of your comments addressed to Vogel. This is an open discussion. I’m sure he’ll chime in if he wants to.
I love Dale Carnegie’s Win Friends and Influence People. I need to re-read it as it has been a few years. Anyone promoting pyramid schemes like MLM is violating every principle of the book. In the past year almost all the comments I get on my site are saying, “Thank you Lazy Man, these pyramid schemers are so annoying on Facebook.”
1. So you were making $10,000 a month with MonaVie and didn’t realize that it no longer exists? What the hell? If I build a $10,000 a month business, I’m going to keep track of it.
2. The MLM’s corporate office is responsible for the distributor. If the “specific distributor was pretty well known for internet sales and not at all surprising that there were statements made that got him in trouble”, MonaVie was negligent in their duties. The FDA tends to give warnings to give people a chance a fix their errors before taking legal action. For our the purposes of discussing violations, it is the same thing as action.
3. I think Vogel has carefully constructed the information. Even when he puts together of his own math like he did with the amount of potassium in ACE-K, he backed it up with a third party verification. This isn’t like just tossing car parts in the air. It’s creating a Mustang and have Ford certify it is a Mustang.
Of course you are welcome to form your own opinion on the factual information that Vogel has presented. If Vogel’s information is incorrect, I once again invite you to please move the discussion forward by pointing out why it is incorrect. I respect you having a different opinion, but one of my favorite sayings is, “Anyone can have an opinion, but it takes work to have an informed opinion.”
Vogel has clearly put in the work to show his informed opinion. I’m not seeing the same from you Susan.
4. That’s an interesting link to Stacey Bell’s LinkedIn page. Did you notice that she doesn’t mention Yevo? If it’s such a great revolutionary product, why omit it? Is she really that embarrassed that her colleagues will laugh at her?
Vogel, it might be worth looking into Stacey Bell. I see on this page she is “a former Harvard Medical School faculty member”, but her LinkedIn page mentions nothing of Harvard Business School. Instead it reads, “Harvard Business School – No Degree, Agribusiness Seminar.” It is sad when people have to put down that they went to a seminar as notable credential.
5. Yes I did make “all sorts of FTC comments and statements” about MonaVie at JuiceScam.com. I believe them all to be accurate today. Do you think any of them are inaccurate? If so, why?
6. Susan, you didn’t have a 6th point, but I thought I’d bring up Vemma getting taken down by FTC because you seem to move the goalposts to new topics so that you don’t have to admit you were wrong.
Why do my comments keep getting deleted?
None of your comments have been deleted. It looks like they triggered my software spam filters.
Susan said: “Vogel, I would like to recommend a book to you: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/how-to-win-friends-and-influence-people-dale-carnegie/1100370318?ean=9780671027032”
Why? Surely we both know that any attempt to influence you or win your friendship would be a lost cause. It’s never going to happen because the facts and arguments I present impinge on your ability to bilk people. Maybe someday, after you lose your shirt for the umpteenth time chasing MLM sucker dreams and scamming people, you’ll finally come to your senses and pop by here to thank me, but I won’t be holding my breath. My re-reading Carnegie’s stale book isn’t going to change that reality. As for befriending and influencing people other than you, I’m doing just fine, and it’s really none of your concern.
“1: I was making $10,000/month, plus or minus with Monavie.”
I’ll believe that when you show proof. Until then, BS. But if you did, then my heart goes out to the hordes of people that you had to rip off to make that money – by fraudulently selling them Monavie’s “expensive flavored water”, as the inventor described it. Rather than crowing that you made six-figures defrauding people, you should hang your head in shame and make restitution.
“2: The FTC letter you referenced was for the website http://www.acai-berry.com, which is a distributor’s website and not Monavie Corporate. This specific distributor was pretty well known for internet sales and not at all surprising that there were statements made that got him in trouble. I read the letter and it seemed more of a warning and not any real action against the person.”
Don’t try to play that innocent BS with me Suziecakes; it won’t fly. The FDA warning letter was sent to distributor Kevin Vokes and to Monavie Corporate because Vokes’ website made various illegal claims positioning Monavie as a medicinal agent. However, this type of misleading and illegal advertising was not an isolated example – it was the standard modus operandi for the marketing of Monavie throughout the product’s lifespan.
Susan said: “Vogel’s opinions: Your arrangement (sic) of references and links to come up with factual conclusions are like taking a dumbster (sic) load of Ford car parts and tossing them in the air and having them hit the ground in the form of a Mustang. Your conclusions are just your opions (sic).”
If it truly seemed that way to you, it could only be because you lack the cognitive faculties to follow a sequence of logical arguments, in much the same way that you wouldn’t understand how a piece of complex machinery like a Ford is constructed. Let me know which parts flew over your head and I’ll write it them out for you again nice and slow. “Dumbster” indeed!
Susan said: “4: There are nutrition professionals behind Yevo. This person here has a pretty impressive resume: https://www.linkedin.com/in/staceyjbell Where is your resume that gives you the right to call everyone who posts here names and make like everyone but you is stupid?”
Wow! Nutrition professionals you say? Has any snakeoil supplement MLM ever thought of that before? Oh yeah, all of them did! Like, coincidentally, Monavie for example, who had Ralph Carson as their illustrious nutritional professional – the guy who finally confessed, after Monavie began imploding, that the beloved snakeoil he had been hawking for years was nothing more than “expensive flavored water”.
http://archive.sltrib.com/story.php?ref=/sltrib/money/53061545-79/monavie-company-distributors-percent.html.csp
Who constitutes the rest of Yevo’s awesome brain trust? Geniuses like Marsland, who apparently doesn’t know how to perform simple calculations to determine the amount of potassium in a serving of Yevo EN-43?
I don’t need a resume to call you stupid. You prove it every time you post. Where’s your resume to be an MLM huckster? Oh yeah, right, I forgot – you don’t need one; just a pulse and a checkbook (pulse optional).
“5: Lazyman said made all sorts of FTC comments and statements here: http://www.juicescam.com/”
When I challenged you to provide evidence to support your claim that Lazy Man had said that it was a certainty that the FTC was going to shut Monavie down, I meant specific quotes. Don’t just throw the homepage URL at me and expect me to search through a thousand comments.