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00:02 The US healthy drinks market is valued at $9.2 billion.
00:07 That's 10% of the drinks industry.
00:10 And it hasn't always been that way.
00:12 It has ballooned 50% since the start of the COVID pandemic.
00:17 These drinks are gaining steam
00:18 as we become more health conscious as a society.
00:22 But are they actually healthy for you
00:24 and are they worth the extra dollars?
00:27 I'm Mia de Graaf and I'm a health editor at Business Insider.
00:31 Functional drinks are drinks that have a supposed
00:37 added benefit to your experience of drinking them.
00:40 So think about coffee, energy drinks, alcohol, soda.
00:45 These are all things that give you a kind of buzz.
00:47 They have caffeine, they have sugar, they have alcohols.
00:50 That's a function.
00:51 But we are moving towards a different kind
00:54 of functional drink, which is marketed
00:56 as a replacement for those.
00:57 Now, functional drinks is a code word for healthy drinks.
01:02 The ingredients of these might be something like probiotics.
01:05 That's supposed to heal your gut.
01:07 Adaptogens, supposedly good for calming you.
01:10 Nootropics, supposedly good for your brain health.
01:13 CBD, which is supposed to relax you.
01:16 Functional drinks have been around for centuries.
01:19 Tea, coffee, these are drinks
01:22 that have been giving humans a buzz
01:24 for years and years and years.
01:26 But functional drinks as an industry
01:28 really got started in the 1980s with Red Bull.
01:32 Red Bull was invented by this Austrian toothpaste salesman
01:36 who went to Thailand in 1982 and discovered
01:38 that there was this popular drink among Thai truck drivers
01:42 that seemed to give them energy
01:43 as they were on the road for a long time.
01:45 He thinks, "This is great for blue collar workers
01:48 "in Thailand, but I think I can market this
01:50 "to white collar workers in Europe.
01:52 "This could be a compliment to your fast paced life."
01:56 He comes back to Austria, comes up with Red Bull,
01:59 and it's a huge hit.
02:01 ♪ Red Bull gives you wings ♪
02:04 Red Bull is the poster child for functional drinks.
02:07 It has caffeine, it has sugar replacements,
02:09 it's got B vitamins, it's got some taurine.
02:12 It was very cleverly marketed as something
02:15 that would enhance your endurance,
02:17 reaction speed, and concentration.
02:19 But there was actually no evidence for that.
02:23 40 years later, the appetite for functional drinks
02:26 is still there, but what we want is slightly different.
02:30 People are way more aware of the health downsides
02:33 of ultra-processed foods, the health downsides of pollution,
02:36 everything that you're surrounded by
02:38 that is so hard to avoid.
02:40 And there's so much appetite for something
02:41 that you could just switch in your life
02:43 that would help you a little bit.
02:46 COVID was when you really started to see
02:48 this kind of functional beverage explode as an industry.
02:52 Drinks that are marketed as not bad for you,
02:55 but good for you.
02:56 Drinks that potentially cut out toxins
02:59 and add health benefits.
03:01 This market is growing, and it's growing fast,
03:04 and brands are rushing to adapt to this market.
03:07 They're trying to put out drinks that really speak
03:09 to our desire to hack the gut-brain connection.
03:13 So there's this idea that perhaps
03:15 if you nourish your gut health,
03:16 it will also improve your mental wellbeing
03:19 and your overall wellbeing.
03:21 A telltale sign that this is the area
03:24 of the drinks industry that is really buzzing right now
03:27 is the fact that celebrities are flocking into it.
03:30 There are so many celebrities
03:32 putting out functional drinks lines.
03:34 - Cheers with my frosted grape.
03:36 - The Rock, Katy Perry, and Bella Hadid.
03:39 Everyone's jumping on this, everyone's excited about this,
03:42 but there isn't really any scientific evidence
03:44 that these properties function for you in a drink.
03:47 Celebrities are also obsessed
03:49 with the drink called kombucha,
03:50 which is a type of probiotic drink.
03:53 Probiotic drinks are huge and growing fast.
03:57 The probiotics drink industry
03:58 is valued at $40 billion worldwide,
04:01 and by 2033, it's expected to be valued at $99 billion.
04:06 This area of the drinks industry
04:08 essentially contains two types of drinks.
04:10 Prebiotic sodas are supposed to essentially prepare your gut
04:15 to better consume nutrients.
04:17 Probiotic drinks are supposed to fill your gut
04:19 with healthy bacteria to enhance your health.
04:22 Both of these types of drinks are in theory
04:25 meant to nourish your gut health.
04:26 So are these drinks good for you?
04:29 That's actually a really hard question to answer.
04:32 Firstly, none of these drinks are regulated by the FDA,
04:35 and they're making some pretty hefty claims
04:38 about enhancing your health
04:40 without having to work within a scientific framework.
04:43 Packaging also plays a huge role here,
04:45 and brands are speaking to our appetite
04:48 for some of these ingredients like probiotics,
04:50 nootropics, adaptogens, CBD,
04:53 but they don't have to meet
04:54 any kind of scientific requirement
04:56 in terms of what's included,
04:58 what the strain is, what the concentration is,
05:00 and they don't really have to put much detail on the label.
05:03 Lastly, we still don't know very much
05:06 about how to influence our gut health,
05:08 and the issue here is that these drinks
05:10 are really making bold claims
05:12 that they can improve your gut health,
05:14 can improve your brain health,
05:15 can calm down your nervous system.
05:17 When we actually know very little about how to do that,
05:20 we also haven't really studied these ingredients very much.
05:23 So it's a lot of uncertainties for drinks
05:25 that are three times the price of soda.
05:28 Here's how you can make a decision
05:30 about what drinks to buy
05:32 when you're going down the supermarket aisle.
05:34 Firstly, check the label.
05:35 Keep an eye out for drinks with vague claims.
05:39 So things like supports skin elasticity
05:43 or enhances brain health.
05:45 These are really vague terms that don't mean anything.
05:48 So probiotics.
05:50 Many drinks just say probiotics,
05:52 but they don't say what kind of probiotic is in it.
05:55 So I would recommend picking a drink
05:57 that names the probiotic
05:58 and knowing what that probiotic is before you drink it.
06:01 If you are trying to be healthy
06:03 by picking one of these drinks,
06:04 do check the label and make sure they are lower in sugar.
06:07 Soda is a very easy way to consume way more sugar
06:10 than you realize you're consuming.
06:12 So there is little to no hardcore science
06:15 behind these drinks.
06:17 That doesn't mean that they don't have any benefits.
06:20 A lot of these drinks do contain ingredients
06:23 that have been used for centuries
06:25 in cultures around the world,
06:27 like green tea, ashwagandha, ginseng.
06:30 The thing to be aware of is brands capitalizing
06:34 on our natural health concerns
06:36 by making bold claims that go way beyond what we know.
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