Ensure is an American brand of

nutritional supplement A dietary supplement is a manufactured product intended to supplement one's diet by taking a pill, capsule, tablet, powder, or liquid. A supplement can provide nutrients either extracted from food sources or that are synthetic in order ...

s and

meal replacement A meal replacement is a drink, bar, soup, etc. intended as a substitute for a solid food, usually with controlled quantities of calories and nutrients. Some drinks come in powdered form or pre-mixed health shakes that can be cheaper than solid fo ...

s manufactured by

Abbott Laboratories Abbott Laboratories is an American multinational medical devices and health care company with headquarters in Abbott Park, Illinois, United States. The company was founded by Chicago physician Wallace Calvin Abbott in 1888 to formulate known dr ...

. A 237-ml (8-fl oz) bottle of Ensure Original contains 220

calorie The calorie is a unit of energy. For historical reasons, two main definitions of "calorie" are in wide use. The large calorie, food calorie, or kilogram calorie was originally defined as the amount of heat needed to raise the temperature of on ...

s, six grams of

fat In nutrition science, nutrition, biology, and chemistry, fat usually means any ester of fatty acids, or a mixture of such chemical compound, compounds, most commonly those that occur in living beings or in food. The term often refers spec ...

, 15 grams of

sugar Sugar is the generic name for sweet-tasting, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. Simple sugars, also called monosaccharides, include glucose, fructose, and galactose. Compound sugars, also called disaccharides or double ...

, and nine grams of

protein Proteins are large biomolecules and macromolecules that comprise one or more long chains of amino acid residues. Proteins perform a vast array of functions within organisms, including catalysing metabolic reactions, DNA replication, respo ...

. The top six ingredients are water, corn

maltodextrin Maltodextrin is a polysaccharide that is used as a food ingredient. It is produced from vegetable starch by partial hydrolysis and is usually found as a white hygroscopic spray-dried powder. Maltodextrin is easily digestible, being absorbed as r ...

, sugar,

milk protein concentrate Milk protein concentrate (MPC) is any type of concentrated milk product that contains 40–90% milk protein. The United States officially defines MPC as "any complete milk protein (casein plus lactalbumin) concentrate that is 40 percent or more ...

canola oil Close-up of canola blooms Canola flower Rapeseed oil is one of the oldest known vegetable oils. There are both edible and industrial forms produced from rapeseed, the seed of several cultivars of the plant family Brassicaceae. Historically, ...

, and

soy protein Soy protein is a protein that is isolated from soybean. It is made from soybean meal that has been dehulled and defatted. Dehulled and defatted soybeans are processed into three kinds of high protein commercial products: soy flour, concentrates, ...

isolate. Ensure is considered lactose-free for people with lactose intolerance.

History

In 1903, Harry C. Moores and Stanley M. Ross launched the "Moores & Ross Milk Company", which specialized in bottling milk for home delivery for the first few years. By 1964, however, the company merged with Abbott Laboratories. A drink called Ensure was first marketed by Ross Laboratories in 1973. In the 1990s, Ensure and other nutritional drink products like

Mead Johnson Mead Johnson & Company, LLC is an American company that is a leading manufacturer of infant formula, both domestically and globally, with its flagship product Enfamil. It operates as an independent subsidiary of Reckitt. The company dates back t ...

's Sustacal and

Nestlé Nestlé S.A. (; ; ) is a Switzerland, Swiss multinational food and drink processing conglomerate corporation headquartered in Vevey, Vaud, Switzerland. It is the largest publicly held food company in the world, measured by revenue and other me ...

's Boost and Resource brands were fiercely competing to capture market share among healthy adults. In 1996, Ensure had sales of about $300 million and accounted for 80% of

protein supplement A protein supplement may be a dietary supplement or a bodybuilding supplement, and may take the form of a protein bar. Effects Muscle building as GURJAR In untrained individuals, changes in lean body mass and muscle strength during the initial ...

sales; Abbott spent $45.4 million to advertise Ensure during the first nine months of 1996, around 70% more than it spent during the same period of 1995.

Criticism

In 1995, the

Center for Science in the Public Interest The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) is a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit watchdog and consumer advocacy group that advocates for safer and healthier foods. History and funding CSPI is a consumer advocacy organization. Its f ...

said that ads for Ensure were "the most misleading food ad" of that year. In 1997, Abbott settled charges from the

Federal Trade Commission The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is an independent agency of the United States government whose principal mission is the enforcement of civil (non-criminal) antitrust law and the promotion of consumer protection. The FTC shares jurisdiction ov ...

that it was falsely marketing Ensure as having similar amounts of vitamins as multivitamin supplements, and as recommended by doctors more than any other nutritional supplement as a way for people to stay active and healthy. Ensure has been used in the force feeding of hunger-striking prisoners at the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

' Guantanamo Bay detention camps.

Products

When Abbott split off its pharmaceuticals division,

Abbvie AbbVie is an American publicly traded biopharmaceutical company founded in 2013. It originated as a spin-off of Abbott Laboratories. History On October 19, 2011, Abbott Laboratories announced its plan to separate into two publicly traded compan ...

, in 2013, the Ensure product line remained with Abbott along with other nutritional products. As of 2016, variants of Ensure included: * Ensure Original * Ensure Original Pudding * Ensure Plus * Ensure Enlive * Ensure High Protein * Ensure Clear * Ensure Light * Ensure Compact * Ensure Original Nutrition Powder * Ensure Muscle Health As of 2016, Ensure Complete had been discontinued.

References

External links

* Dietary supplements Abbott Laboratories {{Food-product-stub

History

Criticism

Products

See also

References

External links