I watched your program about the Lotus and it sounded great but you didn't back it up with your on site referral to the University of Guelph. I just finished trying to get to that site and found I was not able to get the information I was looking for about "learning more about ozone and how it mixed with water....".

To do an expose of this type and you remove the very information that "busted" the company leaves me wondering how credable you information is when the University of Guelph removes their link on the topic.

I would like to know why this link was removed and if your topic has been in turn "busted" by the University of Guelph.

I would like a reply to this topic as this seriously effects my belief in the Marketplace as a credable program to take seriously in the future. If you're not credable I won't be watching anymore.

Elaine Meery

Check in on Marktpl now&then, seems do credible job educ consumer, avoid products you "bust." Now, doubts about methods, conclusions, fullness of disclosure. More interest in this episode than usual, because I have 2 lotus systems (cleaner/water pur.) over 3 yrs. Added 2 extra to the orig workhorse kitchen unit: basemnt laundry, workshop, mold areas,then upst bedrms, bath. Initial investmnt, but many years of use to go, way cheaper than 6-10 bottles of surface-specific chemical/organic cleaners I "needed" almost ea mo. at $3-12 ea. PLUS decontaminate pesticides& bacteria on food? Grease, stains, toxins gone. Safe, works, often better. Food tastes real & great. Do the math?! Your poor comparative economics, questionable tests, inaccuracy, deception about how it actually works-I'm very disappointed. You misrepresented the product. Shame. This Viewer is skeptical alright-of YOUR show, now.

I have a parrot. My Lotus is kept on my countertop because I use it nearly every day. Parrot perches, cages and toys need to be kept bacteria free and the Lotus is a life saver. Parrots are very sensitive to chemicals and this has enabled me to keep my pet safe and healthy. I put the toys in the bowl attachment and use the spray bottle daily. It's fantastic.

I work for the Home Depot and we used to sell this product. I didn't see the story, I don't have to. If the product had been marketed properly and actually worked well for a reasonable price, we would still be selling it. Instead it went on clearance and that was the first time I had seen it!

That Lotus sanitizing system is on the shopping channel all day of the 20th of Feb. 2009. Check it out for yourselfs in the showstopper hour with Nancy Bota.

Time magazine rated it as one of the best without testing Shocking!! Why did Market not ask/report on what basis Time did that? Slightly better than rinsing with water merits an F minus,not "..does what it is supposed to do.." "expensive yet effective".(above comment)

Some comments:


Farmers in the past centuries didn't face the same situation---in our present century, our produce is often covered in multiple pesticides, chemicals and pathogens, and they are KNOWN to cause toxicity of varying levels to our bodies. Therefore they didn't need to deal with rinsing these off.

---For anyone who claims that tap rinsing is effective... do you have conclusive proof that the toxins, chemicals, pesticides and pathogens have been rinsed off completely? How do you know this? I'm not comfortable letting government agencies tell me what is good enough for ME. They have let us down several times before.

---I don't know anything about the efficacity of this product for sure, and have never used it. However, if the stated claim by the operator re: USDA & FDA approval, plus EPA and U of Guelph testing results, it does make me question the way this CBC report was handled. I don't have all the facts, so I can't know for sure, but it doesn't seem like we have the full details here.

---The simplicity of a technology does not necessarily mean that its cost is reduced. That is not a valid argument. Light bulbs, for example, are a very simple technology, but if you don't have the full technological set-up to create them, they would be very expensive to produce. It is a matter of economies of scale and mass production making it worthwhile. Again, however, I don't know about the full details of this manufacturing process.

--Ultimately it is OUR OWN responsibility to take care of the food that we put into our bodies. I don't know enough about this product, but I know that I am very wary about ingesting toxins of any kind that may lead to health problems. Our health is the most important thing we have. Are you comfortable with someone else telling you what is good enough to put into your body? How many times have we been let down before by agencies that are supposedly there to protect us?

Ultimately, this issue is of quite critical importance. I don't even know if this product removes pesticides, and not just pathogens like E Coli. But jumping on a product without the background knowledge is not necessarily helping anyone---I just feel strongly about this issue because our health comes before anything else in this world. If we save money but lose our health, it doesn't really do much good for us ultimately.

Just trying to open up our minds a little. Hope it provides a bit of insight.

Not your best story. This one left me wanting.

The product does what it is supposed to do in a way that a busy consumer can relate with. I have spent time washing/rinsing my salad and have no idea if what I did was effective or appropriate. Made me feel better about eating the salad because I thought it was clean but was it? How many litres of clean potable water did I send down the drain each time I washed my fresh salad? Possibly 30?

The thrifty alternative is to rinse the produce in potable water. But is it thrifty in the summer when we are experiencing water restrictions?

The episode missed a prime opportunity to advance public knowledge on appropriate techniques to carry this out. Prior to preparing food we are supposed to wash our hands for 30 seconds using warm water and soap.

The limited time allotted to the episode could have been better spent clearly demonstrating good food rinsing techniques rather than sensationally busting a product for being an expensive yet effective alternative. It would seem that the machine at least indicates when the produce should be clean and safe to eat. I can't say the same about my possibly ineffectual rinsing technique. Hot or cold water, use a brush on salad, triple washing? I am not a chef and Mom didn't cover this.

What Marketplace should do is contact Keith Warner and bring him in for an interview. Ask Mr Keith about the Lotus Santizing System and how he tested it.

Farmers survived for centuries using water from a well to rinse. Now, an expensive machine is claimed to replaced all that. And it does not seem to work.

I really don't have anything against ozonator, but technology is simpler than neon light bulb so how can it be more expensive?

I laughed the whole way through the article because I thought "Who spends $150 on another gadget to take up more counter space to clean fruits and vegetables when you can do it yourself?" I guess the answer is all those people who get caught up in all the hype of Home Shopping Channels. I don't for one second believe that this gadget does it any better than a good scrubbing will. This is a case of another product living off fear-mongering.

If it works out to 10 cents a use then I guess you are saying that it's going to be no good after 1500 uses which breaks down to about 2 years twice a day. Looking at it that way my brush costs me about 1 cent a day.

I have in my hands a copy of that test that Keith Warner from the University of Guelph performed. In his conclusions, he actually states that "ozonated water (lotus) was equally effective as hypochlorite (bleach) in terms of inactivating pathogens on surfaces and foods. The convenience and absence of chemical residues are advantages of the ozone system comparted to hypochlorite." When it comes to using the spray bottle, this is also part of his summary statement "ozonated water (lotus) was as effective as hypochlorite for decontaminating contact surfaces." and, judging from the video, they didn't even use the lotus properly. I also find it ironic that we, Tersano, used the University of Guelph to do some electron microscope testing to see exactly how well we killed EColi and we have the images that prove our effectiveness, but CBC didn't want to see those test results, or all our test results from our website that were performed by EPA approved labs across North America.
I don't know if I'm more upset that CBC didn't convey the results of this test properly, or that they are condoning that rinsing your produce under the tap is good enough. Let's see, lotus uses an FDA and USDA approved process for sanitizing produce and has been tested by 3rd parties to prove its effectiveness. Not only that, but Oncologists recommend to their cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy to stop eating produce as rinsing under the tap is not good enough and that there is just too much risk when their immune systems are so low. So why are they trying to say that rinsing is good enough? Or is it that our product is $150? I wish we could get the price down to $50 but there is a lot of technology in this machine to make it effective, and safe. I was recently name Innovator of the Year by the Government of Ontario because of this technology and our commercial systems. When you break it down, it works out to about 10 cents every time you use the lotus. Compare that to your chemical cleaners or veggie washes and it is very inexpensive. And yes, we are a Canadian company and stand behind our product with great customer service.

When is the last time a commercial sell a product works as they claim?