Fruit Juice: Bottled Hype

Published on Wednesday, February 8, 2012, by Rebecca Flint Marx / Edit Post

As a lot of kindergartners these days could tell you, fruit juice isn't the healthy substitute for soda that Mott's and Welch's would like you to think. It's sugar in a more wholesome package, as capable of passing along liquid calories as a can of Coke. Manufacturers of bottled juices have gone to increasingly hyperbolic lengths to disguise this inconvenient fact, embellishing labels with healthy buzzwords: "antioxidants," "electrolytes," "Omega-3s," and that old chestnut, "fiber."

But as the dependably adversarial folks at the Center for Science in the Public Interest point out in their latest Nutrition Action Health Letter, most of those claims are emptier than the calories in a glass of Ocean Spray's Cran Energy Cranberry Raspberry Energy Juice Drink. Methodically, the newsletter picks apart spin-heavy juices like Trop50 Orange, IZZE Sparkling Juices, and Minute Maid's Help Nourish Your Brain 100% Fruit Juice Blend, even though you'd think the implausibility of the latter's claim would be self-evident.

Among the more compelling, if sadly predictable, revelations? IZZE's seemingly exotic blackberry, clementine, lime, blueberry, peach, grapefruit, and pomegranate juices are actually a combination of apple and white grape, with about the same number of calories as an identical serving of soda. Minute Maid's Natural Energy Pomegranate Berry Enhanced Juice Drink doesn't contain pomegranate but does contain water, pear juice, and sugar (actual "berry" content is less than 1 percent). And although V8 boasts its "essential antioxidants" and vitamins A, C, and E, so does just about any drink where vitamins are added by the manufacturer. What's more, V8's claim that it contains "nutrients that support the immune system" are also meaningless, as any food or beverage that contains a vitamin or mineral can make that claim without offering real evidence.

The upshot of all of this? Drink water. Or whiskey, which makes no claims to health and has probably inspired far more well-being than the methane gas emanating from the juice aisle.

Image source: Flickr member Jake Spurlock under Creative Commons

CHOW contributor Rebecca Flint Marx eats and writes in New York City. You can follow her on Twitter. Follow CHOW, too, and become a fan on Facebook.

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POST A COMMENT |7 Comments

COMMENT

  • It has nothing to do with the calories or sugar...it's avoiding the high fructose corn syrup.

  • I agree. Don't drink your food. Next - don't overeat fruits. BTM, in order to get one cup of orange juice you will have to squeeze several oranges.

  • IZZE definitely tastes better than soda, which I never liked. Why not just empty a sugar bowl or a packet of rat poison into one's mouth, rather than endure the nasty taste? The effects will be the same. IZZE can offer a pleasant occasional treat. Commercial juices are loaded with pretty empty calories. If you want to drink juice, then invest in a Vita-Mix or another juicer that keeps the pulp...+READ

    IZZE definitely tastes better than soda, which I never liked. Why not just empty a sugar bowl or a packet of rat poison into one's mouth, rather than endure the nasty taste? The effects will be the same. IZZE can offer a pleasant occasional treat. Commercial juices are loaded with pretty empty calories. If you want to drink juice, then invest in a Vita-Mix or another juicer that keeps the pulp and make your own. Whole foods are always better than overly processed alternatives.-COLLAPSE

  • "100% juice blend" almost invariably means that most of the product is apple or white grape maybe with some more exotic fruit mixed in for flavour. The apple and grape are substituting for HFCS and water, and either sweeten naturally sour fruit (ever tried drinking 100% cranberry or lime juice?) or are much cheaper than exotic fruits.

    I simply lump fruit beverages in with sodas, sweetened iced...+READ

    "100% juice blend" almost invariably means that most of the product is apple or white grape maybe with some more exotic fruit mixed in for flavour. The apple and grape are substituting for HFCS and water, and either sweeten naturally sour fruit (ever tried drinking 100% cranberry or lime juice?) or are much cheaper than exotic fruits.

    I simply lump fruit beverages in with sodas, sweetened iced teas and coffees, and energy drinks - basically, sweetened flavoured water with a lot of empty calories and no health benefit. It doesn't mean that I don't sometimes drink them, it just means I don't pretend it's even vaguely good for me.-COLLAPSE

  • "That bottle of poison wasn't poison until the person decided to drink it". Not that I think sugars are poison, but, that's the same line. And yes, these drinks are unhealthy, but not *too* unhealthy. So, if you only have a little bit, (count thine calories), you can live a perfectly healthy life and still enjoy juice/soda. But I don't pretend they're not bad for me. Same as bacon, ice cream,...+READ

    "That bottle of poison wasn't poison until the person decided to drink it". Not that I think sugars are poison, but, that's the same line. And yes, these drinks are unhealthy, but not *too* unhealthy. So, if you only have a little bit, (count thine calories), you can live a perfectly healthy life and still enjoy juice/soda. But I don't pretend they're not bad for me. Same as bacon, ice cream, milk shakes, and heroin.-COLLAPSE

  • OK, so some of the claims are exaggerations. So what? That's not news; it's marketing. Also, you didn't prove these drinks are inherently unhealthy. No one can because they are not unhealthy ... by themselves. But, if a person uses free will to drink more of these juices than he should, then that person's ACTIONS, not the drink, are unhealthy.

  • Can I still drink juice because I like it better than soda? I mean, I'm aware that it is the same calories, I just think they taste better.

    Especially that IZZE. I'd drink that over pretty much any other bottled soda I've tried so far.