Juices?

[ravevampyre]

Does anyone know of a few good healthy juices? I usualy drink Oceanspray Cranberry juice, the peach and strawberry flavor. Also, V8 splash is another of my favorite. Im not sure if either is really very healthy or not..

[Jsn]

A 2 quart thing of diet v8 splash is (total, not per serving) 80 calories and 16 grams of sugar. That's pretty low. And it has, like, 100% vitamin A and 120% vitamin C per serving, I think. Not sure off the top of my head.

The diet oceanspray is also pretty healthy, I think that one is around 30 calories per serving.

I believe the regular of each is 80 grams per serving, which, if you're drinking them instead of water often comes out to a lot of calories.

Those are the two types of juice I drink the most... The main problem is that the diet types have limited flavor choices, and if you're mainly drinking it for the sugar then you'll notice the difference from regular.

[abrannan]

Here's a little experiment to try to answer your question. Take your bottle of juice and hold it up next to a 2 liter of coke. Look at the nutrition information, compare the number of calories in an 8oz serving, compare the total carbs/sugar. That'll give you a good idea of how your juice stacks up.

[ravevampyre]

thanks a lot! Yeah, that liter of coke trick and the juice thing really helped.=) I love diet v8 splash, its one of the only diet things i like!

[hiddenblue]

Not sure if you are looking for sugar or not, but another option to look into is Crystal Light. There are a bunch of really good flavors and each serving is 5-10 calories. It is my alternative to water when I need a little flavor!

[StarDrifter]

I drink Welch's Light white grape with peach. 70 cals per serving, although the sugars might still be an issue.

[abrannan]

StarDrifter said:

I drink Welch's Light white grape with peach. 70 cals per serving, although the sugars might still be an issue.

If that's an 8 oz serving, that's still a bit high calorie (Coke is 100 Cals per 8oz serving).

[StarDrifter]

I think it is an eight ounce, which is why I stop around 4-6 ounces at lunch then follow up with water. I also make sure to eat at least one fresh fruit a day, too, so put together it's probably a pretty healthy way to go.

[Daedalus]

If you want some really good juices....head down to a health food store or a farmers market...there you can pick up Naked Juice....which means its straight up juice and no chemicals or added sugars....naked Guava juice is most excellent

[StarDrifter]

I haven't tried it or had a chance to really study it, but Minute Maid seems to be selling "light" juices in plastic soda bottle style packages. The claim is 5 calories per serving.

It does look better than my 70 per Welch's from that angle. It also seems to need a lot more inspection before actually suggesting.

[urbanjunglekitten]

It's 5 calories b/c it's only something like 2% real juice. You'd probably get better nutrients from the grape juice. Or from water and some grapes, as i've seen suggested on here before.

UJKitten

[cheapbeer]

i dont think there is any such thing as a healthy juice. i read something the other day that said that fruit juices play a large part in child obesity due to all the sugars that are packed in them. i drink a glass of oj in the morning but other than that i tend to stay away from anything sweet.

[abrannan]

cheapbeer said:

i dont think there is any such thing as a healthy juice. i read something the other day that said that fruit juices play a large part in child obesity due to all the sugars that are packed in them. i drink a glass of oj in the morning but other than that i tend to stay away from anything sweet.

Good idea, but have you ever squeezed your own orange juice? Do you know how many oranges you have to gut to get a glass of juice? Would you eat that many oranges in the morning?

[urbanjunglekitten]

I love orange juice, and it's the only juice I really allow myself. I know it's got a high calorie content (about 130 cal/ 8 oz serving), but I don't drink much milk and oranges are a good source of calcium. If someone were to cut both milk and OJ out of their diet, what would you replace it with for calcium?

UJKitten

[abrannan]

Calcium fortified orange juice is a good source of calcium, but not necessarily regular OJ. There a good amount of calcium in most green leafy vegetables (Broccoli, kale, bok choi, etc), but the fiber in those can affect the absorbtion.

Low fat cheeses and yogurt is you best bet. If you're off dairy altogether, you may need to take a calcium supplement.
Here's some more info:
www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/002412.htm

[urbanjunglekitten]

I'm not off dairy completely - lucky for me I love both cheese and yogurt, and don't mind buying the low-fat versions. I just don't find myself drinking a lot of milk these days.

Also, broccoli is my favorite vegetable. Yummy yum yum!

UJKitten