All Those Juice Choices Can Be Hard To Swallow

It’s a jungle in the juice aisle. There are 100 percent juices such as apple, grape and orange, not to mention blends like apple-raspberry, raspberry-cranberry and pineapple-orange-banana. Then there are cocktails and drinks with 5 percent, 10 percent or maybe 25 percent juice. Some are fortified with calcium or Vitamin C.

So how do you weed through them all to find the best nutritional bets?

“Most people don’t realize that some juices are far more nutritious than others,” said Jayne Hurley, senior nutritionist at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a consumer group.

Hurley recently compared juices and juice drinks on the market and came to three conclusions.

First, she said, when it comes to 100 percent juices, stick with orange, grapefruit, prune or pineapple; they pack the biggest punch of vitamins and minerals. Grape and apple are at the bottom of the list.

If possible, Hurley said, choose orange - “the juice superstar.” Aside from having more than 100 percent of the recommended daily allowance of Vitamin C, it contains good amounts of other vitamins and minerals: 20 percent of the day’s folic acid, 10 percent of the day’s potassium and thiamine, and 5 percent of magnesium and vitamins A and B-6.

Secondly, seek out 100 percent juices. The labeling law that took effect last year requires manufacturers to list the percentage of juice on their labels. Six ounces of a pure fruit juice counts as one serving toward the National Cancer Institute’s recommendation to eat five fruits or vegetables a day.

“If the disclosure says anything else besides 100 percent, odds are that the drink has been diluted with sugar water,” Hurley said.

Lastly, she said, juices and juice drinks that have been fortified with Vitamin C or calcium, for example, are OK “so long as they’re not fortified junk” - drinks that contain very little juice. Hurley said orange juices fortified with calcium or 100 percent fruit juices fortified with Vitamin C are fine choices.

Not all nutritionists agree with those conclusions. Tammy Baker, a spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association, said the “body does not differentiate between the type of sugar put into juice drinks” and the naturally occuring fructose in 100 percent juices. And most of the other naturally occurring nutrients in fruit juices, such as potassium, she said, are “generally not something we have to strive to get more of.”

“All juices and juice drinks have about the same amount of fruit solids, sweeteners and water in them whether they’re natural or added,” Baker said. “Most of them can be a good choice. The key is variety in the diet.”

Variety is particularly important for children, said Jodie Shield, a Chicago dietitian who would like to see kids drink more skim milk and water before filling themselves up on juice.

But Shield said parents can feel more confident if they choose 100 percent juices while dashing through the store. “Otherwise you have to flip the container over and look at the vitamins and minerals.”

Skip Colcord, spokesman for Ocean Spray, disagrees. “If you took a random sample of consumers and said, ‘Choose between 100 percent juice and 25 percent juice,’ my gut tells me that the majority would say, ‘Of course, 100 percent is better for you,”’ he said. “It may be, but it may not.”

Cranberry-juice cocktails contain about 25 percent juice. In its natural state, cranberry juice is far too tart to be drunk full-strength; as a result, cocktails such as Ocean Spray’s are diluted with water and high-fructose corn syrup.

But Colcord pointed out that a serving of Ocean Spray’s cranberry drinks is fortified with 100 percent of the recommended daily allowance of Vitamin C, while some 100-percent juices are not.

Judy Ellis, a spokeswoman for Procter & Gamble, makers of two fortified fruit drinks, Sunny Delight and Hawaiian Punch, offered another perspective.

“We’re not trying to be the substitute for 100 percent juices,” she said. But the two drinks are “products that kids and teens enjoy and they are fortified with nutrients they need. Considering the alternatives - like soft drinks - nutritionally they stack up better.”