Juice Scam

The other day I was wondering through the natural foods section of my grocer (what can I say, the local farmers’ market doesn’t have my fav yogurt) and noticed acai juice. Actually, I have glimpsed a lot more juices these days made with all sorts of supposedly “superfood” fruits and veggies like acai, pomegranate, purple carrot and blueberry. Suddenly old-fashioned OJ is so 90s. Thing is, most of these juices are really just fancy apple, pear or white grape juice.

Even though the cover photos will only show the chic fruits and veggies and call themselves “raspberry acai” or “strawberry kiwi,” a quick glance at the ingredient list and you’ll see that the aforementioned “junk juices” sometimes come before the more expensive fruits. These filler juices are used because they boost sweetness and they’re dirt cheap to include. Thing is, you’ll pay a lot more for pomegranate flavored white grape juice than you will for straight up grape juice. 100% acai juice is crazy expensive. 95% apple juice, 5 % acai? Not so much.

Bottom line: If you fancy juice with 100 percent of what’s on the cover, scan the ingredient list and make sure they are the only juices included or at least listed before the food industry fillers.