Not that I drink it for it's health promises either.. and for all I know it could be 0.005% Acai juice.

You could dilute it with water. Personally I add soda water to most all juices.

This SNAPPLE stuff is all about thining the herd. "NON-CONSUMERIST readers come up an' they die, an' their kids ain't no good an' they die out. But we keep a'comin'. We're the people that live. They can't wipe us out; they can't lick us. We, CONSUMERIST READERS go on forever, 'cause we're the people." (Thanks to Ma Joad from THE GRAPES OF WRAITH.)

I know that it's good for you, just as many fruits and vegetables are. I also know it's not a magic nutrient, and that's what I was referring to.

There's plenty of junk food out there and accompanying junk drinks. Are they worthy of noting on this site?

But I remember a couple other beverages I used to like went to hell:

Hansens ...was it "nectar"? Anyhow, back circa 1999 or so, it was either all, or nearly all, juice, and came in cans. Then ~2002, they changed to bottles, and it was mostly corn syrup. It was a completely different beverage sold under the same name, and utterly inferior in every way.

Koala. Used to be this carbonated mostly-juice beverage. Last I saw it, it was basically just fruit-flavored soda.

Is there any beverage company left with any integrity at all?

How much fiber? Who knows. Probably diet dependent. Same thing goes for everything else. For fiber, we've got a pretty good idea of how much you'd need in a day for a happy bunghole. To do the magical things suggested by research? No idea. Many things are stored, so it doesn't matter if you get 20% of the recommended amount today and 180% of it tomorrow.

For whatever magical stuff Acai does, we've got far less data. Especially compared to other similar composition berries.

Acai berries decay too quickly to be transported. Thus, they are sent to the repeatedly-scammed dieters of America as freeze-dried powder or frozen berries and therefore the pulp is expensive.

You are already so morally corrupt as to try and insist flavored sugar water is good for you. There is no documented recommend allotment of acai berries to get benefits. Adding a scoop of freeze-dried powder to a vat of pear juice is just another step down the slippery slope and is pretty much a long and distinguished tradition at this point, just with different ingredients each time.

Simple. Don't buy any "juice" that is labelled as a "drink".

This is like anything with a "chocolatey coating". Doesn't have to have real chocolate in it.

Avoid "y" suffixes: cheesy, fruity, etc.

www bh! Snc whn dd ths bcm mnrty rls cntry? Why r w ll f sddn bndng vr bckwrds fr ths gntc rjcts tht r llrgc t fds? MJRTY RLS!!!

-Ph.D. Food Science student whose work includes investigating acai and other dark fruits

If you're looking for quality juice, R.W. Knudsen is a good brand with which to start. The majority of their juices contain 100% of the juice shown on the front of their label. While, this brand is healthier, it also tends to be more expensive. Choose your quality level and price point.

While acai is not a cure-all, its health benefits are supported by scientific research. You can check journals such as the "Journal of Clinical Pharmacology," "Food Chemistry," or "Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry" to find support for the claims that this fruit and its juice contain anthocyanins, compounds which have shown to be antioxidative, antiflammatory, chemopreventative, and cholesterol-lowering.

Most dark-colored, blue-purple foods such as red cabbage, raspberries, red bell peppers, dark cherries also contain anthocyanins. In fact, anthocyanins give the red-purple-blue colors to these foods.

The peach stuff is to DIE for.

-A Food Science Ph.D. student whose dissertation project involves investigating dark fruit juices including acai

Awwww....

And all this time I thought 'Acai' was Swahili for 'dog anus'. Learn something new every day.

This is what we call pure evil genius.

@formatc:

I am anti-HFCS but have to point out that sugar grown here in So.Fla. also receives a fat federal subsidy.

@formatc:

Yeah I am anti-HFCS and make my husband find the one kind of bread at the grocery store that doesn't contain HFCS. He saw one of those corn commercials the other day and he was all "see its find in moderation" I just about stabbed him with a spoon.

@Dooley:

That's the nature of the beverage industry (With the exception of the two "cola" titans..

Arizon Ice Tea?
Mystic?
RC Cola?
Stewarts?

Now they just make a bunch of crappy HFCS and a little bit of juice drinks.

Made from the best stuff on earth, my ass.

This is what epic fail tastes like!

Nantucket Nectars is still better. But it's sad that when I go to the pizza place to get a slice every damned drink has HFCS and fake flavors... Seltzer for me, please.

I wrote the company, and they claimed that the ginger was under "natural ingredients"... pretty low on the list.

I'm lumping "natural ingredients" with HFCS, I won't go out of my way to avoid them, but they will greatly influence whether or not I buy something.

@nicemarmot617: I find HFCS has a slightly chalky ad unfulfilling taste

@Marc Melton: A good site for you [www.godairyfree.org]

@humphrmi: Well China exports 43% of their apple juice. So what could be cheaper than apple juice concentrate from China?

There is also veggie oil in Sunny D.

@DePaulBlueDemon: Always somebody there to find fault and not answer the question. Well then does it say "Contains 0% Acai juice" or something like that? Guess I will just venture down to the local supermarket at lunch and try to find out for myself.

""What do they say about it?"
The unnaturally high amount of fructose screws with your insulin levels. It makes you fat, because your body can't store much fructose, and to get your blood sugar level down, the body converts the fructose to fat.

That it's subsidized by taxpayers.

That it appears from studies that it promotes increases in body fat more than regular cane sugar, probably because of the above.

That it's in almost every food product, so it's difficult to have it moderation, unless you eat only raw foods. "

or formatc's response:
"Don't forget that it's chemically different from sucrose and your body absorbs it more readily rather than expending the energy breaking it down."

Also what's "wrong with it" is they are calling it an Acai drink, and not putting any significant amount of Acai in it. It's like the supplements that have 1 ppb (parts per billion) of the supposed active ingredient, and you'd be lucky to get one molecule of it in the entire bottle.

Did they always use HFCS? I could have sworn that back in the day (when Snapple was independent in the early 90s) they used better ingredients?

No. That's what makes health scam snake-oil fads. If there was legitimately something to Acai, it wouldn't be a fad :p

But it does contain pear juice.

It's supposed to contain ungodly amounts of anti-oxidants, and is the latest fad in health juice drinks.

However, this stuff from Snapple is just ridiculous.

I remember a while ago, someone reporting an oily skin on their coca cola, but it was just food grade oil that helps lubricate the filling machines...

wtf is Acai?

That it's subsidized by taxpayers.

That it appears from studies that it promotes increases in body fat more than regular cane sugar, probably because of the above.

That it's in almost every food product, so it's difficult to have it moderation, unless you eat only raw foods.

They're producing a good tasting drink. Thats whats advertised. I don't see anything wrong with this at all

Vegetable Oil

At this point I informed her that she was not to buy this for the kids any longer; she agreed.

What do they say about it?

... God those commercials make me die laughing.

@cynical_bastard: If you ever have the chance, most HFCS beverages in North America have real sugar in Europe, where the sugar lobby is more powerful than the corn lobby.

I swear a Coke in England tastes a lot better than in the states, but maybe that's the $4 price tag talking (500ml).

They use sugar instead of HFCS in their drinks.

@bilups: oh, I excluded "Diet" drinks - even though they have no sugar, they usually taste even sweeter than the regular drinks - and they usually have a horrific plastic aftertaste to boot.

Snapple always was, and always will be, waaaaaaaaaay too sweet. Personally, I don't have a vendetta against HFCS - I avoid it because everything that includes it uses TOO MUCH. There are very few bottled drinks that have less than 36 grams of sugar (HFCS) per serving. Honest Tea is one of the few, but it's like $2 a bottle. I'd drink snapple if they'd halve the amount of HFCS they use. but then again, it would probably reveal what we knew all along - that without all the sweet it basically tastes like sewer water.

buy a juicer, thank me later!

For whatever it's worth, most "Juice Cocktails" are mostly apple, grape and/or pear juice and sweetener.

Since the Marsh family sold the company, it's been downhill...

I can't tell from the photo and I am curious: Does it say anywhere on the label "Contains 0% juice" or something like that? I seem to remember that some orange drink makers do something like that. Use to drive me nuts when I would see products like that in the orange juice section.

I feel like nobody reads labels anymore. Hopefully if enough of these stories get out people will start to become more aware of what they put into their bodies.

Good job, douchebags.

"Made from the best stuff on earth" they used to say...