V8 juice made by Campbells is considered to be a very healthy vegetable drink. Is it as healthy as perceived? How does V8 compare to
homemade vegetable juice made with a juicer? Here are V8’s ingredients as listed on Campbell’s website:
- Reconstituted vegetable juice blend (water and concentrated juices of tomatoes, carrots, celery, beets, parsley, lettuce, watercress, spinach)
- Contains less than 2% of: salt, vitamin C (ascorbic acid), natural flavoring, citric acid.
Commercial, mass produced juice can follow a manufacturing pattern of harvesting, juicing, water removal, transportation and then reconstitution. Water is removed from juice to enable cheaper transportation from where the food was grown to the final manufacturing and packaging location. It is easier and cheaper to transport lower volume, syrupy concentrate versus heavier, more voluminous juice. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration mandate minimum levels of concentrate that must be in juice that is labeled as juice made from concentrate. In other words, there are minimum amounts of concentrate that must be in the juice versus the amount of water. However, this does not mean that the required concentrate amounts are equal to the original juice, before the water was extracted, or to homemade juice made with a juicer.
V8 juice also includes natural flavorings. Per the Food and Drug Administration, “natural flavoring means an oil, extract, or product which contains the flavoring constituents derived from a spice, fruit or fruit juice, vegetable or vegetable juice, edible yeast, herb, bark, bud, root, leaf or similar plant material, meat, seafood, poultry, eggs, dairy products, or fermentation products thereof, whose significant function in food is flavoring rather than nutritional”.
Why are natural flavorings added to V8 juice? V8 juice is pasteurized which means the juice is heated to a very high temperature which causes potential disease causing microorganisms to be killed. Unfortunately, pasteurization also kills enzymes or proteins, causes changes in the carbohydrates or sugars in the juice and impacts flavor and nutritional value. A study by Michigan State University comparing V8 juice versus homemade vegetable juice found homemade juice had almost 68% more proteins and that pasteurization likely has a significant effect on the nutritional value of commercial vegetable juices.
Is V8 or other commercial pasteurized fruit or vegetable juice unhealthy? No, especially when compared to the sugary drinks that many people consume. However, pasteurized juice is not as healthy, fresh, and nutritionally beneficial as homemade juice made with a juicer.
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Published 8/16/2011 12:00:00 AM
Tags: Juicing and Health