Naked Juice has taken supermarkets by storm, promising healthy juices, sourced only from fruits and veggies, for about $4 per 15.2 oz. bottle.
It seems that simple, right? If you just go to your local grocery store and buy it, you'll have your daily dose of fruits and vegetables in a convenient bottled smoothie or juice....but will you really?Take Things With a Grain of Sugar
It's important to know whether the juices you're drinking are purely made from fruits and vegetables like they claim, or packed with over-processed sugars and other additional ingredients.
Owned by PepsiCo, Naked is misleading its buyers, advertising "100% juice smoothies," masking the truth on its wide-range of flavors and products, and has recently been involved in a law suit for doing so.
Following the law suit, Pepsi Co. is now required to label their Naked products as "not a low calorie food."
Don't Sugar Coat It
Don't be fooled by the "100% juice" label, because it turns out that Naked Juice isn't as naked as it seems. The name suggests that the product you're consuming is made from pure fruits and vegetables.
But, Naked uses fruit juices that goes through intense pasteurization and other mechanical processing, like orange juice or mango puree, so it's not as nutritious and pure as you'd think.
The way Naked markets their products leads people to believe that there is a lot less sugar and a lot more nutrients in each bottle than there really is.
Sugar...How'd You Get So Liquified?
Naked promises not to add additional sugar to their products, but fruit is naturally already high in naturally-occurring sugar content. The combination of everything leads to a lot of unnecessary sugar.
It's important to be cautious of the amount of fruit you're eating if you're concerned about your sugar intake:
An apple has about 19 grams of sugar, while a mango packs in about 46 grams, and a banana has around 14 grams. (It's suggested that men consume 37.5 grams of sugar per day, and women about 25.)
Which, if you check out a bottle of Naked, they really pack a lot of stuff in their juices. Yes, it makes for a really flavorful product. But, they achieve said flavor by using 1 1/4 mangoes, 1/2 an orange, 1 3/4 apples, 1/2 a banana, and a hint of lemon to make one of their most popular flavors come to life: mighty mango.
Plus, there is a higher sugar content and less fiber in concentrated juice rather than if you just ate a piece of fresh fruit (a lot of fiber is found in the peel/skin of the fruit.) And, fiber is essential for your digestive system's health.
After all of the fruits and veggies have been processed, juiced, and pureed into your favorite flavors, each bottle has anywhere from 240 to 500 calories per bottle (most definitely not juice-cleanse material.)
A Sweet Deal?
I encourage everyone to save $4 and eat fresh fruit instead. Fresh fruit has more fiber, vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and less sugar than any of the hipster juice trends that you'll find at your local Whole Foods.