I do NOT drink fruit drinks. Sorry Florida, NO OJ. Read the label folks. It is sugar and water with only vitamin C to recommend it. Do you think the pulpy varieties have extra fiber? Not a bit. Check the label!
I am not convinced you need to drink extra "anti-oxidants". Antioxidants are a glorified name for combinations of vitamins of unknown value. They are hip now, supposed to be the cure-all for cancer and many other afflictions. Too general and an unproven theory. But even when legit, scientific studies are commonly used to mislead you in the marketing hype. Where does it say HOW much you need anyway? How much is enough? Can you get too much? (kidney stones? too much acid in the stomach?). Is this science? Get real. Anti-oxidants may be good for us, but humans have been getting enough from seasonal fruits and vegetables for eons. Maybe the atypical person who hates to eat all fruits and vegetables could stand to eat more. But it is certainly NOT necessary to take in lots of sugar to get the vitamins you need.
[Side note: I adore tangelos and temple oranges (grow my own) - but eliminating fruits from my diet coincedentally cured a long standing problem with Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS). Turns out I am allergic to raw acid fruits such as tomatoes, citrus, mangos, peaches! (I can eat them cooked which indicates it is enzymes that are at fault because enzymes are neutralized by cooking) Can't even squeeze lemon juice on fish or in tea! I have to pull tomatoes out of prepared sandwiches and salads or ask to have them omitted. IBS comes in various forms (doubless indicating there are various causes) and is a very common condition - especially among women and increases as we get older. I would strongly recommend anyone suffering regular bouts of unexplained diarrhea alone or combined with constipation consider food allergies - especially if you normally eat a "healthy" diet. Of course, you may have different food allergies from mine. ]
I have a friend who suffers from non-tropical sprue - an allergy to glutin in the diet. Actually she benefits from any low carb diet because glutin is a protein found in grains.
Don't forget, brightly colored vegetables and juices are rich in anti-oxidants but lower in sugar. I recommend adding plenty of cooked and raw vegetables and veggie juice to your diet. But more on whole fruits and veggies latter.
By turning fruit into juices we take in much higher quantities of vitamins than your body can use and add unnecessary sugar too! Remember our bodies excrete vitamins that it can't use. We cannot store anti-oxidants. If you must, remember, drinking small sips of a drink throughout the day is preferable to drinking it by the glass. [It seems dubious that we can utilize 100% of the vitamins in a pill at once too].
Check out the sugar in the new pomegranate drinks! Depending on what it's mixed with - 28-34g !! Drinks don't help fill you up either. It takes 3 oranges to make a small glass of juice. At best eat one orange if you must but, remember if you are having problems controlling your appetite, it still has an unnecessarily high amount of sugar and is not the best choice IMO. Grapefruit juice is a little lower - but not significantly.
Note: Grapefruit juice reacts with certain drugs producing toxic side effects, especially cholesterol lowering drugs called statins (i.e. Lipitor) and should be avoided by anyone taking medications including OTC and various natural and/or organic supplements.
Really, which do you think is better for your immediate health, huge quantities of anti-oxidants or getting your appetite under control and losing excess weight?
There are choices. What about drinking tomato juice instead? Plenty of the good stuff and half the calories. And who says that it has to be an 8 oz glass? If you buy it in a big can, are you going to drink the whole thing just because it's there? Buy a bottle and space it out. Instead of 8 oz at a crack with a meal, what about a 4 oz glass twice a day as a snack and not with the meal? That's 2 servings of veggies - if you are counting. But the down side is the quantity of salt.
Yeah, and what about a V8? Compare the labels - not quite as good as tomato juice but not bad either. Even more salt.
If you have high BP, consider the low salt variety. Still has some salt. Maybe a little hot sauce helps if you like - but check the salt content there too. It may excite your taste buds as much as salt and is good for you.
I don't know what happened, but when I lowered my sugar intake I also lost interest in sodas (aka pop in the Midwest). I no longer want carbonated drinks at all. But if you like them, make them sugar free. If you don't like sweeteners, you can buy or make your own no cal flavored waters. Lots of choices.
I drink 1% milk with my coffee and cereals and use it in cooking. I don't mind skim but compromised with my family at 1%. They bitched and moaned for a while but they got used to it. Your taste buds DO adjust. Then when you only have higher percent fat available (such as on an airline) or even cream, you may find that it tastes greasy. If you don't drink milk in large quantities, 2% or even whole milk are OK, just reduce the quantity in proportion. Seems like one of the newest health ideas is that a little milk fat may be beneficial or good for dieting. Hummmmmmmmm I smell marketing has something to do with that one - who knows. But I'll bet you already get enough if you are into pizza or feta cheese in your salad. It's another of these theories that come and go. Everything in moderation is old-fashioned common sense it seems to me. It's just that we have forgotten what moderation means! ;-) .
I also drink hot tea with milk. Definitely low fat is better there! Veddy Brit you know to have milk in your tea, LOL! But my mother studied a while in England so she introduced it to me as a kid.
Coffee creamers are a mixed bag of ingredients. The non-dairy creamers MAY be OK if you are allergic to milk products - but watch out for the fats. Some brands were full of trans-fats and saturated fats like palm oils - the worst saturated type. Most are not great calorie wise. Mostly there is nothing healthy to warrant their use if you can find a substitute you like. Not so long ago people used evaporated (condensed is sweetened) canned or dried low fat milk. They are OK.
For chocolate lovers - there are choices as long as they aren't sweetened with sugar. You can buy a good grade unsweetened cocoa and make your own hot chocolate with low fat milk and sweeteners for a cold afternoon or even dessert. Cocoa is being ballyhooed for it's anti-oxidants these days. But if you want anti-oxidants what makes chocolate better than any other? Probably marketing to our weaknesses. [I know, I know, I'm a skeptic!] Maybe it's really the sweet that we crave in that nice greasy coco-butter base. So you can have your chocolate fix if you just delete the sugar content.
If you are not too picky, there is Swiss Miss Unsweetened Cocoa at 60 calories a packet. It has powdered milk in it so you just add hot water. Or if you make it with all or part milk, add in the extra calories. You should be able to keep it below 100 cals which is my top of the line limit for a snack or "dessert".
Also Splenda makes chocolate and other flavored sweeteners in little tube packets to add to coffee. It's just lightly flavored.
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