Cranergy Energy Juice Drink
Cranergy Energy Juice Drink is made by Ocean Spray Cranberries, Inc. – a familar name to most. Ocean Spray is a grower’s cooperative, similar to Sunkist and Blue Diamond, created to market their own processed products. Sales of Ocean Spray’s products have been buoyed by recent research demonstrating a variety of health benefits associated with cranberry consumption, so it’s probably natural to see the company venture farther into the functional food arena.
Cranergy is the result: it’s a reduced calorie, cranberry drink fortified with green tea extract and B-vitamins. Cranergy comes in three flavors: Raspberry Cranberry, Pomegranate Cranberry and Cranberry.
Manufacturer’s Description: Made with real fruit juice and sweetened with Splenda Brand Sweetener, Cranergy has just 35 calories per 8 ounce serving. In other words, it’s a lift with 50% less calories than other leading energy drinks and traditional sodas. Plus, it’s available in three flavors – Cranberry Lift, Raspberry Cranberry Lift and Pomegranate Cranberry Lift – all come in a refrigerator-friendly 46 ounce bottle and a convenient 12 ounce 4-pack. Isn’t that handy?
Product Label:
| Serving Size 12 fl oz (354 ml) Calories 50 Calories from Fat 0 Total Fat 0g Sodium 75mg Total Carbohydrate 13g Sugars 13g |
Protein 0g Vitamin C 100% Niacin 70% Vitamin B12 70% Vitamin B2 70% Vitamin B6 70% Pantothenic Acid 70% |
| Ingredients: Filtered Water, Grape Juice from Concentrate, Cranberry Juice from Concentrate, Raspberry Juice from Concentrate, Malic Acid, Green Tea Extract, Natural Flavors, Sodium Citrate, Ascorbic Acid (Vitamin C), Pectin, Sucralose (Splenda Brand), Maltodextrin, Red 40 (color), Niacin, Pantothenic Acid, Vitamin B6, Vitamin B2, Vitamin B12 | |
Comments: I picked up a 4 pack of the Raspberry Cranberry at the store the other day. The label advertises that it has “50% fewer calories and less sugar” than the regular Ocean Spray juice, which left me wondering precisely where the “energy” was supposed to come from. The juice is fortified with vitamin C, several B vitamins and an unspecified amount of green tea extract, but these have never really energized me, even in large doses. But a trip to the product web site at http://cranergy.com/ satisfied my curiosity.
Cranergy contains 55mg caffeine per 8 oz serving – or 82.5mg per 12 bottle…about the same amount in a can of Red Bull, to be honest. This isn’t a hyoooge amount, but still significant. People trying to control their caffeine intake should be aware of this, as it’s not printed on the label.
The juice itself is tasty enough – much like Ocean Spray’s other lite/low cal juice products. Cranberry isn’t really one of my favorites, but I thought it was light, tangy and refreshing. Can’t say I really felt all that energized by it, although my son seemed to enjoy it: he put away 3 of the 4 bottles in the pack I bought.
It’s a nice enough product, although I’m hard pressed to see how it merits a higher price, relative to Ocean Spray’s regular juice drinks. I doubt there’s enough green tea extract in it to really punch up the antioxidant power, so beyond being a refreshing, low calorie source of a few odd vitamins, there’s just not a lot of substance to it.
[usrlist “Taste:4.5” “Quality:3.5” “Efficacy:3.0” “Value:2.0″ avg=”true”]
