Feb 01 2009
V8 juice for veggies?
When I was in about my late middle school years and I was starting to (or at least attempting to) become health conscious, I had my first taste of V8 vegetable juice, along with the fruity version of it. Soon, like any other young teenager, I stopped drinking it completely since I thought it was “gross”.
Then over the weekend, I was introduced to it again when my boyfriend brought a few cans. I still wasn’t too crazy about it, but then I started realizing (especially after a sleepless night yesterday) how poor my diet was and how I can feel my health declining, so I realized that since I hardly eat any vegetables to begin with, that I should start drinking V8 cans again to supplement some of the vitamins I was lacking. I have also started to take a daily vitamin supplement (One A Day Women’s), but I feel that I should be putting some of the benefits of vegetables into my body, too. (Another goal I’m going to act out is to start going to the gym again as well).
One issue about the V8 juice, though, is the sodium content. An 11.5 oz serving of original V8 juice has 690 mg of sodium, while an 8oz serving of Spicy Hot V8 juice has 710mg of sodium. With the V8 Splash and V-Fusion (which give you some nutritional benefits of fruit), sugar is the main issue. I am not planning on drinking the fruity version, but I am going to go for a daily can or two of V8 Low Sodium vegetable juice, which only has 200mg of sodium for an 11.5 oz serving, along with more potassium. Although as my parents (my dad is a pharmacist) had recently warned me when I mentioned that I was going to start drinking V8 again, potassium in too high levels can potentially cause some damage to the heart. Though according to some online research I did, people should get approximately 4,700 milligrams of potassium a day. With V8 Low Sodium containing 1180 mg of potassium per 11.5 oz serving, you would have to consume about 3-4 servings before your potassium consumption could possibly reach a “high” level. Personally I feel worrying about the potassium in V8 juice should be your least concern, as having a high potassium and low sodium diet can have health benefits (including aiding in lowering blood pressure), and it also contains more than your daily requirement of vitamin C and almost the daily requirement of vitamin A.
For anyone who wants to get their daily serving of vegetables in a healthy way, I would definitely recommend the V8 Low Sodium juice. Plus, I feel that the lower sodium content gives it a lighter and not as strong taste.
You can visit http://caloriecount.about.com/ for more information on the nutritional content of V8 juices and basically any other type of food.
