Going for a big night out when you're not drinking could be a bit challenging for most people. Fortunately over the years I've gotten totally used to it and can party with the best of them without a drop of alcohol! However sometimes drinking just water does get a bit dull and most other soft drinks on offer are either full of sugar (lemonade, cranberry juice, non-alcoholic cocktails) or artificial sweeteners (diet coke). To liven things up I usually have a fruit or tomato juice, but I've also become partial to the odd appletize for a bit of fizz!
The good thing about appletize is that it is just made from fruit juice and doesn't have added refined sugar so is less harmful for you than the usual fizzy drinks. However this weekend I was horrified to see that on a lid of fruitiser it said 'one of your five a day'! How a glass of highly processed carbonated fruit juice can count as one portion of fruit and vegetables is really beyond me, and a claim that I find pretty irritating, given that some uninformed individuals could think that by drinking five glasses of appletize a day will keep them in good health!!
The benefits you get from fruit and vegetables are from the vitamin and mineral content (dramatically reduced by any processing), fibre content (not present in juices) and live enzymes (destroyed by any processing or cooking). This is why I only count portions of fresh or freshly cooked fruit and vegetables as part of my five-should really be eight-a-day - so please remember that drinking a cranberry juice with your vodka really doesn't count!! And for the masses not reading NITC I just hope the government at some point amends their criteria for what counts as a portion to something a bit more sensible!!
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