Glucoholic - Sugar Free Snacks

We’re really excited about this product! A dear friend of The Glucoholic recently asked if we had tried Old Orchard Healthy Balance Apple Juice. We had not, but ran right out to get a bottle to test. This juice is awesome. Let’s say that again. This juice is awesome! We might have a real contender for product of the year with this one. Once in a while we review a product that, from the first taste, you know is going to be a staple. This is one of those products. It really is impossible to tell the difference between this low carb drink and regular apple juices. The juice is mellow, smooth, and very sweet. People who’ve been missing apple juice while following a low carb diet need to run to the store to pick up a bottle as soon as possible.

Each eight ounce serving of Old Orchard Healthy Balance Apple Juice contains only 31 calories, 10mg of sodium, and 6 grams of sugar. The taste alone would be enough to justify drinking this juice, but you’ll also get 62mg of potassium and 100% of the recommended daily intake of Vitamin C with each serving. We were also glad to see the Splenda logo on the label letting us know we would experience excellent sweetness with no unpleasant aftertaste. Finally, we were really happy to see that Old Orchard has made a significant commitment to JDRF. We think that’s pretty cool.

It’s really happening. The Glucoholic is going to recommend back-to-back products sweetened with aspartame. It seems impossible, but we’re not joking. We started testing Turkey Hill Diet Green Tea Mango with a great deal of reservation, given that it contains two ingredients we’ve never really become comfortable with - green tea and aspartame. These reservations were unfounded. This tea is a wonderful find. First, there’s none of that tobacco taste you get with most green teas. Second, the mango flavor makes this sugar free drink seem more like a fruit drink than a tea. Third, there’s also a little honey and ginseng hidden in each serving - it’s like a little gift. The aspartame is not really detectable, and the mango flavor lingers long enough to make sure any aftertaste is properly dispatched. We really liked this tea, and look forward to trying some of the other Turkey Hill teas.

A serving of Turkey Hill Diet Green Tea Mango has no calories and only 10mg of sodium. The one gram of carbohydrate probably comes from the honey, and there’s only about 20mg of caffeine per serving. As an added bonus, this tea is gluten free. We highly encourage you to check out the Turkey Hill product finder, and to pick up some of this great tea!

You’re not going to hear us praising products sweetened with aspartame very often, but this time we feel we should make an exception. Diet Vernor’s Ginger Soda is one unique ginger ale. The labeling informs us that this ginger ale is barrel aged for three years, and that it has bold taste. “Bold taste” is one of those phrases that you usually ignore as quickly as when your boss says things as inspired as “total dedication” and “commitment to excellence.” We’re not big on the cliche’ ’round these parts, and that’s why we like to make special note when a company actually provides what they say they will. Bold taste is probably the tersest way to accurately describe the taste of this sugar free drink. The taste starts out refreshingly cool, and about the time you are expecting to notice the aspartame you get this powerful rush of ginger taste. And this taste sticks around. It’s got some kick. We could barely tell we were drinking a soda sweetened with aspartame.

Each twelve ounce serving provides 25mg of sodium and nothing else, other than powerful ginger taste. This sugar free soda is caffeine free. We’re glad we did not let the aspartame scare us away from this unique ginger ale. If you think you’d enjoy a ginger ale with a little something extra, then we encourage you to give this fine sugar free drink a try.

The good folks at Sunny Delight were nice enough to send over all six flavors of their new Fruit2O Essentials line for us to review. Essentials flavored waters are fortified with vitamins and minerals. Competition has really heated up in the fortified water market, and we think that Fruit2O has a very good offering. The flavors are interesting and we enjoyed each of them.

The kiwi strawberry flavor was our favorite. Of the berry flavors we thought it had the best taste in terms of both quality of flavor mix and strength of flavor. It reminded us a little of the same flavor in the Propel line of flavored waters. We would recommend starting with this flavor.

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The Glucoholic hates being negative. Our faithful readers know that we really try to review high quality products on a regular basis. But, there comes a time when we feel like it is necessary to assign a very low rating to a product to save our readers the time and money they might spend on a poor quality product. This is one of those times. La Croix Cran-Raspberry Flavored Water is awful. Please do not purchase it. The Glucoholic never contemplated what carbonated glass cleaner might taste like, but now he does not have to. We even tried adding Splenda to see if some added sweetness might mask some of the horrible taste, but it just seemed to make it worse.

We’re not going to provide the nutrition information for this product for fear that you might be tempted to try it despite our desperate warnings. There is the possibility that there is some comedic value to be had in trying this product, or better yet, getting your friends to try this product. We do not recommend this and deny any responsibility for what might happen as a result of a cruel joke like this. Here’s hoping for a better review later this week!