What’s In That Pomegranate Blueberry Juice?

I am not much of a juice drinker. I start my day with coffee, then switch to water, and then end the day with a beer or a glass of wine. If it’s really hot I might crave a fresh-made lemonade, but that’s about it. It wasn’t always this way. I used to start my day with a tall glass of orange juice or pink grapefruit juice cocktail, and drink juice or soda the rest of the day. My kids mostly drink water or Gatorade, but they still like juice once in a while, so sometimes I find myself facing rows of bottles of juice and juice cocktail at the grocery store, trying to select one that has some nutritional value.

I know that products labeled as juice “cocktails” are likely to have the least juice and most other stuff (water, sweeteners, etc.), but I’ve also learned to be careful with juice “blends,” because even if the name or label features a different fruit more prominently, the first ingredient usually is apple juice, which doesn’t have that much nutritional value.

Minute Maid® Pomegranate Blueberry Juice Blend

This issue has made it all the way to the Supreme Court, with a dispute between The Coca-Cola Company and POM Wonderful LLC over the amount of pomegranate juice in Coke’s Minute Maid® Pomegranate Blueberry juice blend. (The full product name appears to be Minute Maid® Enhanced Pomegranate Blueberry 100% Juice Blend of 5 Juices.) Apparently, the product only has 0.3% pomegranate juice and 0.2% blueberry juice.

Now, I know to read labels and ingredient lists, and I know that ingredients are listed in order of relative amount (with the most prevalent ingredient listed first), but the label on this product lists pomegranate juice third (after apple and grape). If I had to guess how much pomegranate juice there was, I don’t think I would have guessed less than 1%!

There are more red flags about the blueberry juice content. It is listed fifth, which isn’t so bad in a “blend of 5 juices,” but it comes after “fruit and vegetable juices (for color).”

The issues before the Supreme Court are interesting. POM Wonderful has charged that the labeling is misleading, and causes harm to POM Wonderful because it sells (more expensive) juices with a higher pomegranate juice content. Coke invoked the FDA’s jurisdiction over food labels, and argued that because the labels satisfy FDA regulations, they should not be subject to additional scrutiny.

(If you want to read about the Supreme Court arguments, this SCOTUS blog article has a good synopsis.)

The Supreme Court should issue its decision by the end of June. In the meantime, maybe it’s time to tell our husbands that it really would be okay for them to give us fancy juicers for Mother’s Day!

Do you drink juice?

Have you ever asked for an appliance for Mother’s Day?