On one of my trips through Big Lots, after passing up tons of crappy drinks, I found a few that looked like they would taste good and maybe offer some health benefits. They were Genesis Today Superfood Juices.

I picked up three flavors: Coconut Boost, Acai Berry Boost, and Pomegranate Berry Boost.

Here is my review…

Health & Nutrition

Here are the ingredients and nutrition facts for the Acai Berry Boost:

INGREDIENTS: Acai Berry Puree, Reconstituted Fruit Juices (Water, Concord Grape Juice Concentrate, White Grape Juice Concentrate, Red Grape Concentrate, Pear Juice Concentrate, Apple Juice Concentrate, Pineapple Juice Concentrate, Blueberry Juice Concentrate, Pomegranate Juice Concentrate, Cranberry Juice Concentrate, Black Cherry Juice Concentrate), Contains 2% or Less of each of the following: Vitamin Blend [Ascorbic Acid (Vitamin C), Niacinamide (Niacin), Calcium Pantothenate (Pantothenic Acid), Pyridoxine Hydrochloride (Vitamin B6), Riboflavin (Vitamin B2), Thiamin Hydrochloride (Thiamin), Folate, Biotin, Cyanocobalamin (Vitamin B12), Sea Minerals (Calcium Citrate-Malate and Magnesium Citrate Malate), Acai Antioxidant Blend (5:1 Acai Concentrate, Grape Seed Extract, Green Tea Extract), Inulin (Fiber), Citric Acid, Xanthan Gum, Natural Flavors.

I like how these are either 100% juice or 100% coconut water. No added sugar. The only added sweetener looks to be stevia, and that’s only in the coconut water since it is naturally low in sugar, especially compared to acai and pomegranate juice.

Of course, fruit juice is super high in sugar naturally, so these are still a sugar rush!

On the bright side, these should still offer up some vitamins, minerals, and nutrients.

Nutrition Facts:

Calories 125
Total Fat 1g
Sodium 10mg
Potassium 300mg
Total Carbs 28g
Dietary Fiber 1g
Sugars 20g
Protein 0g

The acai berry and pomegranate berry juices offer up a huge sugar rush and not much else, unless you’re looking for potassium, which is a nice 300mg.

The Coconut Boost offers 100mg sodium, 360mg potassium, and 500% DV of Vitamin B12 – and only 9g sugar. So it has electrolytes to help you get re-hydrated, plus B vitamins for an energy boost.

Note: The other flavors also have the added B vitamins for a nice energy boost, but not the same amount of electrolytes.

Taste Test

Here are my thoughts on the flavors…

Coconut Boost – This coconut water has a good taste that’s sweet and refreshing. Has some tartness to it, too, which is actually a nice complement. It’s sweetened with stevia, but it doesn’t have a stevia flavor, which is nice. I’m not sure about the tartness – perhaps it is from the added vitamins.

So it starts out like a sweet coconut water, then you get the tartness, and at the very end, you taste pure coconut. Then there’s a bit of coconut aftertaste; it’s like a dried coconut flake.

This juice was not the same as drinking water straight out of a young coconut though. When I had pure young coconut water, it was really sweet and had a similar flavor, but it didn’t have that tart kick in there. I probably like the taste of this better actually!

Acai Berry Boost – I was pleasantly surprised to find this actually tastes like acai berry! It is a blend of juices, but acai berry puree is the first ingredient, and it shows!

This juice is thick and very strong/flavorful, giving you a blast of acai berry, along with hints of other fruits thrown in. It tastes a lot like those superfruit juices you can get from network marketing and MLM schemes, but at a lower price! This is probably one of the best juices I’ve ever had!

Pomegranate Berry Boost – If you look at the fine print, you see this is actually a blend of pomegranate juice and six other juices! It ends up tasting a lot like the “berry” Juicy Juice. I really like that juice, but that’s partly because I have low expectations of Juicy Juice.

With this juice, I wanted a good pomegranate flavor, and I was disappointed. It is mainly a berry juice with a little pomegranate flavor in there. It is nothing like POM Wonderful.

Don’t bother with this flavor – stick with the Acai Berry juice or the Coconut Water.

My final verdict is…

I’m not big on fruit juice, but man, this stuff tastes really, really good! I’m not going to be able to resist drinking the Coconut Boost or Acai Boost juices.

If you’re looking for the best juice out there, try Genesis Today! I really like it.

Official website: www.GenesisToday.com

Honest Tea doesn’t really stand out on the convenience store shelves, which are cluttered with jumbo-size Rockstar and Monster energy drinks, plus a few juice drinks in bright, colorful bottles that are more sugar than anything else.

But Honest Tea does stand out once you compare ingredients. It is one of the few drinks out there that has health benefits and contains a minimal amount of sugar. Out of all their flavors, my favorite is the Pomegranate White Tea With Acai.

This is “a delicious, lightly sweetened blend of antioxidant-rich organic white tea, pomegranate and Brazilian Açaí.”

Your sense of smell is treated to a pleasant aroma, which is more like the fruit than tea. But the taste is the perfect combination of white tea and berry flavors. It actually tastes a lot like white tea I would brew from tea leaves at home, which is a good thing.

The slight pomegranate flavor is kind of like how you can get white tea with peach, pear, plum, and other flavors, except this time you’re tasting white tea with pomegranate and the acai. (I’ve had a few of those antioxidant drinks based on acai berry juice, so I think I know the acai taste… although it’s similar to pomegranate anyway…)

Overall, it’s very nice how that works out. With some pre-brewed teas, the fruit flavor is nonexistent, or it overpowers the tea. Honest Tea gets it right.

Honest has the perfect sweetness, too. This tea is sweet enough that it’s really good, but not overpowering. Any sweeter and it would taste like the crap other companies pass off as tea.

Being organic and natural, it’s just about as healthy as what you’d brew yourself. (Honest Tea white teas have 70-95mg of the antioxidant EGCG per bottle.) It uses organic cane sugar so it could possibly have more sugar and calories than how you’d drink tea normally (if you drink tea without sugar, that is,) but for most people this will probably be just right. Convenient, too.

I enjoy drinking this white tea, and I might even buy it sometimes when I’m on the run. What I don’t like though is anything that comes in 20oz plastic bottles. What a waste of plastic…

Sure it’s recyclable, but that requires that your city or town has facilities for that. My hometown only has recycling facilities for paper, aluminum, and glass, so plastic usually gets thrown out and ends up in a landfill…

So mostly I brew my own tea, and only buy these drinks if they’re on clearance sale or if there is no bulk alternative.

My final verdict is…

This is pretty good stuff, so if you like good tea, you should like this. I won’t be drinking it much, though, because I prefer to brew my own green and white teas at home. (Brewing your own tea is cheaper, fresher, and doesn’t waste little plastic bottles.)

So I will stick with just a few Honest Ades and teas on occasion and focus on brewing my own tea. But for tea drinkers who want real tea and prefer the convenience of a bottle, I can’t think of a better choice than Honest Tea.

Official website: www.HonestTea.com