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

It seems like there is a new “super food” discovered every day, and that fruit or berry becomes the base of an overpriced bottle of juice just days later.

A lot of these juices are either acai berry or goji berry juices, and they retail for $20-30 per bottle! The supposed health benefits are numerous, and the drinks usually taste delicious, but that is a lot of money no matter how you look at it.

That’s why I like the trend towards pomegranate juice, which promises a number of health benefits without being too hard on the wallet. It’s certainly not cheap stuff, but it’s inexpensive compared to acai juice, and you can actually find it in the grocery store (unlike some juices that only come from sketchy MLM companies.)

I was browsing through an Ollie’s department store the other day and happened across Bellamessa 100% Pomegranate Juice. It was on sale for $2.99 for a 33.8 ounce bottle (probably about 50% off.) Sold!

Let’s see what I got myself into…

Pomegranate Health Benefits

We’re not dealing with an actual pomegranate, but this is supposed to be “100% pomegranate juice with no added sugar.” So it should still provide most of the health benefits that the fruit would.

But, like any fruit juice, it still has quite a few calories from the natural sugar.

Without further ado, here are the many health benefits of pomegranate juice:

The tannins and punicalagins (a type of antioxidant) in pomegranate juice has been shown to help in reducing heart disease risk factors, including LDL oxidation, macrophage oxidative status, and foam cell formation, all of which are steps in atherosclerosis and cardiovascular disease.

Pomegranate juice has also been shown to reduce systolic blood pressure by inhibiting serum angiotensin-converting enzyme. It may even inhibit viral infections and have antibacterial effects against dental plaque.

The Taste Test

It’s healthy, but is it drinkable?

When I first tried a sip of this, had I not seen the “100% pomegranate juice” label, I’d swear it was cranberry juice! It tasted just like regular old cranberry juice! So it was alright, but clearly not as awesome as I had hoped for.

Luckily, after it was in the fridge for a while and got real cold, and I was real warm from being outside, I was able to taste the pomegranate! (It was exciting because I was beginning to think I had bought nothing more than an expensive bottle of cranberry juice!)

So yes, when nice and cold, this is a very sweet pomegranate juice. It still tastes similar to cranberry juice, though. It’s just barely different enough to notice.

I bet if you mixed this juice with other stuff it would taste better. Pomegranate blueberry is a popular combination, so maybe I should have put a couple ounces of this into a blueberry smoothie!

I’ll try that with my next bottle of pomegranate juice…

My final verdict is…

This was a good drink, but not a great drink. You might really like it if you like cranberry juice though.

In the end, I’m glad I tried some, but I’ll still stick with water and green tea as my main drinks. I will probably buy more of this some day when I’m in the mood, or when I can’t find a good fresh pomegranate to eat.

Official website: N/A