Even if you have absolutely no interest in health and nutrition, I’m betting you’ve heard of acai berry, goji berry, and/or pomegranate juices. These “superfoods” have garnered attention from all the news outlets and plenty of late-night infomercial scammers are trying to cash in.

Fortunately for us, there are a number of reputable companies making products with these juices. The biggest name is POM Wonderful, who sell 100% pomegranate juice made from the Wonderful variety of pomegranates grown in California.

Here are my thoughts on pomegranates and this POM Wonderful pomegranate juice…

POM Wonderful Health and Nutrition

First, let’s make sure we’re dealing with real pomegranate juice. POM Wonderful lists the ingredients as:

Pomegranate juice from concentrate and natural flavors.

And the basic nutrition facts for an 8oz serving:

  150 calories
  520mg potassium
  40g carbs
  32g sugar

Yep, a lot of sugar for 8oz, but that’s typical with any fruit juice. At least it’s natural sugar. Aside from that, everything looks good, especially the potassium. (Protein and fat content is 0g.)

As for the health benefits…

Pomegranates, like most fruits, are healthy. So it makes sense that pomegranate juice would share in the health benefits.

Basically, POM Wonderful grows high-quality pomegranates (on their own farms in California,) which are very high in potent antioxidants, which improve your health in a number of ways. Antioxidants are great for cleaning up free radicals in our bodies, which could play a role in the prevention of certain diseases, plus they help us recover from our workouts stronger and faster.

But POM Wonderful is also backed by $25 million in medical research, and some of their findings include:

• Improved blood flow to the heart.
• Decreased arterial plaque in patients with atherosclerosis.
• Pomegranate juice contains more, and better quality, polyphenol antioxidants than red wine.

Too see all the pomegranate research and health information (including the details of the studies I mentioned above,) check the POM Wonderful Health Benefits page, as well as their companion site, Pomegranate Truth.

I’m not saying pomegranate juice is some miracle anti-aging and weight loss secret, but there is no doubt that it provides health benefits.

POM Wonderful Taste Test

As much as I was impressed with the cute little bottles, I was even more impressed with the taste of this stuff. It actually tastes like you’re eating a real pomegranate, except that you don’t have to crunch the seeds.

It starts out kind of sweet, and then that real pomegranate taste hits. That is slightly tart, but it balances well with the sweetness.

I sipped it slowly, savoring that true pomegranate flavor, which made for a great experience. I got the full pomegranate taste without any of the tartness I’ve heard about. (I only noticed the tartness if I gulped it down real fast.)

It was especially nice after having some crap known as “Bellamessa 100% Pomegranate Juice.” I’m pretty sure that was cranberry juice and contained no pomegranate!

But even if you don’t like the pomegranate taste, there might be hope. The POM Wonderful website has a recipe section for pomegranate stuff. I tried a variation of the “POM Morning Shake” which is like a pomegranate banana smoothie.

It was pretty good, but what can I say? It tasted like a banana smoothie with a pomegranate kick. When it comes down to it, though, I prefer my pomegranate juice separately from my banana smoothies. (If you dislike pomegranate juice, you might prefer the smoothie option.)

Miscellaneous Thoughts

I must say, the POM Wonderful packaging is very well done – I’d go as far as to say it’s exquisite. Those little 8oz bottles are very neat and the looks almost justify the price.

Speaking of price, this juice isn’t cheap. I think I’ve seen the 16oz bottles go for about $4.50.

My final verdict is…

I enjoyed the flavor, but I probably wouldn’t want to drink 8oz of this every single day. The main reason to buy this is to get the health benefits of pomegranates, without the hassle of cutting open the real fruit (which is a lot more difficult than peeling an orange.)

You still run into the same problems as other fruit juices, though. (Like lots of sugar and no fiber, unlike when you eat the real fruit.)

But pomegranate juice is much healthier than soda, and I really like the taste of POM Wonderful, so I recommend trying some.

Official website: www.POMWonderful.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