“What Other Foods Are Lying to Us?” — Influencer Proves Most Juices Are Just Apple Juice
"Wonder why everything tastes better in Europe? "
Published March 31 2024, 8:47 a.m. ET
Instagram user Connor Clary (@connor.clary) thinks that Big Juice is lying to us, and it doesn't take much digging for consumers to see how they're being misled.
According to the Influencer, along with numerous examples he's posted to his viral post about the phenomena one could easily call "applejucification" he shows that popular smoothies and drinks that are advertised as being predominantly comprised of one group of fruits are, at their core just apple juice.
He opens up his video by stating: "Apparently a lot of these juices you buy from the grocery store are actually just apple juice regardless of what it says on the front of the bottle. Like this Naked Strawberry & Banana Smoothie surely this contains strawberry and banana, right? I mean sure I'd expect some added sugar, some citric acid, maybe some preservatives that are too long and confusing to pronounce," he says in the clip.
He goes on to speculate what he originally thought the Naked smoothie would probably contain: "But other than that this is going to be mostly strawberry and banana, right?"
The video then transitions to a snapshot of the nutrition label of the Naked beverage: "Errghh, WRONG. This strawberry banana smoothie is made out of 45% apple juice."
Connor then goes on to take a look at another juice from the shelf to see what its primary ingredients are: "All right round two of the Gold Machine Naked Smoothie. Think about all the golden fruits that you could put in this drink. I mean pineapple juice, is a thing, right here on the front of the package, it says it contains passion fruit, mango, and guava. Sounds pretty good to me."
However, in what is a recurring trend of Connor's criticism of "Big Juice" he reveals that the "Gold Machine" beverage is, again, primarily made out of apple juice: "So tell me, do you think this Naked Gold Machine smoothie contains mostly just apple juice? Lock in your answers."
Although he does a little quiz show bit set-up prior to revealing the truth behind the Gold Machine smoothie's contents, he ultimately reveals that yes, it does contain a lot of apple juice in it.
"Welcome to daycare this Gold Machine smoothie is 62% apple juice."
Another part of his quiz contains a long-time staple and a juice most folks probably wouldn't think contained any apple juice whatsoever: "Let's up the difficulty a bit with this Cran-Raspberry juice what do you think is in here? Would you think this is Apple juice? I mean cranberry juice is a thing, I don't know about raspberries but I bet you could juice it somehow?"
Connor continued, "Lock in your answers 3, 2, 1, this is Apple juice and grape juice? Which for some reason makes me even more mad. This isn't even actually juice it's juice 'drink'," he points out as he shows off a label detailing a picture of the beverage bottle in question.
"And the addition of the word 'drink' at the end means they can put whatever they want in this bottle. Like this cranberry juice 'cocktail' that everyone buys. It only contains about 25% juice the rest of it is just water and blood sacrifice probably."
It isn't just pre-packaged juices one can buy at grocery and convenience stores that suffer from applejucification, Connor demonstrates.
"How about a strawberry acai refresher from Starbucks," his clip then transitions to an ingredients list page of the coffee chain's drink: "Ice, water, sugar, white grape juice, what's happening?"
Connor said that this phenomenon makes him think of another popular food with a name that many believe isn't actually reflective of what its ingredients are: "This also makes me think of red velvet cake mixes," he said.
"I always thought this was some kind of luxurious exotic cake made with some special cocoa bean, mm, mmm, this is just chocolate cake with red 40 in it. The only luxurious part of this is synthetic dye. What other foods are lying to us?"
If one visits the Naked juice brand website and takes a gander at its offerings, Connor's applejucification claims hold even more weight as the following beverages they sell all list apple juice from concentrate as their first ingredients:
Do you feel like you're being lied to? Or do you think it's just a way for juice manufacturers to sweeten their beverages using a fruit that is often in surplus in the United States.