30 Day Experiments .com

I’ve been “juicing” with V8.  Get over it, hippies.

V8 = Convenient Way to “Juice”

I cannot afford an assistant to juice everything for me and I’ve been busy as hell lately — and V8 is readily available at every grocery store and most convenience stores.

The thing about juicing is that producing all of the juice you need for a day is fairly time-consuming.  It typically takes me a little over an hour to juice enough to get me through the next day.  When I get home at 8 or 9pm, I don’t always feel like breaking out the juicer and a counter covered with vegetables.

Does Drinking V8 Count as Juicing?

I think the answer to that question is a fairly solid “no”.  Is it healthy?  meh.  Yes and no.  Natural?  Not totally.  This article about the healthiness of V8 juice gives a great breakdown but here’s a quick list of the veggies in it.  Here’s a very “purist” view on the issue.  Here’s a very logical and holistic way of looking at V8 nutritionally it that you can probably appreciate.

Vegetables in V8

• Carrots
• Celery
• Watercress
• Parsley
• Spinach
• Lettuce
• Beets
• Tomato Juice (makes up something like 86+% of V8)

V8 has vitamins A, C, Potassium, and probably some flavonoids and carotenoids. However, regular V8 is exceptionally high is sodium — really high (690mg, about 30% daily value). I’ve been drinking the low sodium version when I find it, though, which has considerably lower sodium.

So, I definitely don’t think V8 is a real substitute for juicing but I feel fine about falling back on it when I’m running around visiting clients or after a 14 hour day of work.

Besides, the rules of this 30 Day Experiment are basically to eat fruits and veggies only and V8 pretty much falls into that.