Hi Doug,
My name is Darren and I recently kicked the craving for pop. I was wondering if drinks such as Aqua-T energy drink (it contains whey protein) and other 'health' drinks are actually good for you?


Hi Darren,
Congrats on kicking the pop habit! I'm not sure about the specific beverage you're talking about, but I can tell you a few general things about claimed "healthy" beverages and how you can best decide whether they're good for you. Here are five questions to ask yourself.

1. Is it from a whole food? Don't be fooled by the added vitamins, minerals and antioxidant boasts -- look for whole foods and juices. It's questionable whether something like vitamin water, which is essentially just individual vitamins diluted in sugar water, promote health at all. Even if there are health-promoting ingredients in your beverage, you're better off getting them from whole foods, where all co-factors and catalysts are present, instead of in fractionated forms as an ingredient in a processed food.


2. What is it sweetened with? Sugar is sugar is sugar. Even if it's using a less-processed form of sugar like cane juice, your insulin levels are still going to spike when you chug down that bottled drink. Look for beverages without any sweeteners added, sugar or artificial sweeteners, but rely on sweet fruits and vegetables for their naturally sweet flavour.

3. How much sugar is in it? Even fruit-sweetened beverages can add up on the sugar scale. Take a look at the Nutrition Facts label on the packaging to see how many grams of sugar the product contains per serving. A cup of raw, fresh-squeezed carrot juice contains about 13 grams of sugar, so in my opinion, you should be aiming for this as the absolute maximum.

4. Are there any vegetables in it? Fruits are good for you, but vegetables are lower in sugar and contain a fuller compliment of nutrient components. Green veggies contain chlorophyll, for example, and cruciferous veggies like broccoli and kale contain indoles and anthocyanates -- potent cancer fighters. Beverages that contain brewed herbal teas can have a host of phytonutrients as well.

5. How many ingredients are you unfamiliar with? This is where bottled drinks usually fail my personal test. The more stuff in a beverage that didn't come from the ground, the less appealing they become. You don't need any additives, preservatives or colour enhancers floating around your body causing havoc, so if there's something on the ingredients list that you can't also find in your produce department or tea aisle you'd be better off leaving it on the shelf.

There is no question that the best types of beverages for you to be drinking are water, herbal teas and juice or a smoothie made from fruits and vegetables that you juiced or blended yourself. More often than not, you are better off drinking water when you're on the go instead of a processed "health" beverage.

Don't forget that any juice sold in Canada has been pasteurized, meaning it is no longer live and is lacking enzyme activity and much of the nutrients originally in the live juice. The manufacturer can add back in as many isolated vitamins, minerals and amino acids as they want, but a bottled beverage will never be as health-promoting as the food it started out as. This goes for any processed food.

Is one of these drinks going to kill you? Probably not. But people tend to get into habits with this stuff (which is firmly encouraged by the drink makers) and end up taking in a lot of what they don't need on a daily basis -- and it all adds up. Even if you're getting a few vitamins and herbs, if you're also getting a lot of sugar and additives with it, you're not doing your body any favours. By using the above questions as a guide, you can find the beverages that do no harm, and may even do a little good.

The Healthy Foodie is Doug DiPasquale, Holistic Nutritionist and trained chef, living in Toronto. You can email him with questions at dugdeep@gmail.com.