Today we are bombarded by ads and marketing techniques from countless energy drink commercials. These commercials often tell us what the product does not contain but fail to identify its ingredients and how it compares to the drinks you would be enjoying as an alternative if you just picked up a cup of apple juice or V8.
Five Hour Energy is a small, tasty energy drink with flavors such as lemon-lime, citrus and berry. We have all seen Five Hour Energy commercials, which bash the amount of caffeine and sugar other energy drinks contain, on TV time and time again, but have you ever wondered what is in that small bottle that can keep you up for five straight hours?
What you might not know about Five Hour Energy is it has 14 different vitamins and energy contributing chemicals, one of which is caffeine, but that is not the only reason the warning oddly placed in the Web site says not to drink more than two bottles in a day.
The warning might be because Five Hour Energy is packed with more than 8,300 percent of your daily Vitamin B12 or because of the 2,000 percent of your daily amount of vitamin B6. The Web site also warns in just one drink “You may experience a Niacin Flush (hot feeling, skin redness) that lasts a few minutes. This is caused by Niacin (Vitamin B3) increasing blood flow near the skin.”
Red Bull contains 110 calories and 27 grams of sugar. Chemicals like Taurine act as an antioxidant, which helps aging. Taurine is also an inhibitory chemical that can act as a mild sedative, and has the potential to give you a steady irregular heartbeat. One can of Red Bull also contains 80 milligrams of caffeine, which is three times the caffeine in one can of Coke.
Monster has 160 milligrams of caffeine per 16-ounce can, which is twice the amount of Red Bull and six times that of a can of Coke. Monster drinks contains Taurine like Red Bull, carbonated water and 54 grams of sugar. You will find almost every energy drink you can find will be made of the same basic ingredients: carbonated sugar water, flavoring, Taurine and lots of caffeine.
Juices on the other hand also have vitamins and minerals but in smaller quantities. One cup of apple juice contains 24 grams of sugar, which is nearly as much as one can of many energy drinks. Unlike many energy drinks, though, apple juice contains fiber, calcium, iron, magnesium, phosphorus and many other minerals that should be added to your everyday diet. Apple juice also lacks the caffeine all the energy drinks have.
Cranberry juice contains 170 percent of your daily dose of vitamin C. Cranberry juice has smaller quantities of many of the minerals that apple juice contains but it still has minerals like iron and calcium. Many juices have very similar nutrition values.
Campbell’s V8 100 percent Vegetable Juice has plenty of vitamin A, vitamin C, fiber and potassium. V8 does lack a lot of the vitamins and minerals commonly found in juices, but there are different kinds of V8 juices that contain different types of vitamins and minerals.
Juice is a far more healthy choice than energy drinks, but if you are on your last leg and need an extra energy boost a drink with six times the caffeine of a can of Coke will definitely give you a pickup. Please just remember to use restraint with a lot of energy drinks, and find out what you are drinking because if you drink too much you might be in for a real crash.
