Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Bolthouse Farms Does The Best They Can With Carrot Juice, But Their Vitamin Rich 100% Carrot Drink Juice Is Still Just Disgusting.


The Good: Fairly nutritious
The Bad: Expensive, Disgusting taste.
The Basics: Bolthouse Farms Vitamin Rich 100% Carrot Juice is, as the name suggests, pure carrot juice . . . and not worth trying.


They can’t all be winners. It’s important to remember that. Bolthouse Farms was knocking it out of the park for me repeatedly with their line of delicious, nutritious, juices and health shakes.

And then I encountered Bolthouse Farms Vitamin Rich 100% Carrot Juice.

The company’s streak is over. I’m not sure what I was expecting when I sat down to drink the Vitamin Rich 100% Carrot Juice, but given that it nauseated me (and, to be fair, it was marginally better when chilled in my own refrigerator, as opposed to the store’s open refrigerated display), Bolthouse Farms has a real loser on its hands with their carrot juice.

Basics

Bolthouse Farms is a health drink brand, which is a full-health beverage (as opposed to being a liquid vitamin supplement) and, as a general rule, they tend to taste better than energy drinks. This is a vegetable beverage that is enhanced with nutrients. Bolthouse Farms Vitamin Rich 100% Carrot Juice comes in a 15.2 fl. oz. plastic bottle that is smooth and very portable. The #1 recyclable bottle is filled with the opaque orange liquid, which looks bright and cheerful. Bolthouse Farms juice products is one of the leading manufacturer of healthy prepared beverages, both of fruit juices and dairy beverages.

The 15.2 fl. oz. bottle is intended to give consumers just under two servings, which usually is silly, but given that it is hard to stomach a single serving of this drink, I’m not sure why they bothered with more than one serving per bottle!

Ease Of Preparation

Bolthouse Farms Vitamin Rich 100% Carrot Juice is a liquid in the 15.2 fl. oz. bottle and is a ready-to-drink beverage. So, preparation is as easy as opening a plastic bottle. 100% Carrot has a plastic cap that easily twists off and can be put back on in order to reseal it. It is important to note that this is supposed to be refrigerated, so quality of the beverage may degrade if it is left out at room temperature before or after the bottle is open. This has a pretty standard security seal ring around the lower half of the cap and informs the consumer as to whether the product has been opened by cracking off when the top is twisted.

Taste

Bolthouse Farms Vitamin Rich 100% Carrot smells like a fresh bag of carrots, opened up and carroty. This smells like exactly what it is supposed to; carrots.

As for the taste, there is nothing surprising on the taste front. The 100% Carrot Juice from Bolthouse Farms tastes solely like carrots. That is it. Not salty carrots, not sweet carrots, just carrots. And I never realized carrots could nauseate me based on their taste before having a bottle of this. Carrots, concentrated and liquefied, do not taste particularly good, as it turns out.

Nutrition

As a healthy vegetable beverage, Bolthouse Farms Vitamin Rich 100% Carrot Juice is designed to fill in some of the nutritional gaps one might have in their diet, though I can think of many better ways yo get the 700% RDA of Vitamin A this drink provides! Nutritionally, Bolthouse Farms Vitamin Rich 100% Carrot is an option for those who are dieting or are trying to improve their health, who might not have intact tastebuds. Vitamin Rich 100% Carrot is composed exclusively of carrot juice. It contains nothing bad and it is gluten free and does not appear to contain any meat or dairy products in it, so it IS Vegan compliant! As well, there are no preservatives, artificial flavors or colors or genetically modified ingredients!

This drink is also exceptionally healthy for you. One serving of Vitamin Rich 100% Carrot Juice has no fat and only 70 calories. While there are 14 grams of sugars and 2 grams of protein, the beverage has no cholesterol! There is 150 mg (6% RDA) of sodium in each serving. A single serving is a decent source of Vitamin C. It has more than your daily needs for Vitamin A.

Storage/Clean-up

Bolthouse Farms Vitamin Rich 100% Carrot Juice comes in a plastic bottle and it keeps for only a few months. The bottle I bought the in mid-February had an expiration date of February 11, 2012 (which is when I actually consumed this and wrote this review!). This beverage must be refrigerated!

This drink is a vegetable product and bright orange. If this gets on clothes, it will certainly stain them. Consult a care guide for your clothes, though I suspect light clothes would need bleach to get this out. Still, the drink wipes off surfaces easily with a cloth, assuming they are impermeable.

Overall

Bolthouse Farms Vitamin Rich 100% Carrot Juice is not superlative on the nutrition front (unless you suffer from some form of Vitamin A deficiency) and tastes absolutely awful. There are better ways to love healthy than consuming this drink!

For other Bolthouse beverages, please check out my reviews of:
Antioxidant Rich Berry Boost Smoothie
Perfectly Protein Chocolate
Protein Plus Vanilla Chai

2/10

For other food reviews, please visit my index page for a complete listing by clicking here!

© 2012 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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