In terms of the Agave, you are spot on. If you drank 8 oz. of pure Agave and 8 oz. of any other sweetener, Agave wouldn’t make a huge difference other than being slower to be taken up into your system as it has a very low glycemic index (only the Raw Blue Agave can make that claim with an index of 4 to 6. Many of the other Agave species and processed ones are quite bad). Since Agave is high in Fructose (just like Apples, Pears, etc.) it is processed in the Liver. So overloading it can possibly lead to Liver issues. However, you’d have to really go nuts with it for many years to realize such an
issue.
The beauty of Agave in our juice comes in two morsels:
1- It’s naturally sweeter than sugar and corn syrup so we don’t have to use near as much! Take note of the fact that our juice has only 16 grams of sugar instead of the 26 to 38 of all other blended juices.
2- The Agave nectar in its unprocessed form like we use is very much like molasses. For that reason it neutralizes the tartness a little more than sugar, which supports us using even less of it. We use 1.25 oz. of Raw Agave for the entire bottle! When I was experimenting with Sugar and other sweeteners I had to use so much of it that I had to significantly lower the amount of Cranberry (currently we have more than double the amount of Cranberry than ANY other blended juice). Without a lot of Cranberry, it might as well be called something else!
Re: Unsweetened Dried Cranberries. I’ll look into what it will take process wise to make some!
Re: the benefits of Apple Juice. The apple juice is indeed Organic but the Cranberries are not which is explained by following the link above. I’m not an expert regarding the use of Apple vs. Sugar. However my gut instinct has always been that eating something that came from mother nature and isn’t processed or adulterated is better than something that isn’t!
I’ll be in Seattle this weekend, so I could leave some cases with my friends–I’m staying with them this time so I won’t forget! 🙂
All the best,
Tim
From Tim at the Vincent Cranberry Farm on Jul 27, 2010
Greetings all! My wife Dani, my 6 yr old Cale and I are in our little mini van driving back from what has to be the 2nd most beautiful place on earth besides my hometown of Bandon, Oregon(insert bias footnote here).Many apologies for all the mix ups in getting the juice ‘hot potatoed’ (spellcheck from Dan Quayle needed) up to your co-op.We enjoyed our short but beautiful drive. It was Cale’s first ferry ride when we took the long way back south from Mt. Vernon through Oak Harbor and on to the Ferry that zipped us over to Mukilteo.Please feel free to contact me with any questions or suggestions, etc.
You can follow our farming and juice company adventures on Facebook by clicking the link from our website www.vincentcranberries.com
It’s an honor that you have taken our family into your homes and onto your dinner table.
Best,
Tim
