Today’s juices come in seemingly endless varieties, each offering a spectrum of benefits from which to choose. Some are fortified with calcium and antioxidants, others have low acid and extra pulp, while still others are juice combinations that offer a blast of vitamins and calories. To control your calorie intake, it is advisable to to limit juice consumption to 8 ounces per day. To give you an idea of the calories and benefits of an 8-ounce serving, following is a list of fruit juices with their primary vitamin content and calorie values based on the recommended daily allowances for a 2,000-calorie diet. (This information comes from Eating for Pregnancy: The Essential Nutrition Guide and Cookbook for Today’s Mother’s-to-Be.)

After you choose your juice, here’s my simple health tip: add water. I always water down my juice, usually a half-half ratio (I add more for high-calorie juices, and less for vegetable ones ), and whenever I serve juice to my kids I do the same for them. No complaints, and since they’ve gotten used to the watered-down version, they agree with me that undiluted fruit juice is way too sweet. In this photo I show two glasses: the light one is pink guava juice, loaded with vitamin C and A, and the other is mangosteen-pomegranate juice, super high in vitamin C. Having these delicious varieties so readily available is one of the many perks of living in Malaysia. Makes me thirsty just looking at them.

Orange:         C = 207%   111 cals
Grapefruit:   C = 156%   96 cals
Carrot:           A = 539%, C = 35%   98 cals
Mango:         C = 130%   130 cals
Tangerine:   C = 128%  106 cals
Pineapple:    C = 45%   140 cals
Cranberry:    C = 149%  144 cals
Tomato:        C = 74%, A = 27%   41 cals
V-8 Juice:    C = 100%, A = 40%   50 cals

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