Explain Yourself, Minute Maid Lemonade

0% juice? Really? But you have a picture of beautiful, fresh lemons on your label… if you have 0% juice, why are those lemons there? Shouldn’t you have a picture of a pile of citric acid, maybe someone snorting it off a table like Mark Wahlberg in Boogie Nights? But seriously, why can’t you put a little real lemon juice in your lemonade. It’s really not that hard to do. Little kids do it all the time and they sell it for $0.50 at a table on the street though today’s kids probably charge more so they can buy an iPad mini. We’re getting off topic. How are people ok with this? Why don’t we boycott Minute Maid until they make their lemonade with a few–ok, just ONE–real lemon? Who’s with me? Real change starts here.

17 thoughts on “Explain Yourself, Minute Maid Lemonade”

  1. Kate @ Savour Fare

    I think it has lemon juice, just not enough to rise to the level of 1%. Which means it is 99.x% water and high fructose corn syrup and citric acid.

  2. I’m with you! It’s amazing that people don’t care. Any time I see someone drinking these “juices” or any soda that’s all food coloring and corn syrup I just wonder, do people know what they’re putting into their bodies? Like if you saw those ingredients before they were mixed into a drink and packaged, you would in no way want to consume them.

  3. Amazed anyone buys this crap. It is to lemonade what fruit roll ups are to fresh strawberries. If I see Lemonade on the menu, I ask specifically if it’s fresh squeezed or not. If it’s Minute Maid I turn up my nose and ask for a water.

  4. Melinda Montana

    I’m with you! I don’t think you should be able to show lemons on a label right next to the 0 percent juice sign…it’s just wrong.

  5. So many people are willing to buy 1% lemonade I guess they figure, why bother adding anything real at all! And citric acid is gmo btw, if anyone cares. I just make my own – it’s pretty easy and much more delicious fresh, like anything. I like knowing that each ingredient is wholesome.

  6. What Kate said. Just because it’s 0% lemon juice doesn’t mean there is NO juice in it… *rolling my eyes at myself and chuckling*

  7. Sorry to inform you that little kids sell Country Tyme or some other blend of aspartame, F D & C Yellow #5, and citric acid and they charge $1.00 a cup. Also be aware that should you stop and buy a cup and attempt to discreetly dump it out your window a block away, that stuff will damage the finish on your car door.

  8. Ac Sutherland

    Thanks Adam for your astute observation! I shared your post on my FB page. We need an entire FB page or website dedicated to the fakery that is so prevalant in the food industry!

  9. The ingredient list i found is:
    Ingredients (13):
    Water, Corn Syrup High Fructose, Citric Acid, Lemon(s) Juice, Flavoring Natural, Sugar, EDTA, Glycerol Ester of Wood Rosin, Potassium Sorbate, Sodium Benzoate, Sodium Hexametaphosphate, Yellow 5, Corn Starch Modified

    (WTF is “glucerol ester of wood rosin?!?!)
    I would support your boycott but i never bought the stuff in the first place….

    1. Glycerol ester of wood rosin is good for you. It’s the healthiest alternative to brominated vegetable oil. Remember the girl that made the big stink about that being in Gatorade?? Everything else in there is crap except for the water, citric acid, natural flavor and sugar.

  10. It likely doesn’t really matter. ALL fruit juices at the store are either pasteurized or concentrated (oxygen removed) – either way ALL flavor is removed requiring artificial flavoring to be added. They somehow are not required to say this on the label because the source for the man-made chemicals is the original fruit. This allows the juice to last more than a day (which fresh squeezed would not do due to the bacteria that exists in fresh fruit)… a good thing really. Thus, I believe if they added “real” juice, it would be flavorless and you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference anyway. Welcome to the modern world. For another modern world trivia, processing meat removes the B6 (important for your brain to work), which is why B6 the greatest B vitamin deficiency in the average American diet. Also, they have to add the vitamin D back to milk after processing destroys it… etc, etc, etc.

    1. Huh? Concentrated means the base (usually water) has been removed. You were partially right, just forgot part of the molecule. :)

  11. I just googled it because I saw the same thing at the drink machine where I am eating. How does lemonade contain no juice. That’s ridiculous.

  12. Don’t pin the blame on artificial flavoring, some of those actually taste good. Minute Maid tastes like piss on it’s own merit. I honestly would prefer some corn syrup mixed with water. If you want a decent lemonade poser use country time from powder.

  13. Man I totally agree!! I just noticed this the other day because I always drink ice tea and lemonade now and was completely flabbergasted when I saw this. How is there no juice?? I mean this can’t be healthy right?? All this artificial flavor?? Fuck that Minute Maid, you better change your fucking recipe you assholes

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