V8 Spicy Hot

In desperation for something to drink or eat around here late in the evening I grabbed one of Joe's cans of Spicy Hot V8. I'm almost out of my Knudsen's Organic Vegetable Juice and I need that for making green juice in the morning. So I'm drinking this 11.5 oz of pureed vegetables in a can trying not to choke on the Tabasco-type vapors. It did hit the spot. But after finishing it I decided to read the ingredients list to see what it was that created the 'Spicy Hot'.

Here is the ingredient list of this can of supposedly 100% vegetable juice : Tomato juice from concentrate (water, tomato paste), reconstituted vegetable juice blend (water and concentrated juices of carrots, celery, beets, parsley, lettuce, watercress, spinach), salt, vitamin C (ascorbic acid), flavoring, citric acid.

1. First off, they obviously rounded up since if it truly was 100% juice then how could they add in the salt, vitamin C, FLAVORING (whatever THAT is), and citric acid.
2. Secondly, shouldn't there be some bell pepper juice or jalapeno pepper juice or the juice of SOME KIND of pepper in the thing if you are going to call it Spicy Hot Vegetable Juice?
3. Third, what is this FLAVORING? Quite often that's just a code word for MSG. If it's the pepper flavoring, why not just call it that so I know what I'm really drinking?
4. Forth, the main ingredient is WATER since all the juices are actually concentrates.
5. Fifth, let's face it, the main vegetable is tomatoes followed by carrots. Real celery is too strong of a flavor for most so there's probably not much of that in it. Based on the order of the ingredients, there are even less beets than celery, less parsley than beets, less lettuce than parsley, less watercress than lettuce and that leaves just the tiniest pinch of spinach. The percentage of any vegetable other than the tomatoes and carrots is pretty much negligible.

Now that I've totally ragged on V8, let's check out the ingredient list on the Knudsen Organic Very Veggie Juice. Supposedly 100% juice also: Filtered water (sufficient to reconstitute), organic tomato paste, organic vegetable juice blend (organic carrot, celery, beet, parsley, lettuce, watercress, spinach), organic grain vinegar, organic lemon juice concentrate, sea salt, dehydrated organic green bell peppers.

These two labels weren't really that different but I feel that the Knudsen one was more honest in that there were no mystery ingredients. I'm guessing that the certain mix of juices has been shown to be the perfect blend since it's in the same proportions in both brands.

I'm sticking with the Knudsens!