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I try to cook things from scratch and not eat too many prepared foods. For example, I often bake my own bread and fix pancakes from scratch. I also make blueberry or blackberry syrup from real berries and add sugar and corn starch because the ones in the grocery store are mostly corn syrup.

I also am not a coffee drinker, so I drink some soft drinks (aka "pop" in Michigan), but I also make a lot of iced tea every few days. And one of my favorite drinks in grapefruit juice, though I have to add a little water and some sugar, depending if I get it in Florida where it is sweeter or someplace else.

Anyway, for some variety, I decided to buy the 100% no-sugar-added and not-from-concentrate cranberry juice at Walmarts. I had tried the cherry and the pomegranate juice a while back. So last week, I figured I'd try the cranberry juice variety. A couple of days ago, I opened the big glass bottle and poured it into a couple of plastic containers I have that take up less refrigerator room. I took a small sip and WOW! You would not believe how sour and how strong tasting 100% cranberry juice is!!!

Anyway, I have been adding sugar and watering it down to make it drinkable, but so far it has taken about an equal amount of water and a ton of sugar, and it is still really sour!! I had had the same experience with the cherry and pomegranate juice, but somehow I thought cranberry juice would be sweeter. No wonder the second ingredient in Cranberry juice "cocktail" is water and the third is sugar! That also explains why they mix it with apple juice and raspberry juice. At least what I have mixed up has no preservatives and tastes pretty good, but I had no idea how much sugar or watering down it took! The good news is that a big jug that cost $4.99 ends up giving me at least twice as much juice. And of course, there are no chemicals or preservatives.

I don't buy any juices that have sugar added. And I don't own sugar to add to anything. It's kind of like how surprised I was when I'd see people adding sugar to grapefruit, strawberries or other fruits. It's an acquired taste, but I watch my sugar intake more than salt. I have found myself cheating the last few years with ice cream and cakes, etc and thus my weight gain and triglyceride numbers I'm sure are rising again. I'll gladly eat the actual fruits and their natural sugars but no added sugars. Good thing I like sour, eh?

Beth, you are doing it right! Sugar is so very bad for humans!
Velda

If you have a bladder infection and the doctor recommends cranberry juice it is the pure juice as the other has so little cranberry juice in it because of the sugary additions, and yes it is sour so water to dilute is the way to go. I cut way back on sugar and find I don't use sugar to sweeten fruit like fresh strawberries. I do the same in baking pies if fruit is sweet I add very little sugar. I never put sugar on cereal or oats. If I cook berries for a topping I taste the fruit and only add sugar if it's needed, it thickens well enough to make a small amount without it. I too think sugar is like salt, an acquired taste. It took me a year to slowly wean off of adding extra salt to my food, now I use spices instead of salt. About the only thing I add salt to is mashed potatoes. I have an A1C check at semi annual doctors visits. I want to do everything I can to not develop diabetes.
Like Beth, I never buy fruit juices as they have a lot of sugar. If you read labels you will put a lot of items back on the shelf. I am way to thin right now and it is a struggle to eat enough to gain weight and keep the sugar intake down.

There are 31 grams of carbohydrates per cup in pure unsweetened cranberry juice. All carbohydrates are processed as sugar/ glucose, even fiber to some degree! Sugar triggers insulin release and insulins sole job is to put sugar into fat, including turning glucose in the blood stream into fat and shoving it into cells as fat storage in order to protect the blood stream from too high blood sugar. Humans were never designed to take in sugar year around, every single day! Whether its that 31 grams in unsweetened cranberry or the pastries, or the daily banana or the baked sweet potato, it's all processed as sugar/ glucose. Then there is fructose, terribly damaging to blood vessels. Carbohydrates elevate triglycerides and triglycerides make vessels stickier so cholesterol gets stuck instead of doing it's job. Cholesterol that damages does not come from beef or butter, it is manufactured by your body and gets stuck to sticky blood vessels! But sugar/ carbohydrates are the most damaging thing you consume, alongside seed oils. Stop drinking your carbs, which is the fastest form of carbs to blood stream!
And if you think, " I'm skinny, I don't have to worry", look up,what "skinny fat" means.
I'm passionate about the truth , having been blatantly lied to by the food industry for my whole life.
Velda