This is one of those things that you either love it or hate it. I don’t know anyone who kind of likes it, or thinks its ok, it’s like marmite in that respect.
This is primarily tomato juice with a few added extras, seven to be precise, including celery, and parsley, which I think gives it its distinctive taste, and is the deciding factor in wether you are a lover or a hater. It’s a very bitter after taste and it puts some people off. The ingredients of V8 are tomatoes, carrots, watercress, beets, lettuce, spinach, celery, parsley.
V8 is not a cheap drink, it is around 55p for a 330ml can or £1.09, for a 500ml bottle, as you can see the cans work out cheaper which I have not been able to work out, usually the more you buy of something, the cheaper it gets. I have looked on the web for homemade style V8 recipes, in order to save money, of which there are several. Here is one below.
Title: Homemade V8 Juice Categories: Yield: 6 Quarts
15 lb Ripe tomatoes; chopped 2 c Celery;
chopped 3 lg Onions; chopped 3 Cloves garlic; Minced/mashed 1/4 c Sugar; or to taste 2 tb Salt 3/4 ts Pepper 2 ts Prepared horseradish 1/3 c Lemon juice Worcestershire to taste
Over medium high heat bring the vegetables to a boil and boil gently for about 20 minutes.
In a covered blender (food processor) and a portion at a time process until smooth. Strain and discard pulp.
Add seasonings and bring to just under boiling if canning, or chill and freeze.
Yield about 6 quarts.The thing I find about this is , that by the time you have bought all these ingredients, it is cheaper to buy the real thing, unless you work in a fruit and veg market or something, where you can get these ingredients cheaply, or live nearby to a local market.
You could I suppose buy a carton of tomato juice and add the other ingredients to it, that would be a help, but remember that you can not just pulp the vegetables in a food blender, and mix it all up, you need to extract the juice, from the pulp of the vegetables.
You can buy fruit and vegetable juicers relatively easily these days, but the domestic ones you can get, in Argos for example are not really very effective. You are looking at a couple of hundred pounds, to get anything that will extract a worthwhile amount of juice from the vegetables to prevent wasting a lot of the available juice. The cheapest only extract about 20% of the available juice.
I think unless you drink a lot of it you may as well just treat yourself to the real thing every now and again, and leave the home made stuff to the self sufficiency crew, it is not the sort of thing you would drink gallons of everyday. It may be worthwhile if you have a lot of people to cater for.
There are any number of recipes you can use V8 as an ingredient for, basically wherever you read tomato juice just substitute V8 instead, it’s a bit of a rule of thumb but I think it would work in most cases. None of the recipes I have seen seem to be any different to that. Its just a more complex and sophisticated flavour than your standard tomato juice.
V8 is caffeine free, gluten free, less than 5% fat, lactose free, vegan, wheat free, yeast free, around 70 calories per 330ml serving.
Vitamins A and C are essential for a balanced diet. Vitamin "A" is important for healthy skin and vision and Vitamin "C" is needed for healthy bones and teeth. V8 provides an excellent source of both vitamins A and C. The blend of 8 vegetable juices in V8 is a satisfying way to put the power of vitamins A and C into your diet.
Recent research suggests that diets rich in tomatoes and tomato products may have long term health benefits. Tomatoes are a natural source of essential nutrients, and vitamins A & C. They also contain lycopene, a carotenoid pigment that provides their red colour. Lycopene is a natural antioxidant with tomatoes and tomato products are its major source in the diet. Lycopene appears to be more absorbed to the body if the tomatoes are cooked or have been under heat processed; that is because during cooking, lycopene will be released from the cell membranes to the tomato. In addition, canned tomato products tend to be concentrated sources of lycopene. An 8oz glass of V8 100% Vegetable Juice has 17mg of lycopene, whereas a medium-sized tomato contains only 3.8 mg of lycopene.
The image of V8 is a bit naff. It’s perceived as a bit of a veggies drink, though it’s a lot healthier than popping a can of coke every time you want a drink. I’m not saying you should only drink vegetable juices but it is good for you, and definitely worth substituting for the odd coke now and again, to get those extra vitamins etc, instead of just sugar. it comes in quite a trendy can and would go well with a packed lunch or sandwich at dinner time.
There is also a new variety of V8, which is called V8 splash this is the fruit juice equivalent, though I am not as convinced by this product as I am by the vegetable juice. It is claimed to have similar properties to the V8 vegetable juice, in terms of extra vitamins etc. but I think they are trying to cash in on what is an already successful product. I don’t think you can just transpose the properties of one product on to another, and make the same claims for it. I have not tried this one.
The availability of V8 seems a bit limited in by experience, the only place I have found it in my local area is Holland and Barrett.
The web site at www.V8.com has a range of additional information.
p.s. don't forget to shake the can!
Pictures of Campbells V8 Vegetable Juice
A 330ml can of V8
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
I like the tinned variety but in regards to the recipe OK this sounds interesting.... I have a juicer which now lurks in the depths of 'that' kitchen cupboard... but it does sound like hard work...x
salem_witch 09.04.2004 21:28
Eww I don't think I'd like this!
Bossman1959 09.04.2004 13:01
I tend to agree with the comment about it being just as expensive to make it yourself. I considered it too but decided against it.
I am not a veggie but love the stuff. I would buy it more often buy its too expensive to buy.
Good review
Cheers.....Paul
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