Ito En Veggie Shot
By Marvo | September 3, 2008
Somewhere in the heavens, Jack LaLanne is laughing at us and yelling “I told you so, motherfuckers! I told you juicing is a great way for you to get your vegetables, bitches!” It turns out that the old man was right and if I had a time machine, I would go back in time to purchase a Jack LaLanne Juice Tiger in three easy installments of $29.95 plus shipping and handling and receive a set of Ginsu Knives absolutely free if I order it within the next 20 minutes.
Oh wait. I’ve just been told that Jack LaLanne is still alive thanks to juicing and that he will probably live longer than I will and when I’m dead, he will dance on my grave.
I may not have a Juice Tiger, but I probably have the second best thing — the Ito En Veggie Shot. Developed in the same country that gave us one billion episodes of Dragonball and game shows that are one billion times more entertaining than American ones, the Japanese drink shoehorns TWENTY vegetables and three fruits into one beverage, which bests the eight vegetables in a V8 Vegetable Drink and the seven to ten vegetables MTV sticks into each Real World house.
The clusterfuck of veggies and fruits in the Ito En Veggie Shot include: apples, lemons, white grapes, carrots, spinach, sweet potato, red bell peppers, green beans, celery, lettuce, broccoli, kale, pumpkin, green bell peppers, asparagus, napa cabbage, komatsuna, ashitaba, parsley, watercress, cabbage, radish, and Japanese honewort. It doesn’t specifically say on the bottle, but I’m pretty sure an 8-ounce cup of this blended farmer’s market provides a serving of vegetables.
With two and half times more vegetables than a V8 Vegetable Juice, I was expecting the Ito En Veggie Shot to taste like a rabbit’s wet dream, but it has a surprisingly fruity flavor, like the V8 Fusion drinks, thanks to the three fruits also included with the veggies. When the beverage first hit my tongue, it tasted like apple juice and after that it was more of a sweet vegetable taste, slightly similar to the Odwalla Superfood green sludge.
With twenty vegetables, you might think that the Ito En Veggie Shot is healthier and provides more vitamins than a V8 Vegetable Juice, but unfortunately that wasn’t the case. The Japanese drink has less sodium than a regular V8, but the V8 has less calories, more potassium, less carbs, less sugar, more fiber, more protein, more vitamins, and mixes well with vodka in a Bloody Mary. However, even the V8’s healthiness isn’t enough for me to choose it over the Ito En Veggie Shot’s taste.
(Nutrition Facts - 8 ounces - 80 calories, 0 grams of fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 65 milligrams of sodium, 400 milligrams of potassium, 18 grams of carbohydrates, 1 grams of dietary fiber, 17 grams of sugar, 0 grams of protein, 20% Vitamin A, 2% Calcium, and 100 milligrams of Japanese ingenuity.)
Item: Ito En Veggie Shot
Price: $2.99
Size: 30.4 ounces
Purchased at: Nijiya Market
Rating: 7 out of 10
Pros: Surprisingly good. Contains 100% juice and twenty different vegetables and three fruits. Better tasting than V8 because it has a fruity flavor. Easy to drink. It initially tastes like apple juice. No added sugar or salt. Jack LaLanne is still alive. Japanese game shows. Getting Ginsu Knives for free.
Cons: Not as healthy and full of vitamins as V8. Not sure if some of the vegetables make a difference, like parsley. Might be hard to find if you don’t have a Asian grocer near you. Jack LaLanne will live longer than me. The billions of Dragonball episodes.
Topics: 7 Rating, Beverage, Japan, Juice | |
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September 3rd, 2008 at 12:09 AM
for $2.99, I’d rather buy one and a half of the grotesque but strangely inviting pita snack over this drink of 23 veggies and fruits (btw I counted the list you had till I realized the picture has the #’s of veggies and fruits listed. fuck.)
September 3rd, 2008 at 2:36 AM
Ah, you brought back scary memories of my mom standing in front of the tv stretching with Jack!
September 3rd, 2008 at 2:54 AM
lol Jack LaLane is still alive!!
September 3rd, 2008 at 3:32 AM
From What I read about him Jack LaLane got a lot of Tail In the late 50s It must be all that dam Juice. You know who else was a real Whore master in the early 60s Don Knotts. When filming the Andy Griffith show When the cameras were not rolling
is hand was on every female ass on the set.
In any Event The juice looks alright.
September 3rd, 2008 at 3:36 AM
Hey! I’m a big Dragonball AND Akira Toriyama fan. Of course, that doesn’t include the upcoming live action movie or the english dubs, but still!
And I suspect Jack LaLane adds a special ingredient to each of his glasses of juiced juices to really get that juicing effect. It’s not natural for an old man that age to have such tight skin…it’s gotta be steroids.
September 3rd, 2008 at 3:39 AM
I was just thinking “If only there was a way I could drink my daily dose of honewort, my life would be complete.”.
Thank you for once again completing my life, Marvo.
September 3rd, 2008 at 4:22 AM
I usually buy the low sodium V8, myself. To make it spicy, I add some tabasco sauce.
September 3rd, 2008 at 4:37 AM
You’re going to have to drink this with every Jack in the Box meal you consume in order for it to effectively counterbalance all the greasy things you have been eating for our sakes. :(
September 3rd, 2008 at 6:49 AM
Somehow, Heidi…I don’t think that would work very well. Marvo would be better off getting a hooker to suck all that fat and grease out via one of his openings…I’ll leave it up to Marvo to decide which ones.
September 3rd, 2008 at 7:52 AM
Hmm… I think he will have to have one every hour on the hour to counter all that Jack in the box, plus a triple bypass. :p
I think I will stick with my V8 juice!
September 3rd, 2008 at 9:30 AM
That is true, Reprobate, but Marvo might also contract whatever venereal diseases the hooker might have on her person. This is a dilemma here!
September 3rd, 2008 at 1:31 PM
hahahaha you reveiw a veggie juice and we bring up you hookers
September 3rd, 2008 at 1:33 PM
I thought the topic was about “Ito En Veggie Shot” Great work Marvo.
Thanks for sharing
September 3rd, 2008 at 7:53 PM
Hmm…since when can one contract venereal diseases from the mouth? Most disturbing, indeed!
September 3rd, 2008 at 8:31 PM
oh there is a lot one can contract from the mouth, believe you me….
September 4th, 2008 at 7:51 AM
ewww veggies.
September 4th, 2008 at 2:24 PM
Those are very good. There is a whole shelf of them and a few other drinks like that at the Seiyu (Wal-Mart’s corporate takeover in Japan) by my house.
September 4th, 2008 at 7:20 PM
@Cap - That’s okay. We men don’t like to read instructions or labels. Wait…you are a dude, right?
@Candy - I hope she wasn’t in a leopard print leotard. That would be even scarier.
@lucy - Oh snap! You jinxed him. He’s in trouble.
@Neil - What? Muthafuckin’ Don Knotts was a man-whore. That’s the equivalent of Vern Troyer getting some. I’m pretty sure those ladies must have put a bag over Mr. Knotts head or at least put something over his eyes.
@Reprobate - I’m not a big Dragonball fan, but seriously, the fight scenes are fucking long. I’ll see Goku fight a bad guy in one episode and then six episodes later, he’s fighting the same guy in the same place.
@armauld - You’re welcome.
@Chuck - I hope you drink it chilled.
@Heidi - IF I did that, my pee would turn orange.
@Reprobate - I choose my belly button, but if the hooker uses her tongue, she’s going to make me laugh and the fat and grease will come out of other holes.
September 4th, 2008 at 7:29 PM
@Lex - I think if I were to do that, I would have red diarrhea for about a week.
@Heidi - I believe Jack LaLanne said that juicing will also make you repel any VD. All I need is a Juice Tiger, get Paris Hilton off of her Valtrex and I can test it.
@MintWrecker - I want someone to create a meat juice, let me review it, and see what you folks bring up.
@Meshie - If I can go on tangents, so can the commenters.
@Reprobate - With Paris Hilton, anything is possible.
@shNermal - One thing someone can contract from my mouth, a desire for more of my mouth…or a piece of meat that was stuck in between my teeth.
@Alisha - Ooooh yeah. Veggies. Oh, you like that, veggies. Uh huh, veggies. Smack it, veggies.
@JJ - The market I got it from just opened up a couple of weeks ago and I am loving it. I get to buy products that I have no idea what they are and get to make up names for them.
September 5th, 2008 at 6:15 AM
@Marvo - Ohh what a fun read. *SMILE*
September 5th, 2008 at 9:16 PM
@Meshie - :)