Ranking of lemonades based on how (un)healthy they are (2024)

Which one contains less than a cup of sugar and removes the least amount of enamel from your teeth?

Lemonade: It's incredibly refreshing on a hot day. We buy it from enterprising kids who are trying to make money. It has the platonic ideal combination of sweet, sour and chilled. It's the stuff of barbecues, family gatherings and a well-deserved glass of Arnold Palmer after mowing the lawn. It's basically the unofficial drink of the summer, right? Lemonade is so delicious that it has become the ultimate parable of turning something bad into something good (you know, that cliché about lemons). No one ever said that about orangeade!

The problem is that there is no such thing as a "healthiest" lemonade because it requires large amounts of sugar to balance the acidity of the lemons. And according to dentists, the acidity of lemons themselves can penetrate and erode your tooth enamel(which doesn't exactly complement all the sugar mentioned above). So 'healthy' is all relative. But because it's so delicious, and because there are so many different types of lemonade out there – frozen, fountain, bottled, homemade, alcoholic – we've ranked them from healthiest (relatively speaking) to least healthy, with with the help of Dana Hunnes, senior dietitian at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center.

So before all our teeth fall out, let's get started.

1) San Pellegrino-limonadeand homemade lemonade (tied).When it comes to San Pellegrino's delicious cans of flavored soda – oops, I mean 'Limonata,' says Hunnes, 'of the non-homemade lemonades, this is probably the 'healthiest,' although it still has way too much sugar then the is. necessary in my book. I say this is the healthiest because it has the least amount of calories for the serving size: about 10 calories per ounce, which isn't that bad. But 120 calories for a drink is something like Soft drink, and a bit much in my book because of the sugar. In any case, it contains no colorings or flavorings.”

The same goes for homemade lemonade - which we used this popular recipe for the pipes as an example. “[It has] simple ingredients and the best part is that you can make it as sweet or not as sweet as you want. So it definitely has the potential to be a lot healthier than anything else on this list,” says Huns. would definitely go easy on the sugar to start. You can always add more, but it's impossible to remove it." She also adds that you can sweeten it with Stevia or monk fruit sweetener - if you find those things tasty (Hunnes is personally not a fan of the taste of Stevia) .

2) Santa Cruz organic lemonade.It's the kind of fancy stuff you'd find at a restaurant like Whole Foods. But is it actually much better than the cheaper lemonade rinse? Hunnes thinks so. “Of the lemonades being made, this one certainly has less sugar than many others, and at least the ingredients are pretty clean,” she says. "Still, it has too much sugar and I would recommend diluting it, but at 11 calories per ounce it's not the worst."

3) Trader Joe's Organic Lemonade.We can't ignore Trader Joe's here, with its private label version of every food and drink known to man. How is their lemonade? “Aside from the fact that each ounce contains 15 calories and way too much sugar, at least the ingredient list is clean, except that sugar is one of the first ingredients,” says Hunnes. "I would do it myself or dilute this with a little more water or sparkling water."

4) Sunkist-limonade.This bottled drink is a medicine vending machineand supermarkets across the country. So how bad is it? “This is basically a soda, even down to the high fructose corn syrup,” Hunnes explains. "Too much sugar is certainly far from healthy, and it has also added colorings that can be harmful to health." Wow.

5) Minute Maid Lemonade Frozen ConcentrateIn Minute Maid Fonteinlimonade(be bound to).As we get further down this list, things start to get bad quickly. Let's start with the can of frozen concentrate that you have to stir, mash, chop, and destroy in a pitcher full of water until it decides to turn into lemonade. “I'm not sure why it has to have high fructose corn syrup in it, but it does,” says Hunnes. “The worst thing about high fructose corn syrup is that it is lipogenic, which means it increases the chance that you will produce more fat in your body after drinking it, especially in large doses. Unfortunately, high fructose corn syrup is the first ingredient , meaning it has the most of it. Again, way too much sugar.”

The fountain version - the main component i Fast foodrestaurants and pizza joints– is much the same story, just with less effort on your part. “Still way too much sugar for my taste,” says Hunnes (pun probably intended). "Eight ounces contains 100 calories: 12.5 calories per ounce. That's a lot, and again, it comes from high fructose corn syrup, of which we need less, not more."

6) Mike's Hard Lemonade.We might have hoped for a surprise with this pick on the left, but finishing last is actually no surprise at all. Take it away, Dr. Females!

“This is like drinking a beer in terms of alcohol content, but with added sugar from lemonade. I would compare this to amixed drink', she says. 'At 230 calories per bottle, it's about 20 calories per ounce. I'd say if you want a beer, have a beer, if you want lemonade, have lemonade, but don't necessarily try to combine the two unless you don't mind all the calories that come with it. It certainly contains some of almost everything listed here.

So if you're thirsty and it's summer or a special occasion, knock yourself out, man. Enjoy your lemonade. Might want to add coachand brush your teeth before your next day's agenda, because if it tastes good you can bet it has a lot of fattening, tooth-rotting sugar and a little bit of tooth enamel melting acid in it.