Guilt free drinking?

Last summer for the first time in my whole life I decided to go on a diet. In fact, I'd like to rephrase that... I decided to look at the food I was eating and find away to eat better in order to lose a stone (and I succeeded.)

One of the things I became aware of as I tried to alter my eating was calories in drinks. Almost everything I was drinking except tea and water was more than 100 calories and it was really hard to find anything, even as a treat, that is low calorie (particularly if you don't do sweetners.)

I mention this because, over the last week it has suddenly occurred to me why people rave about juicing being the dieter's friend. We have been trying out the Vegesentials range. The range comes in two sizes for kids or adults, but the little shot size child's portions have got "diet friendly" written all over them at only 45 calories and even the big bottles are only 85-100 calories.

But I digress a little... These are not diet drinks. They were sent for us to try because they are aimed at kids who are picky about food to encourage them to consume the good things in fruit and veg and adults who are too busy to get their five a day.

Reactions to the range varied hugely in our house. My husband was appalled by them! He couldn't understand why anyone would take fruit juice and contaminate it with (horrors!) vegetables. He only tried one flavour and I doubt I'd get him to go back for a second even if I held him down...

Theo is more adventurous! He loved the dinky bottles the moment I opened the box, but was deeply untrusting of the green flavour (pineapple and cucumber) and stuck stubbornly to the red and orange ones. He absolutely loved drinking out of the bottle with a straw and often opened the fridge to ask for them.

Millie his 12 year-old cousin is a fan of smoothies and I wasn't sure she'd take to the less sweet flavour and less thick consistency of these, but I was wrong. Not wanting to waste a big one, I gave her a small one to sample and she came back for an adult size one too and declared it "lovely!"

And me? I loved them. I didn't think they'd be my kind of thing, but I couldn't stop drinking them. I loved the fact that they weren't overly sweet and that you could actually taste the ingredients (yes, even the vegetables!) and of course they are a good healthy drink option. The only down side I can see is they aren't cheap at around £2 a bottle, but I'd definitely buy them for a treat and especially if they were an option on a lunch menu when eating out.

If you want to try them Ocado and Waitrose stock them and I suspect we'll see them popping up all over the place soon...