I might as well tell you. I am obese and suffer from Type 2 Diabetes. I am having mixed results (if even that) controlling both.
Anyway I know that it’s a proven fact that vegetables are very good for your health. In fact doubtless it was processed food that got me into this jam. Partly at least.
But it isn’t that simple. I have ulcerative colitis. It is well under control. But perhaps because of it, I can’t have raw fruits and vegetables. They disagree with me terribly. My gastroenterologist is aware of this. And he says so don’t have them. He also knows that I take a multivitamin complex. So I am not at risk for vitamin or mineral deficiency.
Anyway cooked fruit and vegetables are okay with me. Enter V-8. I can certainly have that. (I am drinking the generic equivalent. But that shouldn’t matter.) Is that enough? I also drink cranberry juice and pomegranate blueberry juice FWIW. It all helps doesn’t it?
Anyway my question still stands. But to update you, I have cautiously been introducing fresh fruit and vegetables into my diet. I take it with Loperamide HCl. A proctologist taught me that trick. And my gastroenterologist okayed it.
Is V-8 enough for what? What precisely are you asking?
What IBD meds are you on? Do you know your fecal calprotectin levels? How about your serum albumin and total protein levels? Your A1C?
Frankly, if your GI doc is satisfied with your diet and lab results as being healthy, I’d take his word over that of random folks online, even random docs online.
I took it as meaning something like, “Enough to count towards daily fruit/veg serving recommendations.” Can’t speak to whether or not it does, and there are numerous variations in that brand now.
If I understand correctly, a big part of what makes eating fruits and vegetables so healthy is the dietary fiber, and juices remove most of the fiber. Not sure how ulcerative colitis affects one’s recommended fiber intake.
Googling, there are nine grams of carbs in eight ounces of V8. Is that within your diet? I suspect that V8 has a lot of tomato juice in it. There may be better ways of getting your vegetables.
Is the answer as simple as “eat cooked vegetables”?
V-8 has sodium, if that’s a concern, and is mainly tomato juice. Frozen or even canned vegetables would be a better choice, both for nutrients/fiber and as something to fill you up.
Also, fruit juices contain a ton of added sugar, so don’t seem like a wise choice for a diabetic, to me. IANAD.
Drinking “low sodium” V8 is ok, but it contains a lot of water in addition to the veggies. To replace a day’s worth of vegetables, you’d have to drink a lot of it.
You could make your own vegetable smoothies using something like a NutriBullet. I think it would be cheaper in the long run than buying lots of V8, and you could avoid the salt.
This. For a diabetic, and especially for an overweight diabetic, anything concentrated is less good than the bulkier more natural form.
I’m utterly unqualifed to offer an opinion on the colitis side.
But if you know that cooked fruit/veg are about as good as juices for your colitis … well that’d be enough for me to decide in favor of food instead of juice if I was in that situation.
And if you know contrary, I propose you’d do well to follow that knowledge. YMMV.
Yes, I came here to make a joke about radial engines mounted transversally on your motorcycle where 24 cylinders is the absolute mininum. Never mind.
Had never heard of V8 as a veggie substitute. Don’t think I’ll bother my search engine, though.
Because of this thread I bought two bottles of it last time I grocery shopped. I went through a “phase” of drinking it years ago and hadn’t had it lately. One bottle I bought was the regular and one low sodium. The regular tasted too salty and the low sodium too bland so I drank half of each and mixed them. That was just about right for me.
