Marks & Spencer Blackcurrant High Juice Squash: Product Review

Are you getting your five or ten a day?   (Five or ten servings of fruit and vegetables, I’m talking about.  You knew that, didn’t you?)  If you love fruit then you probably have fond memories of glugging Ribena as a kid: mums everywhere were firmly convinced of its virtues and high vitamin C content.  Kids just knew that it tasted good and they couldn’t get enough of it! 

Blackcurrant cordial is made from the fruit of the blackcurrant bush, ribes nigri. Probably the most famous and celebrated of these cordials, in the UK at least, is Ribena. It’s popular: but it ain’t cheap! Are there any more economical alternatives out there?

If that’s what you’re looking for, then Marks and Spencer’s Blackcurrant High Juice might be just the job.  It’s a fifty per cent fruit juice cordial, trumpeted on the label to have ‘no artificial colours, aritificial flavourings or sweeteners’.  Can’t say fairer than that!  And compared to the market leaders, the price is a steal: less than £1.50 for a big one litre bottle.

What are the nutritional virtues of blackcurrants? There’s the aforementioned vitamin C, plus anthocyanins (a type of polyphenol) and the omega-6 fatty acid gamma-linolenic acid or GLA. Take a wander through the academic literature and find out all about their manifold virtues!

Are there any other interesting facts and figures regarding Marks & Spencer Blackcurrant High Juice Squash? Hey, it’s vegan, says so right there on the label: good news for all vegans, something delicious you can actually have. (There are so many you can’t.) Other than that, it’s yummy, it’s fruity, it has a million and one uses – drink, fizzed up base for ice cream sodas, syrup ingredient for ice-cream, you can use it for ice lollies – think up your own ideas! It’s one of those things that always finds its way into my shopping basket – try some out for yourself!

References.

1 Nathan-Maister, D. 'Manufacture & Distillation of Alcoholic Liquors by P.Duplais.' Oxygenee Ltd., 2008.

2 Mcdonald, P., Dyer, W.W. 'The Perfect Gene Diet: Use Your Body's Own APO E Gene to Treat High Cholesterol, Weight Problems, Heart Disease, Alzheimer's...and More!' USA; Hay House Inc., 2010.

3 Hollands, W., Brett, G.M., Radreau, P., Shikha, S., Teucher, B., Bennett, R.N., Kroon, P.A. 'Processing blackcurrants dramatically reduces the content and does not enhance the urinary yield of anthocyanins in human subject.' Food Chemistry. 108(3); 2008: pp. 869-878.