Mixing a Healthier Pitcher of Lemonade

Remember lemonade? You know, that old-fashioned thirst quencher from the days before Orange Strawberry Guava Twister and Spirulina Smoothie? That drink that kids used to sell from rickety tables on lazy, hot summer afternoons before their lives were organized on Filofaxes?

Lemonade is still alive and selling, and for many, it’s a nostalgic refresher that can’t be beat. But in this era of nutritional correctness, how does it rate?

“A lot of people think of it as closer to orange or grapefruit juice than to soft drinks,” says Bonnie Liebman, director of nutrition at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a Washington-based consumer advocacy group. But it’s only “a smidgen better” than soda, Liebman said.

In fact, when it comes to calories and sugar content, most lemonades are almost identical to Coke. Eight ounces, or one cup, of Coke has 100 calories and 27 grams of sugar, pretty close to most store-bought lemonades. That’s equivalent to about seven teaspoons of sugar.

But at least lemonade “gets across the idea that we should be consuming fruit,” said Liebman, although most lemonades have very little lemon juice in them. Whether they’re ready-to-drink or made from concentrate or powder, they range from about 5% to 15% juice.

“Even though you’re getting some vitamin C from the lemon juice,” says Melanie Polk, director of nutrition education at the American Institute for Cancer Research, “there are a lot better sources of vitamin C that can also provide other nutrients as well.”

If you really want to split hairs in search of vitamin C, opt for lemonade made from frozen concentrate. Many contain 20% of the recommended daily allowance for vitamin C per serving; other types of lemonade usually contain less than 2%.

“Freezing locks in the vitamins,” says Chris Bozman, spokeswoman for Minute Maid. “During processing and distribution, the vitamin C degrades.”

There are other ways to increase the vitamin content of lemonade, and there are also ways to lower its calorie content.

But beware: Making your own is not necessarily one of them because of the amount of sugar needed to make it drinkable; commercial lemonades may contain less sugar because they are generally made with high-fructose corn syrup, which is more potent than the sugar most people use at home. Still, you can’t beat the fresh taste of homemade.

True aficionados will want to drink it straight, but everybody from people on the Internet to cookbook authors and restaurateurs have come up with mixers for lemonade. Here are some ideas for the dog days.

To boost lemonade’s juice and vitamin content:

* Mix it with 100% juices such as orange or pineapple. It tastes good, and the drinks can be garnished with slices of fresh fruit. At Brasserie T, a restaurant in the Chicago area, lemonade is mixed with passion fruit or mango juice.

* Turn it pink by mixing it with cranberry juice or flavor extensions such as cranberry apple. (Minute Maid and Zeigler’s use grape-skin extract or grape-juice concentrate.)

* Add pureed fruit. In “Nicole Routhier’s Fruit Cookbook” (Workman, 1996), author Routhier suggests pureeing watermelon or raspberries and mixing either with lemonade. Then you can top the drink or pitcher with wedges of watermelon or whole raspberries, she says. On the Web, the Health Department of Western Australia suggests pureeing kiwi fruit and pouring the liquefied flesh into glasses of lemonade. (This isn’t bad, although those little black kiwi seeds don’t go away, giving the drink a polka-dot look and odd texture.)

To lower lemonade’s calorie content:

* Buy the sugar-free variety, and dilute it with diet 7-Up, Sprite or ginger ale, seltzer, plain club soda, or sugar-free flavored sparkling waters such as Key lime or blackberry. Garnish with lime slices or fresh mint.

* Dilute with regular or flavored iced teas. Newman’s Own Inc., makers of Newman’s Own Lemonade, recommends one part lemonade, one part cold Red Zinger.

* Infuse with a strong flavoring such as fresh ginger and water down the lemonade with lots of crushed ice. Bacchus, a Lebanese restaurant with locations in the Washington area, adds rose water to its lemonade.