Otherwise, that fruit drink may not be a healthy choice. The mysteries behind fruit drink labelling The nutritionists Street Cents talked to said the label on the bottle of a fruit drink is the best way to find out what's inside. Companies list ingredients on a drink label in order of volume, from most to least. If one of the first three ingredients in the drink is sugar, nutritionists say it probably doesn't have much real juice in it. The only exception to this is cranberry juice.
Cranberries are very sour, so manufacturers use a lot of sugar to sweeten the juice.
Manufacturers aren't doing anything wrong if they call a drink a fruit beverage, even if the main ingredient isn't fruit. This is legal. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has a guide to food labelling which manufacturers must follow. The agency explained the official guidelines to Street Cents. The main label also has to show the total juice content.