Weep for Your Childhood. Sunny D Makes a Friggin' Energy Drink Now
Photo credit: Sunny Delight Beverages Company
We need to talk. The Sunny Delight Beverages Company, which produces the five-percent-juice, neon-orange beverage of your youth, has unleashed a new drink on the unwitting public: SunnyD X, a carbonated juice drink styled as energy drink.
But it’s not an energy drink, the Sunny Delight Beverage Co. will have you know. It’s “an alternative for people seeking energy drinks,” according to a press release. It contains no caffeine. It contains no taurine, an amino acid associated with improved athletic performance.
So what makes SunnyD X an energy drink alternative?
"[We] chose to use sugar as a safer source of energy," company spokeswoman Sydney McHugh told Mother Jones. We’ll let that sink in. Sugar. The “X” in SunnyD X is sugar.
That translates to more calories than Coca-Cola: A 16-ounce can of SunnyD X has 200 calories, while the same amount of Coca-Cola Classic packs 187 calories.
These facts haven’t dampened the enthusiasm of some for the product, which is currently available only in independent convenience stores and select grocery chains in Boston, Philadelphia and Washington D.C.
This woman is flipping excited about it:
So is this guy:
And this guy:
And this gentleman is ready to declare this drink the best drink of all time:
In addition to SunnyD X’s minimal juice content, the beverage contains three types of sugary ingredients: glucose, sucrose (table sugar), and isomaltulose (a carbohydrate in honey and sugar cane that’s digested just like sugar).
The drink also contains seven B-vitamins that, according to the press release, “help metabolize the carbohydrates into energy.”
We, however, are skeptical that anyone might feel energetic after drinking SunnyD X. At least not for long—then, it’s a one-way ticket to sugar-crash city.
