Izze Sparkling Juice is a better choice than soda, but it’s not the health drink its branding suggests. Each 8.4-ounce can contains about 19 grams of sugar and is made from 60% fruit juice concentrate mixed with sparkling water. There are no artificial sweeteners, preservatives, or caffeine, which puts it ahead of most soft drinks. But the sugar content and acidity still come with real trade-offs worth understanding.
What’s Actually in Izze
The ingredient list is short, which is genuinely one of Izze’s strengths. A can of the Clementine flavor contains juice concentrates from apple, white grape, orange, clementine, and acerola, plus sparkling water, citric acid, natural flavor, and a few added vitamins. The Blackberry flavor swaps in grape, blackberry, and raspberry juice concentrates. No sodium benzoate, no sucralose, no high-fructose corn syrup. For a flavored carbonated drink you’d grab at a convenience store, the ingredient list is unusually clean.
Some flavors are fortified with modest amounts of vitamins. The Blackberry variety, for instance, provides 20% of your daily vitamin C, 10% of niacin (vitamin B3), and 10% of vitamin B6. That’s a nice bonus, but not enough to justify drinking Izze for nutritional purposes. You’d get far more from a single piece of fruit.
The Sugar Problem
Here’s where things get complicated. Izze contains no “added sugar” by FDA labeling standards because all of its sugar comes from fruit juice concentrate. But your body doesn’t care about that distinction. The 19 grams of sugar in one can, roughly 4 teaspoons, hit your bloodstream in much the same way regardless of whether they originated from a sugar bowl or a concentrate.
For context, the American Heart Association recommends a daily limit of 25 grams of added sugar for women and 36 grams for men. A single Izze gets you most of the way there, and technically none of it counts as “added” on the label. This is one of the most misleading aspects of juice-based beverages. The “no added sugar” claim is accurate but gives the impression the drink is low in sugar, when it isn’t.
Fruit juice concentrate is essentially fruit with the water and fiber removed, leaving behind a syrup of natural sugars. When you eat a whole apple, the fiber slows digestion and moderates how quickly sugar enters your blood. Juice concentrate strips that fiber away. Research published in Nutrients found that fiber and compounds like polyphenols (found in fruit seeds and skin) can significantly reduce blood sugar spikes by slowing the rate at which sugar is absorbed in the small intestine. Izze’s concentrates don’t offer that benefit.
Acidity and Your Teeth
Izze is surprisingly acidic. Tooth enamel begins to erode at a pH of 5.5. Izze Sparkling Clementine has a pH of 3.27, Blackberry comes in at 3.28, and Pomegranate is even lower at 3.01. For comparison, pure water sits around 7.0 (neutral). That puts Izze in the same acidity range as many sodas.
This matters because the combination of acid and sugar is particularly rough on teeth. The acid softens enamel, and the sugar feeds bacteria that produce even more acid. Drinking Izze occasionally with a meal is very different from sipping it slowly throughout the afternoon, which keeps your mouth in that erosive pH range for extended periods. If you do drink it, finishing the can in one sitting and rinsing with water afterward limits the damage.
How Izze Compares to Soda and Whole Fruit
Compared to a typical 12-ounce cola (about 39 grams of sugar, plus phosphoric acid and artificial caramel color), an 8.4-ounce Izze with 19 grams of sugar from real juice is a meaningful step up. No artificial anything, a smaller serving size, and a few vitamins. If you’re replacing a daily soda habit with Izze, that’s a legitimate improvement.
But compared to eating actual fruit or drinking plain sparkling water with a squeeze of citrus, Izze falls short. A whole orange gives you about 12 grams of sugar along with 3 grams of fiber, more vitamin C than a can of Izze, and compounds that actively slow sugar absorption. Sparkling water with a splash of real juice gives you the fizz and flavor for a fraction of the sugar.
Who Izze Works For
Izze fits best as an occasional treat, not a daily hydration choice. If you enjoy carbonated drinks and want something with real ingredients instead of artificial sweeteners or high-fructose corn syrup, it fills that role well. The small 8.4-ounce can size helps with portion control, keeping the sugar at 19 grams rather than the 30-plus you’d get from a larger bottle of juice.
Where it doesn’t work is as a “healthy drink.” The clean label and fruit juice base can create a health halo that leads people to drink two or three cans a day without thinking twice. At that point, you’re consuming 57 grams of sugar and bathing your teeth in acid with a pH around 3.2, which erases most of the advantage over soda. One can as a treat with lunch? Perfectly reasonable. A daily staple you reach for instead of water? That’s where the downsides start to add up.