shahine.com/omar/

A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away, Microsoft used to purchase truck loads of Odwalla Juice for the employees of Silicon Valley. This was a tradition started by many of the smaller splinter groups around Silicon Valley before Microsoft pulled them all together into our Mountain View Campus. I loved me some Orange Juice every day.

Well, Microsoft is also known for giving away all you can drink sodas. We also get these sodas, but this was a tradition Microsoft started in Redmond at some point.

Anyway, when the dot com bust happened Microsoft took away the Odwalla as well as a few other things. Why did they do that? Well, honestly, it was expensive and they didn't need to give it to us any more. Attrition went from 30% or so a year in Silicon Valley to record lows of 7% or so. I mean what were you going to do? Quit cause we took away Odwalla? I think most folks didn't really miss it much.

I remember one time an employee at work decided to take all the green superfood Odwallas out of the fridge on a Friday before a long weekend because they "expired". This was before Odwalla flash pasteurized the juice and it had a very short shelf life. They also used the bottle tops similar to the plastic milk cartons. Well, we referred to these things as Odwalla Bombs. The term was coined when we returned to our break room kitchen on Tuesday morning and it was covered in Green stinky plankton looking superfood. YUCK! In fact if you left pretty much any Odwalla out of a fridge for long enough it would explode.

Microsoft tried to set up Odwalla vending machines all over campus but no one purchased from them. After all, none of use were used to paying, and when we found out how much those little 12 oz bottles from heaven cost, we didn't buy. Instead we happily consumed all sorts of sugar water. We did however start getting Talking Rain, which is basically soda water with a hint of fruit flavor. Personally I don't like the talking Rain.

Over the past few years I have stopped drinking soda. For one thing it was rotting my teeth (really). Instead I have water or Welches cranberry juice.

This year I am trying to avoid consumption of high fructose corn syrup (HFC). What is that you ask? Well it:

1. tastes like sugar
2. costs a heck of a lot less
3. Is considered "unhealthy" and some believe contributes to obesity.

You'll be surprised at just how many things are sweated with HFC. Just look at the ingredients next time.

I have found that most things labeled organic don't have HFC and are sweetened with good old sugar. Anyway, recently our Cafeteria started selling Naked Juice for about $2.20 to $2.70. Now at first I thought this was expensive till I found out this stuff costs $3.99 at Safeway and Whole Foods. Creepers! That's more expensive than a Jamba Juice.

Anyway, a few weeks ago I decided I was going to start having this stuff at lunch. Since Microsoft is subsidizing it a bit I might as well.

The good news is, this stuff is DELICIOUS. I mean, I love it. It's much better than Odwalla. So far I've tried the following:

• Mighty Mango
• Pomegranate Acai
• Orange Mango Motion
• Power-C

and my fav is Pomegranate Acai.

I also found that Safeway often sells them for $2 each. I stopped by this weekend and loaded up. This stuff is yummy and good for you to.

The bad news is that this stuff is at least 100% more expensive than Soda sweetened with HFC and obviously not free .