UCLA Dining juices up Bruin Café with new spritzers

UCLA Dining Services introduced four new juice spritzers at Bruin Café last week as part of its Healthy Campus Initiative.

UCLA Dining Services officials said in a statement they began testing the new Minute Maid spritzers at Bruin Café to provide students with low-calorie drinks and promote healthy lifestyle choices.

The Healthy Campus Initiative is a campuswide movement promoting mind and body health, and wellness. Its goal is to make UCLA the healthiest university campus in the United States.

Spritzers are carbonated drinks made by adding different flavors of fruit juice to carbonated water. They have less calories and lower sugar content than soda.

“Instead of soda, students can consider lighter, lower-calorie options from Bruin Café’s new product line,” UCLA Dining Services officials said.

The spritzer flavors include cranberry cocktail, pineapple juice, orange juice and apple juice. They are served from the same beverage dispensers, they added.

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UCLA Dining Services will keep track of the spritzers’ popularity among students and collect feedback, according to the statement.

Tyler Saunders, a first-year business economics student, said his favorite flavor is cranberry cocktail. He said he thinks the spritzers are a good addition to Bruin Café.

Laura Sandoval, a second-year psychology and sociology student, said she likes having the juice option when she does not want soda.

“(The juice) is a different alternative to soda,” Sandoval said. “A lot of people want to cut back on soda.”

Other students, however, said they don’t like the spritzers.

Jesse Aguilera, a first-year molecular, cell and developmental biology student, said he went to the Minute Maid fountain because he liked the fruit punch they had before. He said he was disappointed to find the fountain did not have punch, so he opted for a soda instead.

Contributing reports from Erica Drake, Daily Bruin contributor.