
The Secret Ingredient In Your Orange Juice - bradly
http://www.foodrenegade.com/secret-ingredient-your-orange-juice/
======
martey
I don't think that the health conclusions of this piece (don't drink orange
juice from the supermarket!) are warranted. All the sources listed in it lead
back to Alissa Hamilton's book "Squeezed." While not having read it, all of
the information I can find suggest that Hamilton is not trying to suggest that
orange juice is unhealthy. For example, this interview in the Boston Globe -
[http://articles.boston.com/2009-02-22/bostonglobe/29257797_1...](http://articles.boston.com/2009-02-22/bostonglobe/29257797_1_orange-
juice-vitamin-minute-maid) :

 _You'd be better off with a whole orange than a glass of orange juice. It has
more fiber and more vitamin C. But I'm not a dietitian. The book is not about
whether you should drink orange juice and whether it's healthy. It's about how
little consumers know about how popular and - in the case of orange juice -
seemingly straightforward foods are produced and the repercussions for
agriculture._

~~~
Pointsly
Regardless of the health conclusions - you can't deny the amount of sugar in
single cup - absolutely contributes to the obesity we are all facing.

~~~
palish
I deny that it contributes to obesity for all people. I believe no one can
actually claim people _understand_ nutrition --- in the same way we understand
Newtonian physics, for example.

I've never cared about what I eat. If I want something, I eat it. When I'm
full, I stop. Over the last two years, my weight has stayed between 210lbs and
220lbs. I'm lucky. But I'm also a datapoint.

Since some people can simply not care about what they eat, and they don't get
fat, then I'd bet money other people can watch what they eat and _still_ get
fat. And of course, for other people, watching what they eat will make them
skinnier.

The point is, everyone is different, and no one can say with a straight face
that we understand nutrition well enough to make broad claims like "the amount
of sugar in a single cup of orange juice contributes to the obesity we're all
facing".

~~~
saturn
No offence, but only an American could make the argument that because their
weight has stayed "only" between 95kg and 100kg that they are living proof
that people can eat what they want and not get fat.

Unless you are a bodybuilder, which I am guessing you are not since they most
certainly do care about what they eat, you are likely considered overweight in
every other country on earth.

~~~
palish
Well, here I am. Judge for yourself: [http://photos-a.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-
ash1/24114_337315700...](http://photos-a.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-
ash1/24114_337315700845_500275845_4090376_7001455_n.jpg?dl=1)

I drink over half gallon of soda a day, and survive mostly on $1 McChickens.

So I'm either a freak of nature, or we don't know as much as we think we do
about nature.

~~~
JanezStupar
Dude I hate to break you're little bubble - but you fat. You might not be as
hopelessly obese as people you are used to calling fat. But the truth is you
are fat too.

You don't look healthy either and with continuing your lifestyle like you do,
You are a ticking timebomb of diabetes, cholesterol issues, gout and other
nasty metabolic diseases.

Take an example of my mother, she is 70 and has developed both gout and
diabetes. Now imagine what you are allowed to eat - to not have issues with
your body (hint. For diabetes - sugars are verboten and for gout proteins are
denied.). Now imagine that there is a very real risk, that you will be in same
condition by your mid 40's.

Wake up. Now.

Edit: I understand that a lot of HNers with our geeky lifestyles deem OP
completely "normal" and "healthy" - but this is simply not the truth. And thus
everybody might be in a deep denial.

~~~
palish
This is very possible too. What's the criteria for judging "healthy"?

I mean, I have no ego, and I'm not doing this out of narcissism or some
silliness like that. I genuinely care about "the truth". So if the truth is I
don't look healthy, then I'd like to know why.

I was just about run up to the local gas station and buy a $0.72 44oz Cherry
Coke, then run up to McDonalds and grab a McChicken for $1.09, then head back
and keep programming. Total time: 15min, total cost: $1.81. If you give me
convenient alternatives, I guarantee I'll switch. And maybe this thread will
help educate other people who are doing similar things as me.

~~~
JanezStupar
On health criteria - I'm not implying that you should be all "Jersey Style".
However - for me, first sign of health is muscle tonus - yours seems not very
good (as is most geeks). Then your hair seems in a pretty bad shape - that has
less to do with washing and more with food you consume. And your general
posture does not imply - "I am fit for battle" (you also look sleep depraved).

On convenience of healthy food. It's very subjective for me since I was raised
on organic food (farmerboy here, it is quite interesting that our farm was
organic waay before "organic" even existed. Industrial farming just didn't
seem "right" to my parents) I have a general distaste for any kind industrial
food (except various sweets :D). Thus you will not find any sodas and/or
McStyle food on my menu - because I just don't like the taste of it. (Yes I
will turn into a BK or MD every now and then - just to find out that I don't
like it - over and over :))

But - being a geek I also have (or at least had) this problem of seeing food
preparation as too mundane for me. However since I quit my corporate job I
actually started liking to take care of our garden (40m2 in backyard) and
orchard, and I have always liked cooking (I love nice tasty food). So now I
have learned to treat it as a stabilizing factor in my life, to just you know
- slow down for a while while doing gardening tasks it also provides a basic
exercise. I know understand that producing your own food is not an option for
you - I'd just like to point out that eating a meal that you produced from
ground up is one of best experiences in life - right there with drugs, sex and
programming. Just to let you know that if you ever get a chance at producing
your own food - you should take it. It's not too much work either. A couple of
weeks in spring and one in autumn - in between its mostly about basic
maintenance and pest control - nature takes care of the rest. Like mentioned -
this last paragraph may not do much for you and you might even see me as
(rightly) bragging - but it's here just so you can understand what angle I am
coming from.

Now about how you can make healthy food convenient and cheap. 1. Accept that
it will take more time than junk-food (thats half of its point), but it will
take less time than you expect - especially once you get used to it. 2. Stop
consuming sodas and just divert "soda fund" into "food fund" - you are meant
to drink water and should learn to do it ASAP. 3. Beans, Pasta, Potatoes, Full
corn Bread, vegetables, nuts and dairy products should be the staple of your
diet. 4. A lot of home cooking can be done fast or semi-absent (vegetable soup
- cut vegetables, add water, put on an appropriate power setting - return
after an hour or two - enjoy delicious vegetable soup). Pasta is fast and
simple to prepare (also will keep you well fed for quite awhile). To maximise
yield, learn to cook larger amounts - don't just cook a single meal worth of
soup or pasta. Example: Cook a pound worth of beans (this is 4 days worth of
protein) - meal 1: eat some beans with cracklings; meal 2: use some of the
beans in salad; meal 3: cook some bean soup with pasta; You can also use your
vegetable soup as basis for your pasta sauce, etc. 5\. Salads are super fast
to prepare. 6. Fruit meals require no preparation.

But you could also view your food preparation as a ritual that will help you
stay balanced in your life - and thus not a waste of time.

Oh and to be honest - its perfectly possible to grow fat on healthy food. It's
just not so easy and your organism will not have to endure so much stress.

~~~
palish
Thank you. It's so rare nowadays to find someone willing to give perfectly
honest feedback, like "your posture sucks, and you look sleepy". I didn't
realize hair quality might be linked to nutrition. Also, I appreciate how much
work you put into your reply.

Do you have any thoughts on using Crystal Light to make water taste less
terrible?

Someday, when I have more than $1k of savings, I hope to live in a nice rental
house with a garden in the back. What all foods do you grow?

As they say: cheers!

~~~
redthrowaway
>Do you have any thoughts on using Crystal Light to make water taste less
terrible?

Water tastes fantastic. It's sweet. An all-soda-and-mcsquats' diet has killed
your taste buds, so anything that isn't loaded with sugar and salt (never mind
the Coke, your McChicken has a crazy amount of added sugar) will taste bland
to you. Cut the crap out of your diet, and the good stuff will taste good
again.

Now, all of this is modulo your local water supply. Here in Vancouver our
water tastes great, but we're lucky. You might not be in the same boat. Try
grabbing a brita water filter and keep it full, in the fridge.

As for grown foods: tomatoes are great and easy to grow. If you have sun,
blackberries are literally weeds and will take care of themselves. Carrots and
potatoes are the same way. You should always have some chives growing
somewhere; they add delicious flavour to most things. Lettuces and cabbages
are fairly easy, but you have to keep slugs and whatnot away or they'll eat
them before you get the chance. Same deal with spinach. Peas and beans are
pretty easy to grow, although you'll need a lattice. Cucumbers and zucchini
are easy to grow, as well. Note, that is in no way an endorsement of zucchini.
I don't advocate it's consumption; I'm just pointing out that it's easy to
grow.

~~~
angus77
Could you explain that comment about zucchinis? I can't find any information
about why one wouldn't recommend its consumption.

~~~
defen
Not sure what the OP was talking about, but I won't touch them because they're
completely lacking in flavor!

~~~
JanezStupar
Your doin' it wrong. Zucchini is a fantastic filling and flavor carrier. It
loves spices, olive oil, onions, tomatoes and what have you.

Thus it should be used as something that adds volume and takes on flavor of
other ingredients.

I used to dislike zucchinis too - since people putting them on my plate didn't
have a proper idea of how to use them. But once you use it as Lord intended
them to be used, they are THE fruit. Zucchinis are in fact my favorite fruit.

~~~
redthrowaway
That makes it sound a whole lot like tofu, which is another "food" that should
be avoided by anyone who isn't a culinary masochist.

~~~
tripzilch
No, tofu tastes like nothing unless you saturate it with marinade or
something.

Courgette actually has flavour. But just like white mushrooms, they'll be
(nearly) flavourless chunks if you just throw them in a sauce and practically
boil them instead of frying.

You need to fry them, get them just slightly brown on the edges to get the
flavour out.

I had some off the BBQ yesterday and I was _amazed_ how delicious they were.
Cut them in long strips, bit of olive oil, and grill them. Season with a tiny
bit of pepper and salt.

Then, maybe your courgettes are flavourless, it can very well be. It's like
that with tomatoes over here, and then I get to Italy and mmm

------
rmason
Hate to be cynical but I suspect the whole point of the article is to sell you
on buying a juicer.

The domain is owned by a copy writing firm called
<http://www.wonderworkingwords.com/> . I can't prove it but I am willing to
wager that a juicer firm commissioned the article. The firms motto after all
is 'words that sell'.

~~~
KristenM
Good news! I'm not an industry shill. I'm a stay at home mom who homeschools
my three kids and earns money blogging. If you read the disclosure statements
on my site, you'll see that I never write paid posts or content. I do sell
advertising, though, (from which I make a pretty penny, thank you) and the
link is a link to a page full of text ads. I used to be a copywriter, but
haven't done that since my blog took off about three years ago. It is true
that I operate this blog under the business name I created for my copywriting
business, but that's mostly so that I don't have to create a new company or
tax ID.

~~~
bfe
Welcome and glad to have you. And while you're not a shill, I find your site
misguided, in overly relying on equating natural, traditional diets with
healthy, leading you to some recommendations that are orthogonal to
healthiness, like fermented veggies and sprouted grains, and some that are
unhelpful to health, like red meat and butter. The people of Finland
drastically improved their health metrics when they transitioned to a modern
mainstream European diet away from their natural, traditional Finnish diet of
lots of red meat and butter.

Modern scientific findings, properly analyzed, are an astonishingly better
guide to human health than any traditional collection of folk wisdom.

~~~
jokull
I haven't commented on Hacker News for a while now. But let me rake in the
downvotes and say that this kind of answer is the reason I can't be bothered
anymore. Let's face it, this is a geeky forum. And geeks just can't refrain
from giving their opinions and facts. They only need to spend a night reading
Wikipedia articles about nutrition to have the right to shit all over someones
comments that are marginally overlapping on their new domain of expertise. The
tone above, jesus christ. She wasn't even asking for an opinion.

Worst community ever. The arrogance that comes with smarts.

~~~
bfe
When someone takes it on herself to actively evangelize an analysis she
acknowledges is controversial, she should expect to be treated like an adult
and be presented with honest opposing views, in whatever venue she chooses to
take part in. And I'd find a forum disappointing if its default ethic were to
reaffirm to all its participants that their current coding knowledge, startup
idea, or pseudoscientific views were equally valid and had no room for
improvement by frank feedback. I'll let you get back to your much more
civilized forums where people simply present their rational analysis and
supporting evidence rather than tossing around exclamations of "shit" and
"jesus christ" at other participants, especially as part of a call for
civility. Oh wait.

------
chememit
Chemical engineer's perspective: This is interesting. I'd learned about the
chemical additives required for flavor in from-concentrate orange juice, since
the dehydration ("concentration") by nature removes a lot of the more volatile
chemicals that give OJ it's flavor. Without looking into it, I'd guess the
deoxygenation process works by heating and pulling vacuum to lower oxygen
solubility, which would also have the same consequence of removing the flavor
compounds.

That said, the addition of chemical flavoring agents is completely irrelevant
to health. Again I know more about process design than health science, but I
do know that the flavoring chemicals that get removed and added are in such
trace amounts that they likely have no health consequence, whether present or
absent. In fact, many of the compounds are actually toxic at high
concentrations.

And towards the "don't drink juice at all" argument, I feel like the world
would be in a far better place health-wise if everyone drank juice instead of
soda. At least juice is a fair representation of fruit, while soda is
basically fructose dissolved in phosphoric acid. (The article mentions pectin
and fiber as missing fruit components in juice - this is true as both are
solids likely removed by juicing, but pectin is just a sugar polymer like
starch, and fiber is just indigestible solids...nothing special health-wise).
The argument reminds me of the people telling everyone not to go to college,
just because in their specific case they didn't need it. Potentially decent
advice for a small, already advantaged subset of the population, but horrible
advice for everyone else.

~~~
sjwright
> fiber is just indigestible solids...nothing special health-wise

That's possibly the most wrong statement in this entire discussion. Fibre is a
critical part of your diet; without enough of the stuff, pooping sucks.

~~~
chememit
Good point, that bit about fiber is wrong. What I said should probably be
amended to mean that juice = (fruit - fiber). But surely that's no reason to
stop drinking juice, unless people really use juice as a replacement for whole
fruit, and fruit as a primary means of getting fiber. I guess it is a valid
concern, though.

~~~
sjwright
juice = (fruit -- [the stuff that makes you feel full eventually] -- [the
packaging that limits the rate in which you consume it])

------
Cushman
Secret ingredient? It's sugar water.

This is like talking about the chemicals they put into Coke... Yeah, they're
in there, and maybe they shouldn't be, but that's not why you drink it and
that's not why it's bad for you.

Edit: Downvote why? Sugars in 10oz Coca-Cola classic: 33g. Sugars in 10oz
Tropicana Pure Premium original orange juice: 28.1g.

[1] [http://caloriecount.about.com/calories-coca-cola-
classic-i98...](http://caloriecount.about.com/calories-coca-cola-
classic-i98047)

[2] [http://caloriecount.about.com/calories-tropicana-orange-
juic...](http://caloriecount.about.com/calories-tropicana-orange-juice-
original-i115273)

~~~
darklajid
The articles was about 100% juice. Unless your system of labeling works a lot
different in your part of the world you cannot add things to juice and still
call it 100% juice.

The blog mentions a ~trick~ to recreate a well-known and stable flavor by
adding orange-derived chemicals - but you still cannot add 'sugar water'.

Yes, that stuff contains a lot of sugar. But so does an orange from your own
garden (still healthier if you eat the whole fruit, not just the 'sugar water'
aka fruit juice).

~~~
Cushman
I understood the article fine. But who _cares_ if it's 100% juice or not? 100%
juice is _bad_. Coca-Cola wouldn't be better for you if it were 100% sugar and
carbonated water.

You make a great point about raw fruit— Sugars in a whole orange: 12g. That is
to say, a glass of orange juice has the sugar water from two oranges, without
the fiber that blocks absorption and sends satiety signals after an orange and
a half. Clearly these are comparable things.

~~~
darklajid
Look, we agree on the 'usefulness' of juice. And I didn't down-vote your
original comment, merely tried to explain what might seem weird about your
post.

Now you're asking 'Who cares if it's 100% juice or not': Well - that's what
this article was about. It wasn't about how healthy fruit juice is (as I said
before, we agree that it's not a good idea), it was about labeling something
100% (which is interpreted as 'natural' and 'pure' by customers) fruit juice
while doing weird and counter intuitive things to the substance in question.

So - this article is exactly for all the people that care about whether it's
100% juice they are consuming.

------
seandougall
Sigh... I for one am getting extremely tired of people freaking out because
they see organic chemical names among the ingredients that go into food. Lots
and lots of perfectly ordinary and harmless chemical compounds (e.g. ethyl
butyrate, valencine) have scary-sounding names, and lots of toxic ones don't.
If you want to educate yourself, pick up a copy of _On Food and Cooking_ by
Harold McGee, and learn about what those compounds actually are.

Or you can run around screaming about the dangers of dihydrogen monoxide.

I for one would not be the slightest bit bothered if somebody added orange
juice to my orange juice.

~~~
praptak
_"I for one would not be the slightest bit bothered if somebody added orange
juice to my orange juice."_

Me neither but the deoxygenated-reflavored juice just tastes crappy, so I'm
all for a law obligating the producers to disclose this practice and stop
misleading people with the "100% natural juice not from concentrate" bullshit.

~~~
lurker14
I find that a "100% natural orange" tastes pretty crappy if it sits on a shelf
for 2 weeks before I eat it. Plenty of 100% natural stuff tastes bad.

You might further be shocked to learn that all-natural organic farm fresh-
squeezed juice might have actually been pressed out of the fruit by a
mechanical juicer that ruins the test, and not squeezed out by loving hands.

What's wrong with a product label that calls things what they actually are,
instead redefining all nice sounding words to be "stuff that tastes good to
praptak"?

------
jsdalton
Lately I've started drinking OJ from a brand called Evolution. They _claim_ to
just squeeze it and bottle it, more or less. They use cold pasteurization,
a.k.a. irradiation, which doesn't bother me and helps preserve the taste. I've
also found all I really need is a small glass in the morning.

It's quite expensive, however.

------
johno215
Hmm,

Although I don't put this below the food industry to do, it is peculiar that
the sources listed are all other blogs. Looking through the blog links I found
a NYT article sourced but it said nothing about chemically processed orange
products being added to 100% orange juice.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/22/business/22pepsi.html?scp=...](http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/22/business/22pepsi.html?scp=1&sq=tropicana%20PepsiCo&st=cse)

Any one have any better sources?

~~~
greenyoda
Here's a page at the USDA that talks about the deoxygenation of citrus juices
for increased shelf life, so at least that part of the article is accurate:

<http://www.reeis.usda.gov/web/crisprojectpages/207232.html>

------
sudonim
Tldr; 100% juice like tropicana is deoxygenated to remove all the flavor and
make it last a long time and then natural flavor is added to make the taste
consistent.

They shouldn't be able to say its 100% juice. WTF.

~~~
sliverstorm
Why not? When your blood delivers oxygen to your cells, it becomes
deoxygenated. Is it no longer blood?

If the natural flavor they add is made of juice (orange or not), and they add
it to juice, is the result no longer juice?

~~~
athst
When the package says "100% juice," I think most people assume that means that
the juice is squeezed from the orange and it goes into the carton without any
processing or additives. I'm sure that's the impression that they're trying to
give by putting that on the label. The fact that this isn't the case, and that
the juice is actually highly processed in a very unnatural manner, is pretty
alarming.

~~~
jff
Without any processing or additives? I'm for the most part quite glad the
juice and milk I buy at the store has been processed--without pasteurization
and homogenization, for example, milk would be significantly riskier AND less
convenient.

~~~
grannyg00se
You may be glad that your 100% pure orange juice is in fact highly processed
orange juice product, but most people would be rather shocked to find out what
is happening.

And you may not be correct about the pasteurization of milk. There are many
who feel that natural unpasteurized milk is healthier. Pasteurization is
perhaps more necessary in a mass production environment, but it is not
necessarily better for our bodies.

This story adds more proof for me that we should consume nothing that "comes
in a box", so to speak.

~~~
jff
There are also many people who "feel" that vaccines cause autism, or that
such-and-such an artificial sweetener causes cancer, despite a lack of any
real scientific evidence. Once I see a few real studies about the long-term
health effects of pasteurized vs. unpasteurized milk (besides the lower
incidence of food-borne illness in pasteurized drinkers), I'll be willing to
consider it--but not on the "gut feeling" of "moms", those heroes of anti-
intellectual anti-science BS everywhere.

------
yew
I can't say I really care about whether or not orange juice is "natural" -
it's all made of chemicals at the end of the day, so the only thing that
really matters to me is which ones, and how much - but the degree to which
truth-in-advertising has essentially ceased to exist does bother me. Exactly
how much do I have to modify something before I can't advertise it as "100%
Natural!" anyway?

Speaking of which, can anyone provide a good (comprehensive) source for
information on the subject from a legal perspective?

------
ZoFreX
"You see, these “flavor packs are made from orange by-products — even though
these ‘by-products’ are so chemically manipulated that they hardly qualify as
‘by-products’ any more.” (source) Since they’re made from by-products that
originated in oranges, they can be added to the orange juice without being
considered an “ingredient,” despite the fact that they are chemically
altered."

Does anyone know if this applies within the EU, and more specifically, the UK?
I believe our labelling laws are stricter than this.

------
blackboxxx
Not sure if this is an urban myth or not, but I've heard Cheese Wiz is
actually grey. Orange food coloring is later added to the goo to give it that
cheddar color.

~~~
pg
The orange color you associate with cheddar is artificial. Originally it was
due to annatto, though they may use something else now.

~~~
simonsarris
Is cheddar usually orange? I think all of the cheddar I have ever bought in NH
and VT is a pale yellow.

I'm crazy about cheeses, but the only orange cheeses I've ever seen were all
very poor brands, unless I'm forgetting something.

~~~
Jach
Pictures are helpful.
[http://www.pepperidgefarm.com/Images/Products/prdLarge_12053...](http://www.pepperidgefarm.com/Images/Products/prdLarge_120538.jpg)
for Cheddar Goldfish, this is what's usually in stores:
[http://staticc.wisegeek.com/images/calories/calories-in-
medi...](http://staticc.wisegeek.com/images/calories/calories-in-medium-
cheddar-cheese-s.jpg)

I (and I suspect most Americans) would never associate something like this
with Cheddar Cheese: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Somerset-Cheddar.jpg>
(or any other pic on the page for that matter, except for "#19":
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheddar_cheese> )

I'll have to try some VT cheddar sometime. I stopped defending cheddar's taste
(which is none, though I still eat it) ever since I was exposed to real
cheeses in my junior high French class.

~~~
ak217
Really? Everywhere I've been in the States the amount of white cheddar is
roughly equal to colored cheddar, and in the gourmet cheese section there is
rarely any colored cheddar.

~~~
Jach
Here's another couple images I've found: [http://blog.thenickstevens.com/wp-
content/uploads/2011/01/ch...](http://blog.thenickstevens.com/wp-
content/uploads/2011/01/cheeseisle.jpg)
<http://www.flickr.com/photos/claire_waverly/4686708528/> I guess I have seen
white cheddar, but most often mixed with the yellow/orange coloring people are
familiar with. e.g. "cheddar jack":
[http://www.osceolacheese.com/catalog/images/hickory%20smoked...](http://www.osceolacheese.com/catalog/images/hickory%20smoked%20cheddar%20jack.gif)
In any case I'd bet people associate white cheese more with mozzarella (pizza
cheese, cheese stick/string cheese) than cheddar. Another cheddar product I
associate with is Mac&Cheese.

The gourmet cheese section/island is different! And I agree there's rarely
coloured cheese. I suspect few shoppers who go straight to the Cheese Aisle
(which is dominated by yellow cheddar/cheddar varieties) even know of its
existence, even if they walk by it, let alone dare sample anything
new/different/highly priced.

------
mannicken
Oh, hey, bad news: even if you don't drink juice, never have any sugar, and
spend all your time counting calories -- you're still going to die at some
point. Sorry, had to ruin the whole health obsession parade here.

This is coming from a guy who counted his calories, and still logs his weight
every morning, and freaks out if he's not unhealthily skinny. I just ate an
apple and now I'm obese (in my mind anyway) and I weigh 79 kg. I used to feel
skinny when I weighed 95kg but ran 6.5 miles. Funny, isn't it?

------
socksy
If this is the case, wouldn't it be cheaper to take sweetened water, add food
colouring and flavouring? I assume someone's probably doing it already.

~~~
maukdaddy
It's called Sunny Delight. And you would be shocked to learn how many people
think Sunny D is real orange juice.

~~~
alanfalcon
I remember watching a Sunny Delight commercial as a kid. Someone is digging
through the fridge listing the drink options... "We got OJ, Purple Stuff,
Soda... And Sunny D!"

Before that commercial, I was one of those people who thought Sunny D was OJ.

Call it bad advertising: I looked at Sunny D as "Orange Stuff" after that ad
and no longer wanted it.

EDIT: I guess I'm not the only one who remembers the commercials, there's a
spoof on YouTube:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiOaBTpKqnk&NR=1&feat...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiOaBTpKqnk&NR=1&feature=fvwp)
(and of course the real thing is on YouTube if you care to find it)

------
smithian
I'm surprised that most of the reaction and commentary on this seems to be
about either 1. the vague health claims that fresh-squeezed is better than old
OJ enhanced with flavoring or 2. the sugar debate

What I want to know is, why should I pay $4.29 for a carton of old flavorless
juice enhanced with a flavoring cocktail, rather than $5.99 for fresh
squeezed? I personally don't see the value proposition in the Tropicana any
more, and while I have been buying the fresh squeezed kind (that they make
from the oranges in the store) I definitely won't be buying the
Tropicana/Florida's Natural again. I think if this was more well known there
would be a lot fewer people willing to plonk down premium money for a fake
premium product in the future.

------
yhager
This was covered in a few blogs before, Here's an example from fooducate:
<http://www.fooducate.com/blog/2009/05/31/on-orange-juice/>

There is also a response from the Florida dept. of Citrus there.

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haridsv
Article says deoxidation causes the orange juice to become bland, so what
happens to the original sugars? I can understand adding flavors, but that
would not bring back the sweetness, if the deoxidation destroyed them, so do
they add extra sugars as well?

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sliverstorm
Why do I drink juice? Because in the morning on my way out the door, I am
unlikely to spend the time eating an orange. Because fresh cranberries are
nasty.

My own practice to try and avoid extremely fabricated foods: buy the in-house
brand. While it will never be 100% pure orange juice squeezed yesterday, they
don't have a brand identity to defend, so they seem to engage in fewer food-
processing antics.

~~~
bfe
I stopped drinking juice a few years ago, but had the same annoyance at
spending any extra time on complicated foods like oranges in the morning. My
solution is I usually eat a handful of fresh strawberries as part of my
breakfast - they are denser in vitamin c than oranges, and don't require
unwrapping and getting juice all over your hands.

------
zwieback
I'm not a juice-drinker myself but I'd like a little more detail on what is
actually done to the by-products. I think one thing people forget is that for
most of us the choice isn't between natural/industrial, it's the choice
between industrial and nothing, at least most of the year. Can you grow
oranges in your backyard? In Oregon I can't and I hate grass juice.

------
shaggyfrog
I read all this almost a year ago on CBC's website:
[http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2010/09/08/f-whats-in-
it...](http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2010/09/08/f-whats-in-it-orange-
juice.html)

I stopped buying orange juice entirely because of it. "Perfume packs"...
gross.

------
hsuresh
There is a fascinating documentary - Botany of Desire
<http://video.pbs.org/video/1283872815/>. The video shows that even fruits are
grown in ways so as to make them taste better, and therefore more consumption.

------
unicornporn
i drink brämhults ( <http://www.bramhults.se/> ). at least they taste
different every time.

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robchez
Favourite Home-Made 'Juice' Water Kefir[1]. Why?

Can Make massive batches at home.

Add any fruit.

The bacteria eats majority of the sugar.

It's Fizzy.

Slightly Alcholic.

[1] <http://nourishedkitchen.com/water-kefir/>

------
chopsueyar
...and natural flavors too! I used an exclamation mark so I must be female.

[http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CFR-2010-title21-vol2/xml/CFR-2...](http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CFR-2010-title21-vol2/xml/CFR-2010-title21-vol2-sec101-22.xml)

