
The Secret Ingredient in Orange Juice - pmoriarty
http://www.foodrenegade.com/secret-ingredient-your-orange-juice/
======
beloch
"Juice removed from the fruit is just concentrated fructose without any of the
naturally-occurring fiber, pectin, and other goodies that make eating a whole
fruit good for you. Did you know, for example, that it takes 6-8 medium sized
apples to make just 1 cup of apple juice? You probably wouldn’t be able to eat
6-8 medium apples in a single sitting. (I know I can barely eat one!) But you
can casually throw back a cup of apple juice, and you would probably be
willing to return for seconds. That’s why fruit juice is dangerous. It’s far
too easy to consume far too much sugar."

This paragraph is, arguably, far more important than all the hysteria about
flavor packs, but it's only partially correct. Fibre does help provide satiety
but, in and of itself, it isn't what's good for you about eating whole fruit
unless you simply aren't getting enough fibre and have issues with
constipation. What fibre _does_ do is reduce the rate at which we absorb
sugar. Apple juice will give you a nice fast sugar high and then a low, much
like candy. An apple will give you a gradual surge of energy for a while. If
you're going to eat something sweet, it's far better for you if it comes
combined with fibre.

So don't go searching for juice that doesn't use flavor packs. Don't buy a
juicer and juice your own either, because you're still throwing away what
separates fruit from candy. Don't mess around with fermenting juices and all
that probiotic jazz. If you simply must drink your fruit, use a blender.

~~~
MrTonyD
Well, my wife works for Martinelli's - and it definitely doesn't take 2+
apples to make a cup of apple juice. (I'm not saying that apple juice should
be your first choice.) They also carefully monitor "brix", which is the amount
of sugar in their juice. They have acceptable targets for that as well as
other measures (including John Martinelli tasting the product almost daily.)

Personally, I use my Vitamix to make my own "apple juice smoothy" and
routinely ferment fruit for the probiotics. But I'm skeptical about the "juice
is bad" meme.

~~~
icanhackit
_But I 'm skeptical about the "juice is bad" meme._

It is and for a simple reason that we've known about for a long time:
glycaemic index. If the sugars (fructose) are locked in a matrix of cellulose
(AKA dietary fibre) they're released gradually as your body digests the bulk
matter. If you plot the blood sugar concentration of the person consuming a
solid piece of fruit you see a nice curve where the levels rise, peak, and
non-violently fall.

Now when you process the fruit you're effectively pre-digesting it - the
sugars are free of the cellulose matrix (the bulk of the fruit) and when you
plot the blood sugar concentration after consumption of juice, because no work
needs to be done to digest it, the blood sugar level quickly spikes. This
provides a rush, then your insulin response peaks, sending your blood sugar
levels crashing. This happens much faster than the curve in blood sugar from
eating unprocessed fruit.

The only argument I'll accept from people who drink juice: They like it. _That
's OK._ You're allowed to like things. I like beer, which acts similarly to
juice with regards to blood sugar concentration.

~~~
dcosson
As I understand it, the process you describe is true of glucose but actually
not fructose. Glucose gets absorbed into your blood, causes your pancreas to
start releasing more insulin into the blood, which causes basically all the
cells in your body to start absorbing glucose.

Fructose on the other hand can only be processed by your liver, so all the
fructose you eat just kind of queues up for your liver to process it. It
doesn't cause you to release insulin so it has a low glycemic index. Your
liver can convert fructose to glycogen and then to glucose to feed your cells
if you don't eat any carbs or glucose. But if you already have more than
enough carbs/glucose, your liver instead converts the fructose to fat and
stores it. This can lead to fatty liver and somewhat interestingly can also
lead to insulin resistance which then makes you worse at processing glucose.
Alcohol also gets processed exclusively in your liver and can cause fatty
liver, so it is true that juice and beer can do a similar kind of damage.

Anyway, on the bigger point I 100% agree that juice is bad for you. It's sad
to see it so often touted as healthy.

EDIT: One thing I do wonder about, people always point to fiber as a reason
why fruit is ok but fruit juice isn't. It seems like it would be a lot easier
to get people to start taking fiber supplements than to stop eating sugar, so
why don't we ever hear that advice?

~~~
icanhackit
_Fructose on the other hand can only be processed by your liver_

You're correct and my original post is incorrect with regards to fructose.
Thanks for pointing this out - it's better to be wrong but enlightened.

~~~
stretchwithme
And that makes you're both right now!

Lustig goes through all the processes here:

    
    
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM

------
morsch
Having read the article I was left with the assumption that pretty much all
commercial orange juice contained these "flavor packs". This does not seem to
be the case: [http://www.toxinless.com/orange-
juice](http://www.toxinless.com/orange-juice)

Maybe don't buy your orange juice from subsidiaries of the Coca Cola company
and Pepsico, as a starting point.

Also interesting:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/YouShouldKnow/comments/2684u1/ysk_t...](https://www.reddit.com/r/YouShouldKnow/comments/2684u1/ysk_that_the_use_of_flavor_packets_in_orange/)

~~~
guelo
Or water. I've always found Dasani to have a suspiciously consistent and
unique flavor and mouth feel.

~~~
anon4
I'll just remark that for water, I do want to drink a pure chemical, possibly
with a little bit of minerals in, if it can't be helped.

~~~
LoSboccacc
I hope you dont mean pure h2o because that's dangerous.

~~~
polymatter
I am very curious about your comment. how is pure h20 dangerous?

~~~
cpfohl
Distilled water (pure) has such a low mineral/salt level that it pulls
important salts out of your cells. Your body is mostly water, but it's mostly
salty water.

~~~
dsr_
Well... not while eating a healthy diet.

Total dissolved solids must be under 500mg/L in US drinking water supplies,
and the highly regarded NYC water system delivers water with less than 50mg/L
of total dissolved solids. Most of that is sodium chloride, calcium chloride
and magnesium sulfate, classic tasty salts... all of which are readily
available in foods.

See
[http://www.nyc.gov/html/dep/pdf/wsstate13.pdf](http://www.nyc.gov/html/dep/pdf/wsstate13.pdf)
for the 2013 water quality report; see table 1.

If you got distilled water instead, you'd notice the taste, but there wouldn't
be a health problem.

------
sparkzilla
On its face, I find this difficult to believe because why would any company
pay to add massive amounts of chemicals to something to give it a taste that
it has naturally? The most important point in the article is that storage in
the oxygen-less tanks deprives the juice of its flavor. No proof is provided
of this assertion. When I follow the source link I get a similar article [1]
that then is sourced to a similar one [2], neither of which has and proof,
other than the author's assertion. So I tried to track down the original. I
found this article [3] which links the original expose to Dr. Oz (whatever)
and to a book, _Squeezed: What you don’t know about Orange Juice_ , and an
interview with the author [4], where she asserts that the stored orange juice
is flavorless, but we don't know if that's really true or not. Did she taste
it? Reading the organic juice's page it seems clear that any 'flavor packs',
which are made from orange peel and oils, are added to standardize the taste,
rather than creating the taste, which seems to be a far more reasonable
suggestion, but hardly something to feel alarm about.

[1]
[https://christinescottcheng.wordpress.com/2010/05/19/tropica...](https://christinescottcheng.wordpress.com/2010/05/19/tropicana-
orange-juice-flavor-packs-and-food-industry-lies/)

[2] [http://civileats.com/2009/05/06/freshly-squeezed-the-
truth-a...](http://civileats.com/2009/05/06/freshly-squeezed-the-truth-about-
orange-juice-in-boxes/)

[3][http://unclematts.com/resources/flavor-packet-
faqs/](http://unclematts.com/resources/flavor-packet-faqs/)

[4][http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2009/02/22/...](http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2009/02/22/qa_with_alissa_hamilton/?page=full)

~~~
rdtsc
> any company pay to add massive amounts of chemicals to something to give it
> a taste that it has naturally?

Unless they plan on selling the juice just during harvest time, they need to
store it. Try and store some juice you squeezed from oranges even in the
refrigerator and see how long it will last and how it will taste. It will last
some but not for 6 months.

Consistency. Tropicana tastes one way, others taste different. I don't know
why you need any proof, products will change flavor after they are stored for
a while.

> add massive amounts of chemicals to something to give it

I'll have to throw the "sauce, please" back at you here ;-) I don't see where
in the article it says these flavor packs are massive. Flavor compounds if
done right will not be massive. Have you ever added spices or vanilla to
anything you cook or bake. How much of the total volume is it? It usually
isn't much.

> No proof is provided of this assertion.

I think it is rather common sense that it would lose flavor, at best it would
have a different / strange flavor.

> hardly something to feel alarm about.

Really, you don't have any idea why someone might be a slightly worried about
this class of additives put into a popular food that gets to skirt by
regulations based on "technical" language.

~~~
Pyxl101
Yes but what if you store it after removing the oxygen? And just the oxygen.
It might last a lot longer. Then put it back at the end and taste it.

Industrial companies have a lot of resources and techniques available to them
that the typical person making juice in their home does not. For example, what
if they pasteurize the juice? Then it might also last longer, etc.

Some people react negatively to these sorts of scientific techniques out of
what seems to be the naturalistic fallacy, a sort of (mistaken) belief that
"natural things" (whatever that means) are intrinsically better.

~~~
MrGando
There's no such thing as "take out all the oxygen". You can take a bunch, but
after a point it get's hard and expensive to keep reducing oxygen
concentrations to super low (not zero) levels.

~~~
Pyxl101
Yes - presumably the goal is to reduce the dissolved oxygen levels low enough
to halt or significantly slow whatever decay process affects the taste.

------
lemevi
This author has a history of being on the wrong side of science, and fear
mongers on the harms of GMO. For example:

[http://www.foodrenegade.com/peru-bans-monsanto-
gmos/](http://www.foodrenegade.com/peru-bans-monsanto-gmos/)

Just google GMO and this blog:
[https://www.google.com/search?q=GMO+site%3Afoodrenegade.com](https://www.google.com/search?q=GMO+site%3Afoodrenegade.com)

~~~
eadz
Being Anti-GMO doesn't make someone on the wrong side of science.

The dangers of GMO from a economic perspective are worthy of worry on their
own. If you haven't seen Food Inc, then I would recommend that as a starting
point to learn how dangerous the monopolisation of the food industry can be to
society. The farmers in Peru want to protect their existing biodiversity,
something North America has lost thanks to Monsanto, where you cannot legally
grow a heirloom corn crop without paying patent fees to monsanto because of
the inevitable wind-born cross pollination, thereby violating monsanto patent
rights.

~~~
lemevi
Like the other commentator, the stated problems in your comment have nothing
to do with GMO, they are a problem with a specific company and patent
politics. I don't like software patents but I don't go around telling people
software is dangerous and that they shouldn't use software.

~~~
eadz
If the software was a virus that infected other software you might.

Unfortunately the biggest GMO companies in the world have given GMO foods a
bad name.

While GM technology does have hope for the future, like AI, it also poses
risks. We need to take those risks seriously, and dismissing people anti-GM as
being anti-science is FUD on your part.

There are dangers of eating GM food, but that doesn't mean the dangers come
from the genes themselves. GM food such as roundup ready crops can have
increased herbicide residue compared to non-GM crops.

We live in a world of corporate funded "science", so being skeptical of claims
of 100% safety for GM organisms released into the wild isn't anti-science,
it's just using the Precautionary Principle.

The Precautionary Principle states that _if an action or policy has a
suspected risk of causing harm to the public or to the environment, in the
absence of scientific consensus that the action or policy is not harmful, the
burden of proof that it is not harmful falls on those taking an action._

I think that is the correct approach to GM. The potential risks if things go
wrong are huge and irreversible, wheres the need for GM food (if any) doesn't
justify that risk until we have better scientific consensus.

~~~
lemevi
What you're saying sounds like that in the absence of evidence that GMO causes
harm you're just going believe whatever you want. There's no scientific basis
to suspect GMO of causing harm to anything. Your suspicions are based on a big
company being involved and oh my god it's made by people. Nature good, people
bad. I don't share this sentiment. Aflotoxin is made by nature, it is bad for
you. Very very bad. It occurs in everyday food. GMO has been shown by research
to mitigate the presence of aflotoxin. GMO is a product of people. If they put
GMO labels on stuff, I will be happy, because I will eat the GMO stuff. You
can have your organic local peanut butter with its aflotoxins.

Also nobody forced farmers to by the GMO crops, they're buying it for a
reason. They're buying it because it's good.

------
jinushaun
I know this article is trying to "scare me with science," but it actually
makes me proud that science allows for orange juice year round. Fresh is
always better than not fresh, but this is something we as a society should be
proud of, not ashamed.

~~~
grecy
When that "fresh" OJ has a fraction of the nutritional benefits of the real
thing, is it even the same thing?

EDIT:
[https://www.google.com/search?q=nutritional+value+of+jurice+...](https://www.google.com/search?q=nutritional+value+of+jurice+vs+oranges)
(Change Juice type to Orange

~~~
Niten
The claim that deoxygenated orange juice has a fraction of the nutritional
benefits of hand-squeezed juice is an assertion that needs to be backed up
with evidence, not blindly assumed.

~~~
grecy
I never realized Google do this themselves.

[https://www.google.com/search?q=nutritional+value+of+jurice+...](https://www.google.com/search?q=nutritional+value+of+jurice+vs+oranges)
(change Juice type to Orange)

So we can see right off the bat the compared to Juice, oranges per unit volume
have 12 times more dietary fiber, more vitamin A & C, almost 4 times more
calcium.

That wasn't hard to find.

~~~
db48x
Fiber is not a nutrient; fiber is any part of a food which cannot be digested.
It's no surprise that oranges have more pulp than orange juice.

As for micronutrients like vitamins, all of them can be destroyed by heat. All
forms of cooking reduce the amount of vitamins in the food, and pasteurization
is no exception. The trade-off is generally worth it, however, as it takes a
fair amount of work to avoid enough foods that you end up with a deficiency,
and the health benefits of killing the bacteria are so great.

Also, fruit juice has a lot of sugar in it; you don't want it to be too large
a part of your diet anyway.

------
ricardobeat
This is one of the little things that make me happy about the Netherlands: the
local market chains sell lots of minimally industrialized products. Orange
juice tastes fresh and will spoil in a couple of days. If you still don't
trust it, there are machines where you can choose fruit and squeeze your own
juice. And it's usually cheaper than the big-brand alternatives.

~~~
usaphp
I've heard many times that ordering a freshly squeezed juice from those
machines is not so safe, they need to clean them pretty often to prevent E.
coli and other dangerous pathogens from spreading, and since the machines that
are squeezing this juice are not kept in refrigirator while operating -
spreading this pathogens becomes an easy task

~~~
avar
You've "heard many times"? It's obviously safe enough that an entire country
has one in every supermarket. Do you think that the health & safety service in
The Netherlands is so bad that it wouldn't be noticed if these things were
causing regular E. coli outbreaks?

------
gruez
> I’m not questioning the health or merit of added chemicals (“natural” or
> “synthetic”)

Oh good, I thought you were afraid of chemicals

>I’m questioning the health or merit of so-called foods that are so devoid of
flavor or color that we have to add back in chemical flavorings and colors to
make them palatable.

Wait what? I thought you weren't questioning the health or merit chemicals?
People like orange juice (more specifically, not from concentrate), and the
cheapest way to produce something that resembles that is to store them in
oxygen-free vats and add back flavor packs. Who cares if chemicals were used
to achieve that flavor?

~~~
pmoriarty
When consumers buy juice labelled "natural" or "100% juice" they expect juice
that hasn't had anything added or taken away from it, especially not something
that doesn't actually exist in nature.

The article was written to inform consumers about what they're actually
getting and how they're getting deceived.

~~~
batiste
"Natural" has pretty much 0 value as a label. What is natural and not natural
would vary depending on which person you ask the question on the street...
This is just marketing.

~~~
tux3
There is a line past which an overwhelming majority of people would reasonably
object to a "natural" or "100% juice" label on orange juice, in the same way
that pure ethylvanillin could not reasonably be labeled 100% natural vanilla.

It seems clear to me that the label has _some_ value, it's just a matter of
placing the line.

~~~
batiste
The label is unregulated. And for example my definition of natural is :
appears in nature, without human intervention. By this definition, there is
very few items items in a grocery shop that are natural... Any farming is
unnatural for example.

------
GigabyteCoin
I was always confused as to why "100% orange juice not from concentrate"
tasted so wildly different from fresh squeezed orange juice.

It's almost as if they are two completely separate drinks.

~~~
archivator
Trader Joe's has Unpasteurized Orange Juice which _does_ taste like freshly
squeezed juice. I wonder how real _that_ is.

------
thaumasiotes
I found this a little odd:

> Haven’t you ever wondered why every glass of Tropicana Pure Premium orange
> juice tastes the same, no matter where in the world you buy it or what time
> of year you’re drinking it in? Or maybe your brand of choice is Minute Maid
> or Simply Orange or Florida’s Natural. Either way, I can ask the same
> question. Why is the taste and flavor so consistent?

And then

> The packs added to juice earmarked for the North American market tend to
> contain high amounts of ethyl butyrate, a chemical in the fragrance of fresh
> squeezed orange juice that, juice companies have discovered, Americans
> favor. Mexicans and Brazilians have a different palate. Flavor packs
> fabricated for juice geared to these markets therefore highlight different
> chemicals

~~~
cba9
Do you often shop at an American grocery store and then immediately at a
Mexican or Brazilian grocery store?

~~~
thaumasiotes
No, but I'm not the one who claimed that orange juice from a given brand
tastes the same no matter where in the world you buy it.

------
skybrian
Another lesson is that if you're going to buy industrial food (and it's
something we're all going to do sometimes since it's an efficient way to make
convenient food available at scale), it's better to go with something that
doesn't hide what it is.

It's one reason why I'm a fan of Soylent. I hope it starts a trend where we
get we get honest industrial food instead of fake natural food. I'm not not at
all convinced that their product is unique, but I hope it starts a trend,
where manufacturers don't hide the fact that flavor and nutrition need to be
designed in, and instead try to explain why the design they chose is the best
design.

~~~
chrismartin
I really like Soylent and what Rosa Labs is doing, but I don't believe that
they are a paragon of transparency. Some countries (e.g. Australia) require
food products to be labeled with the percentage of each ingredient by mass,
not just a list of ingredients in descending order, and I don't see that on my
Soylent pouches.

As demonstrated by OP's example, "honest industrial food" is incompatible with
the economic principles under which the industry operates. Companies emphasize
the information that makes their product more appealing, while concealing
information that would aid their competitors or dissuade some consumers.

Generally, food makers will only disclose the information that they are
compelled to by law, and even then, they employ teams of food scientists and
lawyers to maximize what can be hidden behind a label that is still
technically compliant.

~~~
skybrian
We can still support companies that are more open than the minimum required by
law. I think it will be a long time before it's mainstream, but it may be
enough to keep a niche market going.

------
SunShiranui
Is there any actual evidence that MSG should be "cause for concern"?

~~~
stouset
No. None whatsoever. MSG is just the sodium salt of glutamic acid. Just like
table salt breaks down into its constituent sodium and chlorine in water, MSG
breaks down into sodium and glutamic acid, the latter of which is in high
quantities in beef, poultry, eggs, fish, dairy, and so on.

Fear of MSG is, chemically speaking, utter nonsense.

~~~
thephilosophe
I lost any confidence I had in the author when I saw that line.

------
peteretep

        > I’m sure you’re careful to buy the kind that’s 100%
        > juice and not made from concentrate. After all,
        > that’s the healthier kind, right? 
    

If you're going to drink sugar water, it's unlikely to make much difference if
it came straight from an orange or from concentrate. It seems a bit like
worrying about whether your cigarette papers were naturally bleached or not.

    
    
        > 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.
    

I would love to know what that actually means, other than being scare-quote-
tastic. How does something stop qualifying as a by-product?

    
    
        > Yet those in the industry will tell you that the flavor
        > packs, whether made for reconstituted or pasteurized orange
        > juice, resemble nothing found in nature
    

The pork sausages I buy come exlusively from pigs, herbs, and onions, and yet
they also "resemeble nothing found in nature", unless Big Feline has invented
meat grinders while we weren't watching.

------
kazinator
If the juice is based on the use of flavor packs, then it is, to some extent,
"made from concentrate"; if it is labeled as "not from concentrate", then that
is a flat out lie.

~~~
oneeyedpigeon
I suspect "concentrate" simply has a legal definition that excludes flavour
packs - in fact, doesn't the article say as much? The tricky thing about
labeling is that there's obviously a line and the level of detail required
will vary according to the beholder. I suspect there are far worse offenders
in the food industry and, as the article implies, drinking fruit juice anyway
isn't automatically a 'healthy' option; the concentrate/non-/flavour-pack
distinction is probably relatively insignificant.

------
jeena
The best orange juice I ever had was on the streets of Marakesh. It's freakin'
amazing, hard to describe actually. I never before or after this visit had
that good of a orange juice.

[https://www.google.se/search?q=marakesh+orange+juice&tbm=isc...](https://www.google.se/search?q=marakesh+orange+juice&tbm=isch)

~~~
fredley
One thing that affects perception of flavour more than anything else is how
hungry and thirsty you are. Not that the orange juice in Marrakech isn't great
(I've had it), but if you're really thirsty whatever you drink is going to
taste amazing. Same goes for being really hungry and food.

What's interesting is that these perceptions persist even when you have those
foods again. Having been exhausted and very hungry once and having had fish &
chips afterwards, that flavour (of fish 'n chip-shop deep fried cod and greasy
chips) still knocks me over every time I have it.

------
bitmapbrother
You should also watch this CBC Marketplace episode on the secrets behind
Orange Juice. Quite revealing.

[http://www.cbc.ca/marketplace/episodes/2014-2015/orange-
juic...](http://www.cbc.ca/marketplace/episodes/2014-2015/orange-juice-juicy-
secrets)

------
shiftoutbox
My father grew up on an orange grove in Lebanon and ate lots of citrus fruit
and drank a good amount of juice as a child . Living in the New Jersey for the
majority of his adult life he always said that the frozen concentrate orange
juice tastes the best; and it looked like orange juice . He always disliked
the bottled juice , saying it didn't taste right to him, and it was too damn
expensive. As I grew up I noticed that Tropcana and Minute Maid cartons gave
me horrible indigestion, so I gave up on orange juice . I told my dad about
this and he reminded me of two things one this is what you get when a large
company makes food , people in suits with MBAs tell chemical engineers to make
me a more profitable product . Two don't drink orange juice, stick to coffee ,
it has caffeine. Ymmv

------
umsm
There was an interesting CBC News show on this:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8e4CEm9yybo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8e4CEm9yybo)

The most interesting thing was that people were so used to the taste of the
processed OJ that they preferred it to the fresh squeezed OJ.

~~~
kazinator
Some people even prefer tastes that are _obviously_ artificial, like Sunny
Delight ("Sunny D" in some places) or Tang crystals.

------
dplgk
So they don't have to list the flavor packets as ingredients. But why are they
allowed to advertise "100% pure premium Florida orange juice"?

~~~
zck
I think it's because the flavor packets are also made from 100% Florida orange
juice, even if it's just extracts processed from oranges, not the raw juice.

------
meursault334
I've wondered why the fresh orange juice machines you see in Spain commonly
are never seen in the United States. Is there a food safety law that prevents
this or is it just a matter of preference?

~~~
evgen
Some places in the US have them, but usually they are commercial units. For
most Americans that shop for staples one every week or two a gallon of
pasteurized juice that keeps for two weeks under refrigeration is great
compared to oranges that would not last nearly as long. OJ is a common
component of breakfast but our shopping habits do not support fresh juice.

------
jheriko
i'm not sure i care that much tbh.

this is a tiny part of the price i pay for being able to buy it in a shop from
bulk suppliers rather than having to juice my own fruit... besides that, i
don't think its a heavy price to pay - i'm not sure i really see the harm tbh.

its not like they are flavouring it with deadly toxic poisons.

~~~
wahnfrieden
For me, it just doesn't taste nearly as good. Try it fresh if you haven't
recently. It's barely the same beverage at all.

~~~
jheriko
oh sure. this is definitely the case... but we all notice this right? its not
really a secret and i don't think it needs scaremongering about.

i can remember asking my parents about this 20+ years ago the first time we
bothered to squeeze our own juice, as the first response after tasting it...
they didn't give me a page of information about the process exactly but it
seems obvious that they knew this already from past experience.

i guess maybe there is a problem today that people just won't even try fresh
orange juice...

~~~
wahnfrieden
Yeah I used to take it for granted, but I remember vividly how shocked and
impressed a friend was (in my childhood, granted) when he tried fresh OJ for
the first time. It was a transformative revelation.

I still find restaurants that claim to have fresh OJ when it's clearly not. I
can see how it would slip through the cracks of some people's experiences.

------
m104
Very interesting reading. I've gotten many migraine headaches over the years
that I can only correlate to having consumed major brand name orange juices.
Minute Maid, Tropicana, that kind of stuff.

Since realizing this, I've stuck to plain old oranges and fresh squeezed OJ
and not had a problem. The link between consumer OJ and my migraines, if one
exists at all, never made sense ("it's just crushed oranges, after all") until
now.

So, theoretically at least, my body could have a bad reaction to whatever is
in the flavor packs that are used to make the tasteless juice taste more like
real orange juice.

------
undersuit
What I really hate about re-flavored juices is that we grow the fruits in the
first place. It seems like a waste to spend all this effort growing a fruit
tree, watering it, pruning it, grafting it, and applying pesticides,
herbicides and fungicides only to have the final product just ground up for
the sugars. I hope at the very least farmers are using orange cultivars we
consumers don't like to eat and taking the subpar oranges from a harvest
before they deoxygenate the juices and throw out the rest.

------
cubano
If you don't care for how your OJ is processed, you should _really_ dislike
that bottle of wine, too.

 _Sulfur Dioxide The most widely used wine additive. It kills microbes and
prevents oxidation. Few vintners dare to ­bottle a wine without it, but
overuse can make a vino stink like burnt matches.

Ammonium Salts A touch of diammonium phosphate revives dying yeast and keeps
it from producing too much sulfur.

Water If a batch of vino ends up a bit too boozy, just add some water.

Oak adjuncts Oak barrels can make wine taste drier and lend it notes of
vanilla, but they’re expensive. A cheaper alternative? Oak chips, sawdust, or
“essence”—a liquefied wood product that can be added directly to an otherwise
finished wine.

Tartaric Acid A naturally occurring acid found in grapes, it’s particularly
critical in white wines, where tartness gives each sip a pleasing snap. Wines
with insufficient acidity can get a boost from powdered tartaric acid.

Powdered Tannin Naturally present in grape skins and seeds as well as oak,
tannin creates texture and astringency. Typically made from a growth on oak
trees called a nutgall, powdered tannin can punch up lackluster wine.

Sugar If grapes aren’t ripe enough when picked, adding cane or beet sugar to
the must can help them ferment. The catch: Adding sugar, called
chaptalization, is illegal in California, Italy, and Australia. (It’s legal in
New Zealand, Oregon, and parts of France, though allowed amounts vary.)

Pectic Enzymes Complex proteins that can be used to alter color, improve
clarity, release aromatic compounds, and speed up aging.

Gum Arabic Made from the sap of the acacia tree, gum arabic softens tannins to
reduce astringency and make the wine’s body more silky. This can make a tough
and somewhat bitter red wine ready to drink immediately.

Velcorin (dimethyl dicarbonate) First introduced in the 1980s—though
increasingly controversial—this microbial control agent can kill a half-dozen
wine-­ruining bacteria and yeasts when added in minute quantities. It’s also
widely used in fruit juices.

Mega ­Purple Made from the concentrated syrup of Rubired grapes, Mega ­Purple
is a thick goo that winemakers rely on to correct color issues—a few drops can
turn a ­bottle of wine from a weak salmon blush to an appealingly intense
crimson—and to make a wine look consistent from batch to batch. In a 119-liter
wine barrel, just 200 milliliters is enough to do the trick. Mega ­Purple is
made by Constellation Brands, the company behind famous labels like Robert
Mondavi and Ravens­wood. While on the record no one will cop to using it (or
any other additive), industry insiders say that even high-end winemakers have
employed it to deepen the color of their wines, a trait that connotes richness
and quality, earns better ratings from critics, and commands higher ­bottle
prices._

[1][http://www.wired.com/2014/04/how-to-make-wine-taste-
good/](http://www.wired.com/2014/04/how-to-make-wine-taste-good/)

~~~
pmoriarty
One thing that really surprised me about the ingredients of wine is that
animal products are often used. For example, isinglass[1] and other animal
products which many vegetarians would usually avoid.[2]

[1] -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isinglass](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isinglass)

[2] -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetarianism_and_wine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetarianism_and_wine)

~~~
stan_rogers
Isinglass is _used_ , but it isn't an ingredient - it's more like a flux,
something for suspended yeast and proteins to get stuck to so it will settle
out. That doesn't mean that vegan types shouldn't object to its use, but it
doesn't remain part of the wine (it can only be found in the dregs).

------
cobweb
The home vs shop bought items rings true. I can make a bean burger without
much effort. And I have a good idea what went into it. But if I buy one, I'm
not sure how old the ingredients are, how long they have been stored and what
other processes those foods have been through.

I have gotten it into my head that these are pretty much low-nutrition non-
foods, and as such, I only eat them on the rare occasion.

------
magicbuzz
I buy a heap of organic oranges each week and make my own juice - which tastes
awesome. I don't buy bottled OJ anymore and I have found that non-organic
oranges tend to be always mysteriously bigger, have heaps more pulp to deal
with and just don't taste as good.

And I always found the OJ to have a very distinct and unusual taste when in
the US.

------
sehugg
Uncle Matt's costs a couple bucks more, but doesn't use flavor packets. They
store their juice in frozen drums in the off-season:
[http://unclematts.com/resources/flavor-packet-
faqs/](http://unclematts.com/resources/flavor-packet-faqs/)

------
outworlder
Well, that explains some things.

Being brazilian, I find US "orange juice" to be TERRIBLE. So yeah, we do have
different tastes in juice.

Nothing beats freshly squeezed juice, as in just squeezed. Try to drink it one
hour later and it will have changed the taste already.

------
jakejake
Regardless of how you feel about additives, healthiness of juice or whatever,
you should at least want your food labels to be honest and accurate. To me
that's really what I take away from food posts about ingredients, GMOs, etc.

~~~
TeMPOraL
You need to understand how this works. First, it's "if GMOs are safe, why do
you want to hide it by refusing to label?". Then, when you start putting it on
labels, the narrative changes to "if GMOs are safe, then why are you warning
us about them by putting them on labels?".

~~~
jakejake
Withholding the information sure doesn't seem very "scientific" to me. It
seems like the opposite of what science is about.

~~~
TeMPOraL
You have to ask yourself, why are you privileging _this particular_
information over everything else that could be on the label? They can't
reasonably print everything that's in the food, _especially_ if any part of it
contains pieces of plants or animals - the living stuff has so much chemistry
in it that you'd have to attach a book to each product to just list them. So
producers already have to be picky.

Also, I'm not against labeling that the product is GMO-based. I want to point
out at the dynamics around GMO labeling; their most vocal proponents create
"damned if you do, damned if you don't" kind of situation.

~~~
jakejake
Why do we put vitamin C on the label? Why sugar content? Why not carbon atoms?
Why anything? The FDA (supposedly) requires labels for things that are
considered important by health professionals and consumers. If enough people
want to know about GMOs, then it's important. Not labeling GMOs or any other
ingredients or by-products that might be seen as "gross" to the consumer, is
only about protecting the food manufacturers.

I think it's a BS argument anyway because the average consumer, given two bags
of apples that look identical, is going to buy the one that is cheaper. And if
for some reason the public decided to never touch GMOs, then so be it. Food
manufacturers can make their products in a way that consumers want to buy
them. That's a free market. Not being shady and hiding information.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _I think it 's a BS argument anyway because the average consumer, given two
> bags of apples that look identical, is going to buy the one that is
> cheaper._

Yeah, I agree.

> _And if for some reason the public decided to never touch GMOs, then so be
> it. Food manufacturers can make their products in a way that consumers want
> to buy them. That 's a free market. Not being shady and hiding information._

So they do, and that's why we have organic food industry, which is even more
shady than the original one. The reason we have this argument is that looking
at _why_ public decided to never touch GMOs makes one facepalm. It's mostly
pseudo-science wrapped in FUD, perpetuated ad nauseam in popular press -
creating fear and then playing off it. It's good for making money selling
articles or ad views. It's not good for making this planet a better place for
everyone.

------
farresito
Most fruit juices are unhealthy because of their high sugar, low fiber
content. Buy them from the store and they are even more unhealthy. A better
option is probably to make shakes (throw the whole fruit in).

------
Pxtl
Frustrating that we either give up on natural foods or on the economies of
scale and industrialization.

With two incomes and 3 kids, my family has no time for homemade organic
fermented (!?) Lemonade.

------
m1keil
This is why I only drink Orange Drink..

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuTjQLfU6Gk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuTjQLfU6Gk)

------
ju-st
So orange juice made from concentrate is better/good?

~~~
Agathos
I remember reading years ago about studies that said exactly that, not just
about oranges but about vegetables in general. Freezing is a great way to
preserve all sorts of compounds including vitamin C.

------
necessity
This is turning into reddit with all these clickbaits.

------
kennydude
In the UK I just stick to Innocent drinks who don't use any of that stuff. I
love how they just use pictures on the labels :)

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
I used to love Innocent and everything they stood for but I have to admit I've
been shying away from them since they became a wholly-owned subsidiary of
Coca-Cola... :(

~~~
kennydude
True, it's not the best owner but they seem to be able to stick to their
values which is nice

------
LoSboccacc
Article seems interesting but damn all the javascript tracking shit make it a
pain to read on a oldish iphone (5s)

------
clumsysmurf
Next up for deceptive labeling: GMO Salmon

[http://consumerist.com/2015/11/19/fda-signs-off-on-
genetical...](http://consumerist.com/2015/11/19/fda-signs-off-on-genetically-
modified-salmon-without-labeling/)

------
cobweb
If I ever buy shop bought tomato pasta sauces, there is a flavour in most that
repulses me. It's something I can't recreate with home cooking. So this post
does make me think that it could be something like a flavour pack. I always
thought it was a preservative.

------
cobweb
Is this a U.S. thing? Is it the same in the U.K.?

------
Pxtl
So is the frozen concentrate better or worse?

------
privacy101
I usually mix my juices with about 40% water before I drink them.

------
tripzilch
> Do you buy orange juice at the store? If you do, I’m sure you’re careful to
> buy the kind that’s 100% juice and not made from concentrate. After all,
> that’s the healthier kind, right? The more natural kind? The kind without
> any additives? The kind that’s sold in the refrigerator section so it must
> be almost as good as fresh-squeezed orange juice?

I'll tell my experience when visiting the US a few years ago. I'm from the
Netherlands, and here almost all orange juice is "from concentrate"[0].

It doesn't _quite_ taste like freshly pressed juice, but I was never quite
able to put my finger on it what was missing.

In the US I saw cartons of "actual really real juice not from concentrate
really" for the first time, in a Whole Foods supermarket in Manhattan, NYC. So
I got one of those and it was delicious. Still not _quite_ like fresh juice,
but really close.

(I don't think you can actually get the "real fresh orange juice" experience
if you don't have fingers that smell like orange peel, and this vague worry
that you should really wipe the kitchen counter before it'll dry all sticky)

So two days later I got another, different brand carton of "actually really
real juice for realness totally not concentrate really". And it tasted pretty
much like the "from concentrate" stuff at home (which still isn't bad, IMHO--
unlike that "nectar" crap).

Next time at the same Whole Foods supermarket, I took a good look, and
discovered there's basically (at least) two kinds of orange juice in the US:
made from oranges in Florida, and made from oranges in Brazil (I think it was
Brazil, 98% sure).

Now it made sense to me. In the Netherlands, nearly _all_ our orange juice is
from Brazil (afaik). And it was the "real juice not from concentrate" stuff
from Florida oranges that was the juice that tasted (to me) mostly like fresh
juice. And the Brazilian "real juice not from concentrate" that tasted like
the "from concentrate" stuff at home.

Unfortunately I couldn't completely test the theory that maybe Florida oranges
just juice better, concentrate or not, because at this particular Whole Foods
I couldn't find any "Florida orange juice from concentrate". I'd have totally
bought it to test the experiment, but I just couldn't spot any.

Does this make sense to any US-people? That have more time to buy and try
different types of OJ? :-) Otherwise, just disregard this N=1 anecdote (but do
let me know :P)

[0] There's an even cheaper kind called "orange nectar" which is half juice-
from-concentrate plus water and some sugar/sweetener, but I can't imagine why
anyone would buy that, ever. You can add water to juice at home without the
sugar and it'll taste better, be cheaper, and healthier.

~~~
aardshark
The article mentions the different chemicals favored by palates in different
regions, so maybe you're just accustomed to the NL chemicals rather than the
US ones.

~~~
tripzilch
That's very possible. Which would mean the Brazilian flavour packs are similar
to the Dutch ones.

Though my main point was wondering whether "100% juice from concentrate"
versus "real 100% juice _not_ from concentrate" matters a lot for the flavour.

The Brazilian-oranges juice I bought in the US was _not_ -from-concentrate,
but still tasted very similar to the NL 100%-juice-from-concentrate stuff.
While the Floridian-orange juice _not_ -from-concentrate did almost like fresh
juice.

It's not like I didn't like them btw. I don't expect it to taste like fresh
juice anyway :)

------
iokevins
TL;DR: producers store juice in oxygen-less tanks, for up to one year, then
add natural/synthetic chemicals, to restore taste, prior to distribution. The
author suggests people make their own juice, instead.

~~~
mikeash
I'm really starting to wonder what the point of juice even is.

If you want fruit, eat fruit. If you want a drink, drink some water. Why
combine the two?

Fruit juice seems like basically a way to drink soda but with the delusion
that it's good for you.

~~~
masterleep
You have never felt the desire for a tart citrus beverage?

~~~
mikeash
Not since I came to understand what fruit juice actually is. If I want health
I'll eat the actual fruit, and if I want a tasty-but-unhealthy drink I just
drink soda.

Sure, the stuff tastes OK, but not as good as the fruit it comes from.

~~~
song
That's the thing, I love fresh orange juice. It tastes great. I do not really
like Orange juice and I absolutely loath soda (it tastes awful). So I drink
Orange Juice (and Apple Juice) because it tastes great.

~~~
mikeash
Better than the actual orange?

~~~
djur
Better brands of orange juice are more refreshing than the terrible, fibrous
oranges that are available here for most of the year. I'd rather drink
lemonade than eat a lemon, too, for that matter.

------
caiob
Portland much?

------
xenoclast
Love! It's love, isn't it?

------
hmate9
It seems like nothing you can buy in a supermarket is healthly.

~~~
downer71
It really depends on the specific super market you visit.

Some of them are really bad. Others are really incredibly and amazingly good.

The fresher the food, and the greater the variety of products, the better.
Some chains seem to stock just massive amounts of commodity agribusiness food,
but more selective stores will put in the extra work, and provide a rotating
selection among many different options, and limit the mass-produced factory
food.

Sometimes, within the same chain, it can boil down to the managers and the
degree of control they have over stocking the shelves, or the amount of effort
they're interested in investing in (or believe in the value of) putting
thought into the products they stock. In New York City, there is a HUGE degree
of variation WITHIN CHAINS, varying from neighborhood to neighborhood.

So, if none of the stores within your town are great, maybe try the next town
over? You might notice a big difference, even if the sign outside is the same.

------
aaron695
To those who aren't religious like this author Coke is always better than
juice. It has caffeine in it a least which is good for you.

Of course sugar free Coke is close to good for you compared to the toxic
juices and Coke.

Water is only better than sugar free coke in that it teaches you not to
continuous rely on the addictive sugary taste and better on your teeth.

~~~
ionised
Do you really believe this?

