To me, cold pressed orange juice I buy tastes 3X better than any other orange juice I've tried at the store. To me, that's worth 3X more. Some people value taste more than others, to each his own.
I believe the parent was describing the unsubstantiated belief that press-type juicers are somehow superior to the centrifugal-type juicers you can buy for tens of dollars at big box stores.
I agree with you about fresh squeezed OJ, but I don't believe for a second that it matters if the orange is squeezed in a press or twisted in a rotary. (different kind of juicer, but you get the point).
Fresh-squeezed juice tastes better because you don't have to do all the things that need to be done to make juice safe to ship long distances. The idea that this super-expensive way of getting juice "damages the nutrients less" is a bunch of ridiculous hokum, and I'm betting if you got fresh orange juice that wasn't cold-pressed you wouldn't notice a 3X difference between it and cold-pressed.
Unless you actually saw it being squeezed, I wouldn't consider it "freshly squeezed". This is also the first time I've seen anybody, outside of advertisement, describe Minute Maid as "premium" orange juice.
Over here some supermarkets have juicers pre-filled with oranges in their produce sections, you just put an empty bottle into it, push a button and you can watch live as it squeezes the oranges into your bottle.
Don't know if they exist in the US, but I specifically look for juice bottles that say "NOT FROM CONCENTRATE". I can usually find a few even in smaller grocery stores.
I think what was meant by "fresh-squeezed" is the not from concentrate kind.
I certainly wouldn't describe juice from concentrate as "fresh-squeezed", because it's been squeezed, boiled to reduce its water content, frozen, packed, shipped, defrosted, rehydrated and packed again before I get to drink it.
The article does not say it is a lie. the article says some over exaggerate the benefits. It says the actual fruit is better. But also says juice (reasonable amounts) is good for you.
Of course it is good for you. Vegetable more so (I would imagine) but fruit juice as well. Would it be better to eat the fruit and veg, sure. But is having juice better than nothing. Yes. Is it better than some other liquid refreshments. Yes.
Is it as good for you as some would have you believe, no. Do some over market it as a cure all. Sure. That doesn't mean, it is bad for you*
"good" and "bad" are comparisons, not quantifications. The correct question is something like: all else being equal, what is the difference in expected lifespan between a juice drinker and a juice abstainer?
I'm pretty sure that HN has consumed more of my lifespan than any diet could compensate for.
It's probably better to avoid the fruit entirely. Modern fruit has been bred to increase sugar content far above what was natural. If you can fine real wild berries those are probably OK but they will taste sour if you're used to supermarket fruit.
Have a source for that? Or even an example of a fruit where it's the case? It certainly isn't true for apples - heirloom varieties often have higher sugar content than modern apples. Modern apples taste sweeter than many heirloom varieties due to lower acidity, not higher sugar content.
Many modern cultivated fruits don't contain nearly as much sugar as they could because they're picked early, before their prime.
In the Northwest, Rubus armeniacus is an invasive species which has never been heavily bred, and is one of the sweetest fruits you can find - especially in late summer.
Grapes are one of the only fruits which have enough sugar to make wine with unless you use chaptalization. (Though some berries like Blackberries get close.)
My big reason for eating fruit is more the micronutrients, since I treat multivitamins (and pills in general) with suspicion. That trite adage of "stuff your grandmother would recognise" has been enormously beneficial to me.
Would you say that modern fruits lack these micronutrients as well? Anecdotally, I cannot report any excessive shortages in my nutrition.
> Would it be better to eat the fruit and veg, sure. But is having juice better than nothing.
But in this system you already have the fruit and vegetables whole - because you put them into the juicer. Why spend the extra time, expense and fuss on juicing them, when you could just eat them in less time, less fuss, and without buying anything?
You've said it's better to eat them, and it's quicker, less fuss and cheaper, so why not?
For me the main benefit is tasty consumption of vegetables that I would otherwise probably not eat in their raw state, or in the quantity I'd like e.g. a fave is carrot, apple, ginger, spinach and broccoli.
If you believe the numerous health claims that vegetables in their raw state are good for you, this is a much easier way to consume them. If you don't believe it, then yeah, you could spend the time to cook it up - you're not in the target demo...
Criticisms such at TFA linked to above, speak of sweetened smoothies, mostly fruit drinks (who would buy a cold press to squeeze oranges? what a strawman). While the arguments are valid, they typically miss the main use-cases of core cold-press-juicer demo.
