Orange juice has been breaking American fasts since the Jazz Age; it’s as American as apple pie. Recently author Alissa Hamilton, a Food and Society Fellow with the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, has been punching holes in our orange juice cartons. In her book Squeezed: What You Don’t Know about Orange Juice, Hamilton reveals that what we think is “fresh” orange juice in the refrigerated section of the grocery store is not so fresh at all.
For years now, not-so-fresh juice has been obfuscated by advertisements of slow motion juice pouring into gleaming glasses montaged over panoramas of shade-speckled groves. If you are buying juice in a carton, be sure to read the labels carefully. Here are some translations:
Juice – is the nectar from the tissues of a fruit or vegetable.
Juice Drink or Cocktail – contents can contain as little as 5% juice.
From Concentrate – juice that is boiled down to remove water for shipping or storage and then reconstituted.
Not from Concentrate – indicates juice has been pasteurized (heated) so it can be stored for up to 60 days.
A container announcing “Squeezed from Fresh Oranges” – (we would hope so) buyer beware of when they were squeezed and what happened to the juice afterwards.
The main problem with container juices is that after pasteurization or concentration, the flavor and nutrients are lost and need to be added back to make it palatable. Orange juice makers do this by creating “flavor packs.” According to Hamilton, the North American flavor packs are engineered with high concentrations of ethyl butyrate to provide a fresh orange juice smell. This is done in accordance with federal regulations as these flavors are “natural” and so require no special labeling. But Hamilton’s book is a sobering look at a drink we’ve become comfortable with and hardly think of as a “highly-processed” food.
Juice as a thirst quencher is a new addition to the human diet; mostly we’ve eaten fruit and drunken water to get what we need. According to The Linus Pauling Institute the daily recommended allowance of Vitamin C for an adult male is 90mg and 75mg for a female. That is easily achieved by eating one medium orange (70mg), one cup of strawberries (85mg), or a few little mandarin oranges (60mg) – plus the fiber is already included.
If you love juice, try making your own from fresh fruit. There are many juicers available, from simple spoon, silent motorized models, and extractors, to sleek retro chrome presses that look cool on the counter. Valencia oranges are the best juice oranges, but all are good. To juice, the fruit should be room temperature; roll it on the counter (good job for a kid) first to soften it a bit. The juice of two oranges makes about one four-ounce glass of the genuine article. And the container is 100% compostable!
- Heidi Lewis
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