Unveiling the Truth Behind Orange Juice: Processed Freshness and Health Concerns
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Alissal Hamilton points out in Squeezed: What you Don’t Know About Orange Juice, that with the rapid growth of convenience foods a larger question emerged around the very notion of what normal food was processed or untouched? People ate one alongside the other without thinking too much about it. In the 1950s chemists developed more than 400 new additives to aid in processing and preserving food (taste was an afterthought at best). Canned meals, powdered foods, frozen seasonal and exotic produce were now readily available year round. Women’s magazines extolled these “new” foods and their miraculous time saving attributes. But the idea that something processed could also be “fresh” was provoking questions. By 1960 the FDA was becoming concerned with the misrepresentative “fresh” labeling of commercial orange juice. Not only was it far from fresh, but sugar and water were being added. Federal standards and regulation ensued.
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Frozen concentrated orange juice remained the breakfast drink of choice until the mid 1980s when technology finally got closer to quenching consumer’s thirst for fresh tasting juice with the creation of reconstituted “Ready to Serve” juice. Portraying orange juice as practically fresh squeezed was now the primary pursuit of marketers, like this Tropicana commercial with the enticing “squeeze me a glass” jingle. In the 1990s “not from concentrate” orange juice hit the shelves and below every thing else away. Rather than vitamins in a can, we now had freshness and purity in a carton.
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But as Hamilton details in her book, there is practically nothing fresh or pure about it. Most commercial orange juice is so heavily processed that it would be undrinkable if not for the addition of something called flavour packs. This is the latest technological innovation in the industry’s perpetual quest to mimic the simplicity of fresh juice. Oils and essences are extracted from the oranges and then sold to a flavour manufacturer who concocts a carefully composed flavour pack customized to the company’s flavour specification. The juice which has been patiently sitting in storage sometimes for more than a year, is then pumped with these packs to restore its aroma and taste, which by this point have been thoroughly annihilated. You are welcome.
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Recently there has been a series of lawsuits against PepsiCo, Tropicana’s parent company, disputing its “all natural” labeling, in part because of Hamilton’s exposure of industry practices. Meanwhile, growers plan to roll out a marketing campaign to address some of these health concerns by promoting drinking smaller glasses of juice. “The industry is trying to revive its reputation against all odds,” says Hamilton. “Not only is orange juice heavily processed, but it’s straight sugar which today people recognize as contributing to obesity and diabetes.” Hamilton admits that orange juice is low on the FDA’s list of priorities, but the British government is taking action by calling for a tax on fruit juice and warning consumers that it has as much sugar as Coke and should be consumed sparingly. In the meantime, most of us still like to think we can find in a glass of orange juice at least a little more health than in a can of soda. May be that classic breakfast isn’t so balanced after all.
