What's wrong with orange juice? Plenty, says Toronto author

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What's wrong with orange juice? Plenty, says Toronto author

May 20, 2009

by Sampson

That glass of sunshine sitting on the breakfast table isn't as pure and

simple as you think it is, according to an exposé of the orange juice

industry.

In her new book Squeezed: What You Don't Know About Orange Juice, author

Alissa Hamilton examines the " rift that exists between the reality of

processed orange juice and retail rhetoric. "

Although orange juice " has come to symbolize purity in a glass, " she

writes, it may be heat processed, watered down, sugared up, doctored by flavour

engineers and stored for a year.

Hamilton, 36, lives in Toronto. She has a doctorate in environmental

studies from Yale University and a law degree from the University of Toronto.

She is a fellow with the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, based in

Minneapolis. The fellows are a diverse group working to change U.S. food

policies and advance the idea of healthy, green and affordable food for all.

She says making the food system more transparent is her particular area of

interest.

Q: What would consumers be surprised to discover about orange juice?

A: The leading producers of " not from concentrate " (a.k.a. pasteurized)

orange juice keep their juice in million-gallon aseptic storage tanks to

ensure a year-round supply. Juice stored this way has to be stripped of oxygen,

a process known as de-aeration, so it doesn't oxidize in the tanks. When

the juice is stripped of oxygen, it is also stripped of flavour-providing

chemicals ... If you were to try the juice coming out of the tanks, it would

taste like sugar water.

Juice companies therefore hire flavour and fragrance companies, the same

ones that make popular perfumes and colognes, to fabricate flavour packs to

add back to their product to make it taste like orange juice.

Q: What are flavour packs?

A: Flavour packs are derived from the orange essence and oils that are

lost from orange juice during processing. Flavour houses break down these

essence and oils into their constituent chemicals and then reassemble the

chemicals into formulations that resemble nothing found in nature. Most of the

juice sold in North America contains flavour packs that have especially high

concentrations of ethyl butyrate, a chemical found in orange essence that

the industry has discovered Americans like and associate with the flavour of

a freshly squeezed orange.

Q: How is the labelling of orange juice misleading or confusing?

A: A good example is the statement that appeared at the top of Tropicana's

new and now discontinued carton: " squeezed from fresh oranges. " While

meaningless – one would hope the oranges were fresh when squeezed – the

statement could easily be misread as " fresh squeezed " by all but the most

discerning shoppers.

Not much has changed since the early 1960s, when the U.S. Food and Drug

Administration began to regulate orange juice in part to stop orange juice

manufacturers from marketing their processed products as fresh.

Q: What type of orange juice is closest to pure or fresh squeezed? Frozen

concentrate, bottled or chilled in cartons?

A: It's hard to compare. What's important is price is not an accurate

measure of the extent to which a product has been processed.

For instance, " not from concentrate " orange juice, which is sold chilled

in cartons, is the most expensive but not necessarily the least processed ...

Any product that has a 60-plus day shelf life and is available year-round

has to be heavily processed. If you want a product that is fresh-squeezed

or close to it, the " best before " date is a good gauge. Fresh-squeezed juice

doesn't last for more than a couple of days.

Q: Where does Canada's orange juice come from?

A: Florida is the birthplace of the orange juice industry. Even

Californians will admit Florida grows an exceptionally good juice orange ... But

most

orange juice sold in North America, Canada included, now comes from Brazil,

where there are fewer environmental regulations, and land and labour are

cheaper.

Q: Do you still drink orange juice? Should people buy less orange juice?

A: I prefer to eat a whole orange, literally: I even eat the pith, and

save the peel for cooking. But I have nothing against orange juice, especially

if it's freshly squeezed from Florida Valencias, which are considered the

" Cadillac of oranges " ... for their juiciness, deep orange colour and rich

orange flavour.

We take it for granted that we can have orange juice for breakfast 365

days of the year. But even orange juice has a season. Now is the best time to

drink it, since from March until the end of June, Florida Valencias are in

their prime.