I read this interesting post on Erik Marcus’s blog ( now defunct ) about the new book “Squeezed” about commercial orange juice:
It’s a heavily processed product. It’s heavily engineered as well. In the process of pasteurizing, juice is heated and stripped of oxygen, a process called deaeration, so it doesn’t oxidize. Then it’s put in huge storage tanks where it can be kept for upwards of a year. It gets stripped of flavor-providing chemicals, which are volatile. When it’s ready for packaging, companies such as Tropicana hire flavor companies such as Firmenich to engineer flavor packs to make it taste fresh. People think not-from-concentrate is a fresher product, but it also sits in storage for quite a long time…
I stopped drinking orange juice when I learned what a calorie bomb it is. It is bad as soda for being liquid calories, easy to gulp down and not as filling as solid food with similar calories. Orange juice got supersized with other things. When I was a kid a tiny 2-4 ounce glass of OJ at breakfast was the norm. By the time I was a teenager I was using the stuff like it was water.
I think knowing what I know now, if I want some OJ, I will take the 2 min to squeeze it myself or feel fine buying the cheapest brand in the store knowing that I am not really getting extra with more expensive brands.
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I buy oranges that are ripe and on sale and squeeze juice them a couple times a week.
Fresh, as always, is best!
Good for you. I think commercial orange juice is one of those conveniences no one really needed, but was done so somebody could make money. I’ve squeezed orange juice with one of those old fashioned one piece things you rub the oranges against. It isn’t a big deal.