Simple Foods: The Story Of Your Orange Juice
How are you today? How did you start your morning? I used to start my morning with a fresh glass of orange juice, a stretch and a new resolve. I am luckier than some in that I rather like healthy fresh food. I don’t see it as something of a punishment or something I must try and make great effort to accommodate. So when I opted to stop drinking fizzy drinks, my liquid intake became just OJ, water and herb tea…
That was until I found out that the wholesome orange goodness that I thought I was imbibing was perhaps not as wholesome, authentic and good as I thought.
When I think of fresh orange juice, l have an image of countless fields of oranges on trees and a happy brown person with broken teeth and a worn out sun hat smiling warmly at the camera as he drops another zesty fresh orange into his full basket.
I have this image because that was what was sold to me since I was young. The truth however is somewhat different. The little brown man and his plump happy wife do not spend all day squeezing juice just so that I can have it fresh the next day! Here is the story of your orange juice and how it gets to your table:
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If you are like me you probably go for fresh orange juice that is not from concentrate in the hopes that you are providing your body with a sweet juicy drink with all the nutritional benefits of the fruit itself. However, when oranges are picked they are squeezed and the juice is stored in giant vats. Oxygen is removed to enable the juice to be able to hang around for up to year without going off. This process also strips the juice of flavors.
When they are ready to use the juice, the flavors are replaced using flavor packs designed by the same people that make perfumes for the big perfume companies. They also use industrial chemical processes to recreate the smell of orange. The idea that your juice is not overly processed because we have been encouraged not to buy from concentrate is not quite the whole picture.
Often we don’t reconsider what we are buying once the advertising message has numbed our brain into automatic repetitive purchasing. But it stands to reason that any fresh juice that tastes consistently sweet must have had something done to it as it is near impossible to be able to buy consistently sweet fruit. It also stands to reason that any fresh product that has an unfeasible shelf life will have had some industrial process intervening between it’s natural, simple state and you. Whilst the orange liquid that ends up on our tables might not be detrimental for you, (jury’s still out), for me it does not remotely resemble what I thought I was buying.
Why give up fizzy drinks? – I’ll get into that another time.
Sources:
- ‘What You Don’t Know About Orange Juice‘ Alissa Hamilton
- Conversations with my own Doc.
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16 Responses to “Simple Foods: The Story Of Your Orange Juice”
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Nice info pea. I always like to stay alert to healthy eating habits and stay educated. I have taken to Nopalea juice myself which I recommend
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rob white recently posted..Stage 3 of Creation – Give Yourself Permission to Fail
Pea, you’re one of my favorite people on the web. And it’s bits like this that do it for me.
I’m certainly curious to know more, and I will have to investigate further. It’s frustrating that our demands for everything to be ready now, regardless of season, has created a culture of manipulation that infects everything we know and love. Geez, even oranges aren’t safe?!
Perhaps because we have access to more information now and that changes everything. We are determined to be critical, and rightly so!
Great piece pea. I do enjoy!
David recently posted..Why You Should Stop Creating
“Pea, you’re one of my favorite people on the web.” – Reciprocated David. Reciprocated. I don’t know if we actually demanded everything now though, or if it happened in an effort for the stores to make more money and we all just bought whatever was available in the supermarket without a moments thought about how it got there and then got used to it. After all if we knew the true cycle of various fruits we would accept not having them at certain times, just as we, (most of us) have to accept the changing seasons. We complain occasionally but we know it is normal so we simply accept and carry on. And yup…oranges, apple juice, any of the so-called fresh fruit juices would be treated the same. I could be wrong, but I believe ‘Innocent’ fruit juice is probably the only one currently using real fruit and only real fruit which will go off if you don’t drink it soonish. I may double check this at some point so as not to give out incorrect information and I don’t know if they are available in the US.
I never knew that they added scents to “fresh squeezed”. The crazy thing is that I should be more surprised that the label on the packaging is misleading!
My new juicer arrived last week. What a great encouragement for me to make my own juice!
Tammy recently posted..Juggling
Why am I surprised? What is safe or honest these days? Thank you Pea, I will reconsider my fresh juice if it isn’t just fresh juice from the orange. I will investigate Rob’s juice I think too.
Thank you Heidi for coming and yes Rob’s suggestion sounds interesting I’ll try anything once.
Best juice, juice from a fruit we make ourselves. The taste itself is soo different, you understand what bottled juices are about. Try it Pea, your dream image will be more true with a fresh fruit you juice yourself.
Ah, I didn’t include that, but I have been juicing for years. I guess I don’t consider it ‘juice’ because I make mine so thick (with plentiful bananas) that I need a teaspoon to ‘eat’ it. My quick recipe is oranges, carrots and lots of bananas for thickness. My time consuming recipe is all that plus everything! Lots of ‘super fruits’ blue berries, melons, grapes, pears, apples, pineapples, strawberries…etc. including some veg. Everything!
Hi Pea,
I always drink green tea and water to wash down my breakfast. In fact, I drink green tea for breakfast and lunch. The rest of the time. I drink lots of water. I rarely take soft drinks or other types of beverages nowadays.
I do drink orange juice occasionally. But as your article rightly points out, there is so much chemicals inside it, it is hard to tell if the juice is good for us or not. Better to stick to the tried and true like water I suppose.
Thank you for sharing this lovely article!
Irving the Vizier
The Vizier recently posted..How to Move Mountains with Your True Heart
You are most welcome Irving, great to hear from you. Yes I’m also a green tea drinker just because it is so good for you and flush with antioxidants, although when it was new to me I over did it once and was buzzing high and jittery all day on the caffeine! I couldn’t work out what the problem was!
Pea — This is a good post for me to read, but it’s also kind of funny. I grew up living in an orange grove…granted this was many, many years ago. I do remember the wonderful taste of an orange directly from the tree…or even better, a tangerine:~)
I ate so many oranges as a kid, I hate orange juice now!I use other fruits for my vitamins, but you are right it is sad what’s happened to the idea of “fresh” OJ. You might as well take a vitamin supplement. Is the OJ any better from health food stores or the same?
It seems we live in a world that doesn’t like things to go bad, at least not as soon as they naturally would. I remember one time I bought a loaf of Wonder Bread and took it work so I have peanut butter sandwiches occasionally. I forgot about it and left it sitting on top of file shelf. A month later I found it and I swear it didn’t have any MOLD. Now that’s scary, don’t you think?
I’m glad to see the comments were open for this post. Funny, you open your comments and I closed mine. Such is life:~)
I hope you’re doing well, my friend. Be good to yourself!!!
Sara recently posted..Center of the Soul
I have policy now. If the end date is not viable for truly nourishing, fresh food I don’t eat it. I never eat pre-packaged food and I have taken to making my own bread which I highly recommend. (I cheat and use a bread maker). 3 days of glorious moist freshness and then it starts to lose it’s freshness. But it is so delicious the bread doesn’t get to hang around that long in any case! I cannot recommend this enough dear Friend. When I started making bread I suddenly realized why I bought peanut butter and marmalade. It was to cover the dullness of the shop bought bread full of additives, preservatives, bleach and such. When you have truly fresh bread it seems rude to insult it with these spreads. It is like ‘gilding the lily’. (I don’t know if that is an international term!)
If you are time deficient you can make bread in 55 minutes, (in certain machines) and it will take you physically approx. 10 minutes of actual preparation time!
Thank you, always love to see you here and you look after yourself too.
Cool post. I never would have thought this about my morning OJ. But I can’t say i’m surprised anymore.
Wow. Great info, Pea! I had no idea, though it doesn’t surprise me. That’s quite the incentive I need to go back to juicing. Thinking green may be just the thing for spring, too. Thanks so much for sharing this valuable information!
Antonia recently posted..Sophia Space
Well the truth is, just about everything these days has been processed in one form or another and may or may not be good for you. It seems like just about everyone gets some kind of cancer at some point if they live long enough. Even “fresh” fruits and vegetables have probably been dowsed in fertilizers and pesticides. And just because something says that’s it’s “organic” doesn’t mean that it really is.
Milk is good for you one year. Studies the following year say it isn’t. The same is true of wine, chocolate, coffee, etc.
So who do we believe? Or is it even worth worrying about? Because unless you’re growing your own fruits and vegetables it’s virtually impossible to know what has happened to those fruits and vegetables on their way from the plantation to your table.
Derek recently posted..Michael Fiore Text The Romance Back Text Examples
So true Derek. It seems the best thing is to try and head to growing your own where possible. They even do edibles that can be grown vertically for folks with no gardens. One has to make the effort to do some research about what is possible. But don’t get too obsessed with it. Our bodies are formidable.