Acres USA Article - OJ is Guilty!

by Scott K
(New Terra Farm, Merrickville)

Was just reading an ACRES interview (Oct 2009 issue, title Citrus Test; ) with Alissa Hamilton; she is the author of Squeezed: What You Don't Know About Orange Juice.

In the interview she details the fairly bizarre process oranges go through to become juice. She also talks about the (frankly misleading) packaging and promotional efforts on the part of the OJ industry.

Some of the more disturbing points raised in the article:

1. Use of misleading language e.g. 'squeezed from fresh oranges' DOES NOT mean 'fresh squeezed'. In fact the juice is pasturized and may be stored for up to a year in aseptic, million-gallon tanks until distributed to the consumer


2. 'Not from concentrate' DOES NOT mean better juice, or fresher juice; it comes from those same bulk tanks.


3. The storage process strips the juice of flavour, so this is added back in artificially using 'flavour packs'


4. Brazil is now taking over much of the orange juice production from Florida, because land is cheaper, labour is cheaper and there are far fewer environmental restrictions.


5. Even 'organic orange juice' may be heavily processed, unless the bottle has the exact words 'fresh squeezed'. Ms. Hamilton suggests checking the 'best before' date; if your juice has a shelf life of 60 days it's not all that fresh!

So, what's to do? I guess one solution would be to buy organic oranges and squeeze your own. Perhaps it might be better to just eat the oranges, and get all the nutrition that way.