Sunday, April 13, 2014

"From Concentrate" "Not from Concentrate" "Natural" "Pasteurized" What are all these labels?



Frozen From Concentrate
 Frozen concentrated orange juice was introduced in the 1940s and had remained popular until the mid-1980s, when “Ready to Serve”, chilled orange juice began to surpass it in sales (Hamilton 24). In this frozen concentrated processes, orange juice is extracted, pasteurized, filtered, evaporated of water (concentrated) and frozen for storage. It used to be popular for a customer to purchase the frozen concentrate and then add water to it themselves, to “reconstitute” the juice. Now, consumers can purchase a bottle labeled “from concentrate” which simply means the juice is already reconstituted. In this case, the pasteurization occurs after the frozen orange juice is removed from storage. “Not from concentrate”, on the other hand, is orange juice that is pasteurized and stripped of oxygen (deaeration) (142). This allows the juice to be stored for up to year. Both undergo pasteurization which is believed to change the physical and chemical properties of orange juice, which, in turn, reduces the flavor (Farnworth et al.). Pasteurization, concentration, and deaeration all remove the volatile natural essences and nutrients that give orange juice its fresh flavor. Thus, like the first canned orange juice, which was boiled and and canned, consumers would not be pleased with the flavor of the processed juice. To aid in this, scientists have discovered a way to extract compounds from the peel oil and juice oil byproducts to create flavor packs (Hamilton 87). These packs restore the juice to its fresh orange flavor using natural orange components. To most, it is not the pasteurization that seems unnatural, but this final addition of the flavor pack. Either way, each of these processing steps raises questions about whether these juices should be marketed as natural. 
100% Pure Florida Orange Juice, Pasteurized, Never from Concentrate



References
Farnworth, E.R., Lagace, M., Couture, R., Yaylayan, V., and B. Stewart. “Thermal processing, storage conditions, and the composition and physical properties of orange juice” Food Research International 34(2001): 25-30.



Hamilton, Alissa. Squeezed: What You Don’t Know About Orange Juice. New Haven, CT: Yale  

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