Probably, according to Toronto based author Alissa Hamilton.
She's recently finished writing an expose on the OJ industry entitled,
"Squeezed: What You Don't Know About Orange Juice"and this past weekend the Toronto Star interviewed her about her findings.
Among them:
"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."She also wades into the marketing reporting that,
"Most of the juice sold in North America contains flavour packs that have especially high concentrations of ethyl butyrate"
"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"
"the statement that appeared at the top of Tropicana's new and now discontinued carton: "squeezed from fresh oranges." (is) 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."I'm excited to read her book - it's available for preorder from Amazon.ca for $24.89 (37% off) right now for shipping on or around the end of the month!
Oh - and Alissa, like me, recommends you eat your oranges, not drink them.
[Via Marion Nestle's Food Politics]
Posts
Wow. Can't wait to read this! I was just reviewing the labels on various brands of orange juice and found even the extra pulp varieties have 0 g of fiber per serving. Zero??
ReplyDeleteI prefer my O.J. with Extra Pulp and Extra Ethyl Butyrate.
ReplyDeleteJust kidding - I passed the Toronto Star article onto all my friends/family & clients...gross!
Yes I also read that last week and now not very keen on drinking orange juice again.
ReplyDeleteGreat information--thanks. Yet another reason why we should all try to stick to eating whole foods--you never know what's in packaged food. Love your blog-I always find the best information here.
ReplyDeleteCheers,
jen
Boda Weight Loss Blog
Here's another issue with orange juice: pesticide residue. Oranges are a heavily sprayed crop. If you were eating the orange at home you would wash it and peel it and get most of the residue off. (Some gets absorbed into the tissues, so there's still some, but it's a lot better than if you didn't wash and peel it.)
ReplyDeleteThe way orange juice is made includes the pesticides from the peel and concentrates it so you get a much higher dose.
There's a good article by Sally Fallon that talks about this at http://www.westonaprice.org/modernfood/dirty-secrets.html
i work with ethyl butyrate on a daily basis and it's a nasty and flammable chemical
ReplyDelete