Is it OK ... to drink orange juice?

[Gifted Gourmet]

article from Guardian UK

Orange juice drinkers are evidently a discerning lot. Tropicana, the world's leading producer, offers no less than 13 different types of fresh orange juice to its American customers. Only true connoisseurs will be able to tell the difference between these products: Original, Homestyle, Calcium + Vitamin D, Grovestand ... That Americans are fussy about their orange juice is, perhaps, no surprise. To not have "OJ" on the breakfast table is seen as something akin to a breach of human rights in the US...  Given their investment, it's no surprise to learn that Americans drink half the world's orange juice - 20 litres per person a year.

Are you a fan of orange juice or have you moved on to other fruit juices?

If you drink Tropicana, which of the 13 types of orange juice is your favorite?

The article deals with several major issues in producing orange juice: pesticides, cost of production, child labor, etc. Does any of these concern you? I learned a lot about these issues just from this brief article ....

[BeeZee]

I generally drink one of the blends (like orange/pineapple), as I find "straight" OJ too sweet. Also usually dilute it with a little seltzer.

[Shalmanese]

Huh, our family of 4 sucks down 4L of orange juice a week or 50L a year. A bit more than average. Recently, we've discovered the orange juice produced by a local grocer which is miles ahead of the supermarket stuff. It tastes almost just like if you had squeezed it yourself without any pastuerisation or preservatives. It's fantastic but you have to drink it within 2 or 3 days.

[Pan]

I do drink Tropicana from time to time and prefer Grovestand without added calcium and so forth -- lots of pulp. Fresh orange juice from good oranges is a real pleasure. In a way, it seems to me we've come full circle with this. My grandmother had a glass hand-juicer identical to those sold as antiques at numerous flea markets I was dragged to as a little kid. Recently, after mass-marketed juices had long since taken over, I feel that home juicing and the sale of freshly-squeezed juices and brands of "fresh-squeezed" juice like Odwalla and Fresh Samantha have made a strong comeback. I may have more comments after I read the linked article.

Edited January 10, 2006 by Pan (log)

[lesfen]

I've never been a fan but I can't put my finger on the reason why that is. I usually make myself drink a glass a couple of times a year, you know, to ward off the scurvy.

It just seems like if I buy a carton of it, I end up throwing half of it away. If we go out for breakfast, which isn't often, I'll usually get a small glass and that'll usually hold me until the next time. I love grapefruit juice, but my husband and daughter won't touch it so I don't buy that either. Sigh.

[slschnur]

I squeeze fresh juice every day (have gone through about 20 juicers, both cheap & expensive, over the past 30-odd years), have done so for years, so Tropicana - the few times I've had it - seems very artificial to me, not terrible, but not really orange juice! I don't worry too much about pesticides migrating through the orange skins - even though I grow many of my own vegetables & generally try to buy organic when possible (i.e., when not wizened & costing the earth), I've probably already ingested so much bad stuff in the past that I just can't worry too much. I don't think there's anything that can take the place of fresh OJ - a real morning upper.

[I_call_the_duck]

Tropicana Homestyle (sans calcium) is my OJ of choice, but we don't drink it very often. Mr. Duck likes it with a shot of vodka before dinner. I much prefer fresh-squeezed and if it's offered at brunch, I'll generally order it. As for making it at home, it is something that we should do on a regular basis, at least on weekends when we're both not rushing off to work.

[chow guy]

I've never been a morning juice drinker. Besides, if I'm going for carbs, there are more interesting ways of enjoying them than frozen oj.

[Tess]

I've never been a morning juice drinker. Besides, if I'm going for carbs, there are more interesting ways of enjoying them than frozen oj.

←

No kidding. Might as well have a Coke.

Fresh squeezed is another matter but it's still a lot of sugar to start the day with as a routine.

[melkor]

Fairly regularly I buy 20 pounds of valencia oranges for juice. Nothing like fresh squeezed. I've been using a manual orangex juicer for the past few years, since my previous manual juicer broke. I get my oranges from a local organic farmer - so the concerns raised in the article aren't really applicable. If I'm buying orange juice for some reason, I'll buy Odwalla even though they are owned by Coke - their product tastes better than the grocery store alternatives.

[MarketStEl]

I can't imagine that the issues the Guardian article raised surrounding the large-scale growing of oranges do not apply to the growing of grapefruit.

As regular yellow grapefruit juice is much more tart than OJ, it has never been as popular, and the introduction of "Ruby Red" grapefruit juice, which is much sweeter, has not really changed things that much.

I usually drink a glass of OJ or OJ blend (orange-tangerine or orange-pineapple) each morning. (I cut cranberry juice with seltzer as an alternative to soda for drinking the rest of the day.)

Some of the distinctions among those 13 varieties of packaged juice are real and noticeable. Original has no pulp, "Homestyle" has some pulp, and "Grovestand" has lots of pulp. "Light" has reduced sugar content. The calcium+D juice has these nutrients added, presumably to appeal to people who either do not or cannot consume milk and dairy products; it has a cloudier appearance and notably chalky taste. Then there's "Immunity Defense" with added vitamin E and "Double C+E" with added vitamin E and twice the vitamin C of the regular variety. That's seven of the 13. If they count the blends, there are orange-pineapple, orange-tangerine and orange-strawberry-banana, making three more; all of these now have added calcium and vitamin D. Now we are at ten. I don't know what besides marketing distinguishes number 11, "Healthy Kids," from the others. What are the other two and their distinguishing features?

Tropicana's main selling point is that its top-of-the-line juices are not reconstituted from concentrate. I suspect that otherwise, they too have all the pesticide, etc., problems associated with the reconstituted juices.

[hathor]

I use the orangex juicer too. Its pretty good, quick & easy. But...is anyone else horrified by the price of oranges in NY??? why??

I need juice in the morning way before I can face coffee.

[star792]

we have had the luxury of picking oranges off our tree since november but we are running low now. the season is ending. as the other posters have said, nothing like fresh oj. we just seem to drink it up as soon as we juice it. i don't know that i can go back to cartons....

[Pontormo]

I use the orangex juicer too. Its pretty good, quick & easy. But...is anyone else horrified by the price of oranges in NY??? why?? 

I need juice in the morning way before I can face coffee.

←

Substitute "DC" for "NY" and I am with you, Hathor, though, so far fresh navel oranges seem inferior to those of the past couple of years. Only Cara-Cara seem really sweet, although they're all coming from California instead of South Africa in enhanced sizes. Busboy, feel free to jump in here.

The US government actually uses oranges to inform the public about the market economy. Who knows how much is due to price gouging, lingering problems with crops in Florida combined with rains in California and compromised transportation at ports? Well, I am sure there are opinions here.

Juicing oranges used to be more economical.* It got to the point that when my small Braun equipment broke down, I switched to cartons and drank Minute Maid until Coca-Cola bought the company, substituted reconstituted juce for freshly squeezed juice and started a campaign to persuade consumers it was just as good.

Thank g-d for competition between junk food companies. Thanks to Pepsi's ownership of Tropicana, I never pay full price for the stuff, though I wish there were weekly sales of grapefruit juices.

My favorite hand-squeezed orange juice is made in cold tiled Italian kitchens with Sicilian blood oranges, each individually wrapped in thin red, white and gold papers.

Europeans are starting to drink cartoned juice, at least Italian supermarkets sell quarts, including blood orange, tangerine...

Finally, as to the article itself, again, it's an example of journalists having to find a topic to fit the theme of an ongoing series. Hard to read without critical stance. I didn't become a vegetarian because of the cost, air pollution & other environmental harm caused by animal husbandry nor the plight of defenseless creatures on the way to the slaughterhouse. I will not give up my O.J. unless it's somehow proven to affect the ozone layer.

[jgarner53]

My husband drinks a lot more of it than I do, but then again I have some kind of fruit with my breakfast most mornings. We like the Trader Joe's fresh squeezed stuff.

[OnigiriFB]

I've never been a breakfast fan but oj was one of the only things I could stand. After going on a low carb (per doctor's orders) diet I had to give up my oj. When I was able to drink it again I realized how sugary most brands are. Now I'm back to a small juice glass of oj every morning. I love my local dairy Anderson-Erickson's oj. Then again I like all things AE. If you're ever in the midwest try it. They have great stuff.

[Pan]

Now that I've read the article, I have a few thoughts:

The remarks about pesticide use and residues give me some pause and make me glad that I drink Tropicana only occasionally. But who knows where else I'm getting pesticide residues and other contaminants? I'm also disturbed by the remarks on worker exploitation but, as mentioned upthread, abusive conditions for laborers are commonplace in the agriculture industry. Apple juice is not an alternative for me because it tends to upset my stomach. Like Britain, New York is an apple-growing area, and I wonder why most of the apples sold in New York City seem to come from Washington instead of the Hudson Valley, but that's a topic for another thread...

[mizducky]

I'm really not much of an orange juice drinker at all. Growing up, my family just didn't do orange juice with breakfast, so I seem to have missed that entire bit of American societal programming. I love citrus, but I prefer to consume it intact (she sez, as she surveys the remains of a huge and tasty red grapefruit she just finished inhaling about three minutes ago). And I think nearly every time I have bought supermarket OJ, either frozen or liquid, it's been as an ingredient for some recipe--of course, I'll happily drink the leftovers, but otherwise it's never there in my fridge.

In general, I do like to drink fruit juices occasionally, but I tend to prefer the organo-groovy types from the natural foods store/food co-op/TJ's etc. And when I have them, I tend to think of them as food rather than beverage, if you follow me--I mean I'm drinking them for the nutritive value (and yumminess) rather than to quench my thirst. For the latter purpose I prefer something a lot less sweet, that I can drink a ton of without giving myself a sugar overload--like flavored sparkling water, or, heck, just plain water.

[Mallet]

We drank Tropicana Grovestand early last fall until we were were able to get apple cider from the Market. When I still lived at home we went through almost 2 gallons a week! That article was a real eye-opener, I never really thought that OJ was such big business.

Edited January 10, 2006 by Mallet (log)

[cdh]

OJ overdose was a turning point in my gastronomic development. As a little kid I drank a whole lot of OJ, but then my palate changed and from about age 8 to sometime in the teens OJ just disgusted me. In my family it was mostly FCOJ, and at the turning point, it began to taste more of cardboard than of oranges, and lost all appeal to me.

Now, OJ is good when it is fresh squeezed... but I don't do that much, nor do any grocery stores near me.... So my OJ consumption is really low now, and I drink a lot of blueberry juice, cherry juice, peach nectar, etc... They're all much more interesting.

But I do recall (with amusement) the endgame in the movie Trading Places every time the concept of FCOJ comes up.

[purplewiz]

I'm considered weird in my family because I just don't like orange juice very much. Sure, I'll drink it when mixed with vodka or champagne, but unless it's something special, like fresh squeezed in front of me blood orange juice, it's just not something I enjoy. I think it dates back to my growing up years when breakfast was after we brushed our teeth, and there's nothing like toothpaste to make orange juice taste awful.

If I'm going to drink fruit, I'd rather make my own cantaloupe-strawberry smoothies.

Marcia.

[Smithy]

There's nothing like a glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice, squeezed from oranges picked just minutes before, still chilled from the California night. I most certainly drink orange juice that way, and I'll go to my grave with happy memories of such ambrosia, both during my childhood and later when I went home to visit my parents, back on our ranch. We'd salute each other with our glasses, and comment on the heavy fog protecting the trees, or the glorious sunrise over the Sierra Nevada, as the case might be, and start the day with good cheer. Each winter, whenever I visit, I come back with as many oranges (navels) as I can manage. Some get juiced. Many are peeled and eaten instead, because it's less messy than in the car. At this time of year, I still wonder whether I did the right thing, not staying on and taking over the ranching activities, but the place is in good hands without me now. (Note to the wondering reader: we called it a "ranch", as did our ranching neighbors. No livestock was involved. Regional dialects, and all that.)

The rest of the year, I'll go for the Tropicana Grovestand because it's the closest I've been able to come to the Real Thing. Sunkist tried marketing the same thing for a while, but it didn't last. As for that stuff out of cans - well, it's an obscenity that doesn't deserve to be called "orange juice".

I have problems with that Guardian article, but I'll be the first to admit that I may be biased. I'd really like to see the data supporting the contention that citrus is one of the most pesticide-intensive crops. I suspect the organization that funded the study has a bias of its own.

[jgm]

At the risk of hijacking this thread, which is absolutely not my intention, I will say this: I would be hard pressed to name even one thing I eat during a typical day that does not exploit the poor, children, or the environment; or does not endanger biodiversity, or use more oil than I would imagine, in its transport, or bring about a cruel life to an innocent animal.

Although I would be the first to agree that we do need to think about this, we do need to do something about it, and that things need to change, I see far fewer articles about how to accomplish that, than those that point out things that make me feel guilty for eating anything at all.

I'm just getting overwhelmed with information like this. I do raise some of my own vegetables in summer, not only for taste and quality purposes, but also in an attempt to have some food to eat that doesn't exploit something or someone. Given what's available locally, I don't know what more I can do than that. How does one get a balanced diet without doing something nasty to the poor, the environment, or an animal?