I’ve long been a fan of orange juice–juice with breakfast, juice at lunch, and best of all juice in the summertime. It is always available in your grocery store and always markets itself as fresh. So I was surprised to read an article (from May) in the New Yorker this morning, Ask an Academic: Orange Juice by Andrea Walker, which reveals that much of the juice on the shelves in our grocery stores has been previously sitting in producers’ million-gallon aseptic storage tanks for sometimes upwards of a year. This is done to assure a year-round supply of juice ‘from California’ when oranges do not grow year-round here and have to be imported and mixed with juice from oranges grown in Brazil. In order to be stored in these aseptic tanks, the juice is rigorously processed—oxygen is removed in a process called deaeration, if the juice is to “from concentrate” then water is also removed. In the late nineteen-eighties Tropicana came up with the term “not from concentrate” to distinguish pasteurized orange juice from the cheaper “from concentrate” or “reconstituted” juice. What a deceptive marketing move to avoid communicating with consumers such a non-natural process on what is supposed to be a natural, fresh product.
orange juice being pasteurized
The most surprising and disturbing fact of the process I learned this morning was that due to the time the juice can sit in these aseptic tanks it loses its flavor and orange scent. In order to make the juice digestible and appetizing again, producers spend tons of money on testing and adding flavor packs. ”Flavor packs are fabricated from the chemicals that make up orange essence and oil” writes Andrea. Juice producers work with the same flavor and fragrance houses that make high-end perfumes and enlist them to recreate the perfect aroma of fresh spring Valencia oranges. These added flavor packs are not currently listed on the ingredients label because they are technically part of the fruit; however, part of the process dictates that the storage of the juice removes these flavors and so they are artificially put back before bottling. Disturbing! I dare say manipulative, as certain producers play with certain scent combinations depending on the region the juice will be sold in. Meaning there is a different scent and taste to Tropicana orange juice sold in North America versus Tropicana juice sold in Brazil. The company and their flavor engineers have decided through testing and market research that Americans appreciate more ethyl butyrate. Yes, ethyl butyrate is a chemical.
As a result, I made my first glass of home-squeezed orange juice from whole, fresh, non-pasteurized, non-sitting for longer than a year, non-chemically altered oranges. It was delicious and smelled like the skin of the cut orange sitting right in front of me. Gotta love the fruits of your own labor. 
Yum.
My hand juicer, picked it up at Kitchen Kaboodle
