I pit lying juice labels!*

[NajaNivea]

Okay, so a quick run to the grocery store and I impulse-buy a fancy-pants bottle of cranberry lemonade. I crack it open to take a sip on my way out and… wait, this doesn’t taste like either cranberries or lemonade, it tastes like…

Check the label and sure enough the main ingredient is grape juice. :smack:
WTF? It seems like a lot of commercially bottled fruit juices use white grape juice as some kind of “base” without including it on the title of the product. Is this just because it’s cheapest? Do people mostly not notice that the majority of big-name fruit juice tastes like grape?

Now, I admit to being biased on this topic, because grape juice to me tastes overbearingly, cloyingly sweet and totally bland. I wanted lemonade! Who the hell expects a beverage made of lemons and cranberries to be sickly sweet?!

*Not actually in the pit, because I mostly just want to know WTF is up with the ninja grape juice content.

[pulykamell]

@NajaNivea

Is this just because it’s cheapest? Do people mostly not notice that the majority of big-name fruit juice tastes like grape?

I assume it’s because that lion’s share of the juice market likes sickly sweet juices, and white grape is a relatively neutral fruit juice that adds sweetness and melds with other fruit flavors favorably. I challenge you to find a cranberry drink that contains 100% cranberry juice without any sweet fruit juice (usually grape) cut into it. It can be done – I’ve seen it at Trader Joe’s – but at a normal supermarket, I don’t think I’ve ever seen cranberry juice or a cranberry-fruit cocktail that’s not cut with grape juice or loaded with HFCS. Straight cranberry juice is extremely astringent and not to most people’s tastes.

[NajaNivea]

@pulykamell

I assume it’s because that lion’s share of the juice market likes sickly sweet juices, and white grape is a relatively neutral fruit juice that adds sweetness and melds with other fruit flavors favorably. I challenge you to find a cranberry drink that contains 100% cranberry juice without any sweet fruit juice (usually grape) cut into it. It can be done – I’ve seen it at Trader Joe’s – but at a normal supermarket, I don’t think I’ve ever seen cranberry juice or a cranberry-fruit cocktail that’s not cut with grape juice or loaded with HFCS. Straight cranberry juice is extremely astringent and not to most people’s tastes.

Oh, of course–I bought straight cranberry juice one time for a mixer; you could strip paint with that stuff. I wasn’t really expecting it, having only ever been exposed to “cranberry juice cocktail” so it was a bit of a startling discovery.
I still don’t see why it couldn’t be labeled “cran-grape” if a major flavor component is, in fact, grape.

[h.sapiens]

There’s an item in the current issue of “Consumer Reports” about deceptive juice labels, and how so many “juices” are mostly white grape and/or apple juice. Watch out for words like “beverage” and “cocktail”. A lot of them have like 10% juice, and the rest is water, sweetener and artificial flavors. Mmmmm.

You’re right, though, cranberry lemonade should be tart and tangy, not grapey.

[Anne_Neville]

@NajaNivea

I still don’t see why it couldn’t be labeled “cran-grape” if a major flavor component is, in fact, grape.

Cran-Grape is a trademark of the Ocean Spray company.

[NajaNivea]

@Anne Neville

Cran-Grape is a trademark of the Ocean Spray company.

I still don’t see why it couldn’t be labeled “cranberry-grape juice” if a major flavor component is, in fact, grape.

[NajaNivea]

Also, Ocean Spray is a major company that sells cranberry (and a jillion other juices) juice liberally loaded with grape juice and, despite owning the trademark for “Cran-Grape” apparently refuses to actually apply it when appropriate.

[Uncommon_Sense]

Another gripe;
I swear I’ve seen juice labeled 100% juice when the main/first ingredient was either water or high fructose corn syrup. I’ll try to track down the culprit the next time I go shopping.

[zweisamkeit]

@NajaNivea

Who the hell expects a beverage made of lemons and cranberries to be sickly sweet?!

The people (America in general, or at least people who create food for us) who put sugar and shortening in peanut butter, sugar in regular bread, and (my personal favorite) put high fructose corn syrup in a bottle of corn syrup*.

• I was making marshmallows this Christmas. Every damn corn syrup, from Kroger to Karo, had: INGREDIENTS: Corn Syrup, High Fructose Corn Syrup.

[pulykamell]

@Uncommon Sense

Another gripe;
I swear I’ve seen juice labeled 100% juice when the main/first ingredient was either water or high fructose corn syrup. I’ll try to track down the culprit the next time I go shopping.

In the US, at least, the drink cannot be labeled “juice” without any further qualifiers unless it is 100% juice:

(a) For a carbonated or noncarbonated beverage that contains less than 100 percent and more than 0 percent fruit or vegetable juice, the common or usual name shall be a descriptive name that meets the requirements of §102.5(a) and, if the common or usual name uses the word “juice,” shall include a qualifying term such as “beverage,” “cocktail,” or “drink” appropriate to advise the consumer that the product is less than 100 percent juice (e.g., “diluted grape juice beverage” or “grape juice drink”).

Also, that link includes all sorts of guidelines about the naming of multiple-juice products, as in the case of the OP.

[GargoyleWB]

@Anne Neville

Cran-Grape is a trademark of the Ocean Spray company.

Cranberrape?
Crape?
just Crap?

[Anne_Neville]

@GargoyleWB

just Crap?

I think this label should be applicable to all products containing cranberry juice. But I just don’t like cranberry juice.

[Max_Torque]

@Uncommon Sense

Another gripe;
I swear I’ve seen juice labeled 100% juice when the main/first ingredient was either water or high fructose corn syrup. I’ll try to track down the culprit the next time I go shopping.

I’ve posted about this before, but: “100% Juice” isn’t very meaningful. Some juice manufacturers pass white grape, apple, or pear juice through a machine containing ion exchangers. The flavors, colors, and acids of the original juices are removed and replaced with H and OH ions, which combine to form water, so what you’re left with is basically sugar water. It’s an expensive way to make sugar water, but it’s worth it to the juice companies, because they can then dump it into whatever they plan to sell, making it much sweeter, and the manufacturer can still claim their product contains “100% Juice”.

[NajaNivea]

@Max Torque

I’ve posted about this before, but: “100% Juice” isn’t very meaningful. Some juice manufacturers pass white grape, apple, or pear juice through a machine containing ion exchangers. The flavors, colors, and acids of the original juices are removed and replaced with H and OH ions, which combine to form water, so what you’re left with is basically sugar water. It’s an expensive way to make sugar water, but it’s worth it to the juice companies, because they can then dump it into whatever they plan to sell, making it much sweeter, and the manufacturer can still claim their product contains “100% Juice”.

You know, I would have just said “it tastes highly refined and manufactured, fake, flat, and overly sweet” without ever knowing exactly what the difference was between, say, Mott’s apple juice and fresh. Thanks for the straight dope!

[pulykamell]

@Max Torque

I’ve posted about this before, but: “100% Juice” isn’t very meaningful. Some juice manufacturers pass white grape, apple, or pear juice through a machine containing ion exchangers. The flavors, colors, and acids of the original juices are removed and replaced with H and OH ions, which combine to form water, so what you’re left with is basically sugar water. It’s an expensive way to make sugar water, but it’s worth it to the juice companies, because they can then dump it into whatever they plan to sell, making it much sweeter, and the manufacturer can still claim their product contains “100% Juice”.

But that’s different than Uncommon Sense’s complaint, which is that he’s seen 100% juice on a product which, on its labeling, lists HFCS and water in its ingredients. According to federal regulations, at least as I understand them, you can’t call the resulting product juice, without a further descriptor, as “100% fruit juice cocktail” or “100% orange juice drink.”

[Lightnin]

As a type II diabetic, I *despise *the borderline-false advertising involved in most fruit juices. I love fruit juice, but it’s damn near impossible to find juice that doesn’t list some sort of sugar as its first ingredient. The most annoying thing about it is that most fruit juices don’t *need *sugar.

Most canned or bottled juices have so much sugar that they hurt my teeth.

[MLS]

@pulykamell

But that’s different than Uncommon Sense’s complaint, which is that he’s seen 100% juice on a product which, on its labeling, lists HFCS and water in its ingredients. According to federal regulations, at least as I understand them, you can’t call the resulting product juice, without a further descriptor, as “100% fruit juice cocktail” or “100% orange juice drink.”

Sometimes a beverage is water + concentrate, such that the result is equivalent to actual fruit squeezings. These usually say "100% FRUIT JUCE from concentrate. " But I don’t think it can have HFCS or other sweeteners and still be called 100% juice.

[control-z]

I usually go for the Juicy Juice, they’re all 100% AFAIK.

[Lemur866]

If you look at a typical “Cranberry Juice” ingredient list, it’s going to read: Water, high fructose corn syrup, cranberry juice, plus probably some other minor stuff.

And the label won’t read “Cranberry Juice”, it will read:
Cranberry Juice Cocktail
or maybe
Cranberry Juice Cocktail

The “cocktail” is code for “contains HFC syup”.

If the label says “100% juice”, then it will read: Water, [white grape/apple/pear] juice from concentrate, cranberry juice, plus additives if any.

And the same with lemonade. You can get pure lemon juice, but that’s not lemonade. Lemonade is water, sweetener, and lemon juice. Or maybe if it’s good old fashioned lemonade just like grandpa used to make it’ll be water, corn syrup and citric acid.

So you shouldn’t expect a bottle of cranberry lemonade to read: Water, lemon juice, cranberry juice, because that’s going to be incredibly sour. It’s got to have some sort of sweetener. That sweetener can be a neutral juice like white grape juice, it can be sugar, it can be HFCS, it can be aspartame, but there’s going to be some sweetener.

White grape juice is a more expensive source of sugar than HFCS or table sugar, but it allows the juice company to label their product “100% juice”. Pretty much all commericial juices and juice blends and juice cocktails are going to be pretty sweet, because that’s what people like. If you don’t like them that sweet, add a bit of water. If that leaves your beverage too bland, add more lemon juice.

Of course, at that point you might as well concoct your own beverage from fresh squeezed lemon juice and 100% cranberry juice and water and your choice of sweetener.

[NajaNivea]

@Lemur866

And the same with lemonade. You can get pure lemon juice, but that’s not lemonade. Lemonade is water, sweetener, and lemon juice. Or maybe if it’s good old fashioned lemonade just like grandpa used to make it’ll be water, corn syrup and citric acid.

So you shouldn’t expect a bottle of cranberry lemonade to read: Water, lemon juice, cranberry juice, because that’s going to be incredibly sour. It’s got to have some sort of sweetener. That sweetener can be a neutral juice like white grape juice, it can be sugar, it can be HFCS, it can be aspartame, but there’s going to be some sweetener.

White grape juice is a more expensive source of sugar than HFCS or table sugar, but it allows the juice company to label their product “100% juice”. Pretty much all commericial juices and juice blends and juice cocktails are going to be pretty sweet, because that’s what people like. If you don’t like them that sweet, add a bit of water. If that leaves your beverage too bland, add more lemon juice.

Of course, at that point you might as well concoct your own beverage from fresh squeezed lemon juice and 100% cranberry juice and water and your choice of sweetener.

I suppose this is a woosh, but I hope you didn’t actually read my post thinking I expected an ingredients list reading “lemon juice, cranberry juice”. I also hope you don’t think there’s anyone on the planet who’s ever tasted lemon juice and expects lemonade not to involve sweetener. If you think grape flavor is a “neutral sweetener” then we’re just going to have to purchase our lemonades at separate stands ;). My consternation stems entirely from the presence of grape juice in my lemonade.

Here’s what the label says:
White Cranberry Lemonade
100% juice

Ingredients: Grape juice, lemon juice, white cranberry juice, lemon pulp, natural flavors, ascorbic acid
What I was hoping for was something like “water, lemon juice, cane sugar, cranberry juice” which is the ingredients list on the kind I normally buy, except that one’s a ginger lemonade and so has ginger in place of the cranberry. I’m all for sugar in my lemonade, but… grape juice?

I’m familiar with the “drink” and “cocktail” modifiers, and don’t buy juices with such on the label. I guess I’ll have to start policing the labels for unexpected fruits, too ;).
New rule: labels that emphatically insist “100% juice!” are probably hiding something.