It says pure orange juice on it, made from concentrated orange juice.
What’s that mean? From syrup? Mashed up peel?
What process leads to my carton of ‘pure’ orange juice?
Thanks.
It means that instead of squeezing oranges into your carton, they used re-constituted concentrate. Concentrates are much easier to deal with than fresh juice because it’s easier to ship, and there’s not as much concern about spoilage.
You see those cans of frozen concentrate at the grocery store, right? Basically, they use the same stuff, and Just Add Water to make your carton of OJ.
Where do they get the concentrate from? How is it concentrated?
I have no idea what most of this means, but it has a nice diagram. Try here.
Basically, they remove the water. Water is heavy and available at the destination, so why ship it? Removing the water from orange juice allows a greater amount of juice to be shipped for the same weight and cost than shipping juice with the water still in it.
When the concentrated juice arrives at the bottler, water is added back into it which gives you the same amount of juice you stared with. As Lissa said, the concentrate is basically the same stuff you see frozen in cans at the market.
Think also of sodas. The sodas you buy at the store have all of the water in them; but when you get a fountain drink there is a tank of syrup (concentrate) and a tank of carbonated water. It’s cheaper to concentrate the essential ingredients for shipping, and then add common water or common carbonated water at the destination.
How do they remove the water? I don’t know. It can be removed by boiling (which would probably change the flavour) or by leaving it out to evaporate (which would probably result in contamination). Or it may be some sort of a freeze-drying process. In any case, “concentrate” is just juice with most of the water removed.
Antimanics’s link shows that it’s a vacuum process:
Does the concentration process remove or damage vitamins?
Do they add preservatives?
According to the ingredients listed on the Minute Maid website, no.