# Orange Juice? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 17, 2001, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/orange-juice/50424 "2001-01-17T00:51:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![insider](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/bbe5ce/32.png) [@insider](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/insider)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2001, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/orange-juice/50424/1 "2001-01-17T00:51:39Z")
I drink a great deal of orange juice. How can I be sure that what I am drinking is the juice of an orange and not food coloring, sugar, thickener and water? ---
**Author:** ![Soup\_Nazi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ad7895/32.png) [@Soup\_Nazi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Soup_Nazi)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2001, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/orange-juice/50424/2 "2001-01-17T01:01:58Z")
Ummm, read the ingredients on the label or squeeze your own. ---
**Author:** ![WillGolfForFood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/82dd89/32.png) [@WillGolfForFood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillGolfForFood)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2001, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/orange-juice/50424/3 "2001-01-17T01:02:12Z")
Just read the label on the box before you purchase it. I just looked in the refrigerator, and my carton of orange juice (which happens to be Tropicana) says “100% pure squeezed orange juice”. Farther down the carton is another label that says “no water or preservatives added”. If you don’t believe the writing on the carton I suppose that you could purchase your orange juice in its original container… ---
**Author:** ![SmackFu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/53a042/32.png) [@SmackFu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmackFu)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2001, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/orange-juice/50424/4 "2001-01-17T02:48:37Z")
If they could make fake orange juice from those components you mentioned and **you couldn’t taste the different** , that would be the greatest invention of the 21st century. Most fake orange juices are instantly detectable. Very high standards we have nowadays. ---
**Author:** ![toadspittle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c0e974/32.png) [@toadspittle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/toadspittle)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2001, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/orange-juice/50424/5 "2001-01-17T18:49:08Z")
You can’t. You just have to trust that govt. food inspectors are doing their job to prevent such fraud. Or, take a glass of it to your local university and run it through the mass spectrometer. This is how the French assure that their juices (and esp. wine) are pure. ---
**Author:** ![Lazarus7](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/67e7ee/32.png) [@Lazarus7](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lazarus7)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2001, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/orange-juice/50424/6 "2001-01-17T21:29:56Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by toadspittle \* > \*\*take a glass of it to your local university and run it through the mass spectrometer. This is how the French assure that their juices (and esp. wine) are pure. \*\* Curse those French and their everpresent Mass Spectrometers!!! If I had a dollar for every time the waiter ran out with my wife to fire it through the mass spectrometer, well, I just don’t know what I would do. ---
**Author:** ![WillGolfForFood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/82dd89/32.png) [@WillGolfForFood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillGolfForFood)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2001, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/orange-juice/50424/7 "2001-01-17T22:48:28Z")
Hmm, maybe the waiter and your wife are just **telling** you that they’re out running the wine through a mass spectrometer… ---
**Author:** ![Arjuna34](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Arjuna34](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arjuna34)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2001, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/orange-juice/50424/8 "2001-01-17T23:10:07Z")
As Cecil mentions in [this column](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_352.html), Florida, where most US orange juice comes from, is pretty strict on labeling and content standards. Arjuna34 ---
**Author:** ![elite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/6f9a4e/32.png) [@elite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elite)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2001, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/orange-juice/50424/9 "2001-01-18T02:30:51Z")
Why is it then that orange juice such as Tropicana tastes nothing like the REAL orange juice you can buy in food courts which cost nearly two bucks a cup (almost the price of a 2L carton of OJ)? ---
**Author:** ![WillGolfForFood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/82dd89/32.png) [@WillGolfForFood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillGolfForFood)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2001, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/orange-juice/50424/10 "2001-01-18T02:49:49Z")
It could be that the $2 / cup variety is fresher. It could be that it’s concentrated (Tropicana isn’t). It could be that your brain is telling you that it **must** be better because it costs more. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![WillGolfForFood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/82dd89/32.png) [@WillGolfForFood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillGolfForFood)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2001, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/orange-juice/50424/11 "2001-01-18T03:01:17Z")
It could also be that the food court folks add flavoring ingredients to their OJ. The Tropicana folks can’t or they’d have to list it on their label. ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2001, 8:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/orange-juice/50424/12 "2001-01-18T08:03:43Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by elite \* > \*\*Why is it then that orange juice such as Tropicana tastes nothing like the REAL orange juice you can buy in food courts which cost nearly two bucks a cup (almost the price of a 2L carton of OJ)? \*\* Depends on how the food court makes it. A lot of the OJ sold is concentrated. As someone else mentioned, Tropicana is not. But to a large degree, what makes a brand is _consistency_. Thus, I would say Tropicana is very, very precise in its ingredients. Sure, it’s 100% pure OJ, but from what mixture of orange varieties? Also, I seem to think that commericial orange juice is pasteurized. That really changes the taste. If you make your own fresh squeezed OJ (as I suspect is what you mean the food courts do), you get juice from a fresh orange; it’s a bit more pulpy; it’s from whatever mix of oranges you have available (and at whatever age), and most of all, it’s not pasteurized. Pasteurization makes a _big_ difference in taste. To steal the thread, I live in a huge apple state, which means lots of delicious apple cider! Up until a couple years ago, we could buy fresh, non-pasteurized apple cider directly from the mill (or in the supermarkets too). BUT, some silly _e. coli_ alarmists got a law passed dictating that only pasteurized cider be available. IT’S NOT THE SAME! May as well require prescriptions for aspirin… ---
**Author:** ![choosybeggar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8c91f0/32.png) [@choosybeggar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/choosybeggar)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2001, 10:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/orange-juice/50424/13 "2001-01-18T10:29:45Z")
A quick observation from a diehard Tropicana consumer. The flavors are subtlely different depending on whether you buy in Seattle, WA or NYC, NY. Hard to put the differences into words, although, generally I prefer the West Coast Mix. I also noticed some seasonal variation in the NYC juice at least (not enough year-round sampling of the Seattle stock to make a judgement), with the best flavors coming in the winter months. I assume that the variations are due to different oranges being processed in different regions as well as at different times of the year. ---
**Author:** ![ticker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d07c76/32.png) [@ticker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ticker)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2001, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/orange-juice/50424/14 "2001-01-18T13:50:22Z")
> [@](#): > > No pips no peel no pith no powder - just juice > No oils no acids no preservatives - just juice > No sauce no sugar no caramel colouring > No glucose, sucrose and no dextrine > No flavourings no stabilisers - just juice > No additives no mess no fuss - JUST JUICE ---
**Author:** ![wring](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/838e76/32.png) [@wring](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wring)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2001, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/orange-juice/50424/15 "2001-01-18T14:10:46Z")
I’ll second the statement regarding the different varieties of oranges. Daddy lives in Florida and sends me oranges (Daddy loves me, but I also send him apples in the fall). Sometimes, he sends me commercial oranges available through mail order. Sometimes, he sends me some off his tree. The ones of his tree are worlds different/better than any others (I plan on seeing Daddy for his 80’th birthday the weekend of 2/1, hoping to partake of some while I’m there). At any rate, commercially prepared orange juices will have significantly different flavors depending on the variety and combinations of varities of oranges used. Well, significant to the discriminate taster (and/or if you drink one right after the other). It’s the same with apple ciders - and especially the apples themselves (so sayeth the woman from MI, home of the best apples around, - take **that** Washington). So, naturally, the conclusion is: “I’m talking oranges and apples”