These days, nearly all ready-to-drink bottled juices I see are labeled “not from concentrate”. But even if they’re made from concentrate, they may be better than what you make at home because they’ll likely mix it with pure filtered water rather than crappy tap water.
But my question remains unanswered. Mass-produced bottled orange juice goes through pasteurization and other preservation processes that significantly degrade the flavour compared to the delicious natural taste of fresh-squeezed orange juice. How does Minute Maid concentrate compare with this? Better, worse, or more or less the same?
It’s been so many years since I’ve made orange juice from concentrate that I really don’t remember, and my tastes probably weren’t very discriminating back then anyway.
The thing about Minute Maid and other carton from concentrate OJ is that it’s consistent. It will taste the same every time if they are doing it correctly. If you are used to that specific taste, fresh squeezed probably won’t taste as good most of the time. It’s like a Coke vs Pepsi thing. Fresh OJ (and there is an orange tree in my backyard so I make it myself) varies. Some years it is sweeter than others and that’s just my tree. It’s going to be subjective anyway but to my taste, it’s typically a little better on average.
The fresh-squeezed made at my local supermarket, which I buy from time to time, has always been sweet and delicious. I have no objective way to tell how consistent it’s been, but it’s always way better than the mass-market stuff. To be fair, since they sell it for premium prices, they’re probably careful about selecting the oranges.
That’s almost certainly part of it. I don’t know about the pitchers/jugs though - sure, my mother had a pitcher to reconstitute the frozen OJ or lemonade. But she would have had the pitchers anyway for the counterfeit Kool-Aid, iced tea and lemonade she made from powders. Because in the 70s and 80s, you couldn’t buy those in half gallon containers- it was single serve or powder.
It’s not always identical. Because individuals are making it. I expect if the person making it follows the directions exactly it will be identical - but if you grew up in my house, you would know that’s a big if. Two generations grew up adding water to my mother’s iced tea/lemonade because for some reason she invariably added too much powder. So I’m not sure if the FCOJ really tasted worse than the Tropicana “not from concentrate” or if my mother couldn’t even make that properly.
Why not? It’s good for you. I admit I don’t drink it every morning, which is one reason I value the long shelf life of the commercial mass-market stuff and it’s not practical for me to buy fresh-squeezed very often.
Here’s a balanced article that talks about the health benefits and some potential downsides. As with many things, to key to getting the best benefits is to exercise moderation, and certainly to avoid orange juice with artificially added sugar.
ETA: The bottled orange juice I buy is President’s Choice, a premium store brand that’s a bit better than most commercial brands. I just checked the label and it says “Ingredients: Orange juice”. However, it does carry a health label warning about high (natural) sugar. So, as I said, moderation!
I installed an under-sink 3 filter system. Easy to install and great water out of the tap. We have very hard water and this system removes a lot of the minerals (my water kettle can attest to this).
We haven’t bought juice of any sort for quite a few years. Not a regular part of our diet.
Along with many beneficial vitamins and minerals, 100% orange juice does contain a fair amount of natural sugars, about half of it sucrose and the rest about an equal mix of fructose and glucose. In and of themselves, all sugars are treated equally by the body as essentially “empty calories”, so yes, drinking a lot of orange juice can be fattening – but you’d need a lot.
I might have done the same thing but bottled spring water is cheap and plentiful around here and I love the taste. I use tap water for coffee and cooking but only spring water for drinking.
I’ve had properly filtered tap water and I agree it’s generally pretty good.
I’m sure that drinking too much orange juice can be bad for your teeth, just like too much of anything can be bad for you in some way. Orange juice contains very roughly about the same amount of total sugars per unit volume as a typical non-diet soft drink. But most people will probably drink less orange juice than something like Coke. I probably drink ten times as much Coke Zero as orange juice.