Squeezed

LA Times: It's time fruit juice loses its wholesome image, some experts say

Alissa Hamilton is interviewed in a recent Los Angeles Times piece that argues fruit juice "poses the same obesity-related health risks as Coke, Pepsi and other widely vilified beverages." As readers of Squeezed will note, it's often these same companies who formulate the fruit juices that find their way into our grocery stores.

There is also the question of a more concentrated serving size. As Hamilton points out in the piece, "You consume more oranges if you drink them than if you eat them whole," indicating that fruit juice drinkers are ingesting more calories than they might if they simply ate the orange itself. To read more, click here.

"Squeezed author" examines beverage industry transparency

The current issue of Organic Product Retailer includes an interview with Alissa Hamilton about the research she conducted on the orange juice industry in support of her book, Squeezed. The issue's cover story details strategies for "braving the beverage aisle" in both traditional and specialty grocery stores, where drinks are often marketed in misleading ways to appear healthier than they truly are.

Click here to read the interview in a fully interactive digital edition of the magazine.

Food Chain Radio: "Squeezed Fresh"

Alissa Hamilton was interviewed on Food Chain Radio's October 17th show, entitled "Squeezed Fresh." Click here to listen to the full interview and see below for the show description:

It’s pure, and natural, and squeezed fresh. And so we buy the orange juice and drink it to break our fast and start our day. Still, we wonder… What do they mean by "squeezed fresh?" Topics include a history of how orange juice became a staple of the American breakfast; the technologies that make it possible to get juice from oranges off the tree in Brazil and onto a table in Peoria; and how juice a year old can be sold to us as squeezed fresh.

"Squeezed" on Real Health with Dr. Steve

Alissa Hamilton was interviewed about her book on Real Health with Dr. Steve, a leading health and wellness online radio program, this week. Click here to listen to the show.

Citrus Test: How the Orange Juice Industry Is Emblematic of Commodity Agriculture

The following interview with Alissa Hamilton originally appeared in the October 2009 issue of Acres USA:

It’s not widely known that orange juice benefits from a gap of sorts in the industrial agriculture catalog of chemical horrors. Ninety percent of the pesticides used on citrus are used to preserve appearance, and appearance is not an issue for oranges that are destined for converting into juice. That’s the good news. The not-so-good news can be found below, where author Alissa Hamilton serves up a sampling of her fascinating book on the orange juice industry, Squeezed: What You Don’t Know About Orange Juice. Like many other elements of our food heritage, the juice of the most beloved citrus has emerged from a century of marketing and processing as something completely transformed, a troubled descendant of what it was. Once a luxury served in affluent homes and enjoyed seasonally by farm families with access to their own trees, most of the orange juice consumed by Americans today is the result of a fairly bizarre process. But let’s give the floor to Alissa Hamilton and her thorough research.

ACRES U.S.A. Let’s say you go into a store to buy orange juice, and your best option is something that says “fresh-squeezed” or words to that effect on the label. What is in that orange juice?

ALISSA HAMILTON. There aren’t too many products recently that actually advertise their processed juice as fresh-squeezed. They certainly suggest it, imply it by the pictures on the carton or the ads you see on TV, but those two words together, fresh, squeezed — hopefully companies have stopped doing that. That said, Tropicana’s new carton actually had a statement at the top: “squeezed from fresh oranges.” So you can see the extent to which companies are still trying to convince consumers — that sounds awfully like fresh-squeezed, but clearly it means something different. We would hope that the oranges that they squeeze are fresh when squeezed.

ACRES U.S.A. They’ll say “squeezed from fresh oranges,” or they’ll say “not from concentrate.” What does that mean, really?

HAMILTON. “Not from concentrate” refers to a pasteurized orange juice, and this is sort of complicated because you usually see the words “not from concentrate” in much larger font than the word “pasteurized.” The industry fought hard not to have to declare on the carton that the juice was pasteurized because they were concerned that consumers would be turned off. What usually happens today is that in order to have a 365-day supply of orange juice, the big brands are storing their product for up to a year. They store them in these huge aseptic storage tanks — that means the juice is stripped of oxygen before going into the tank so that it doesn’t oxidize in the tank and go bad. When the juice is stripped of oxygen, it is also stripped of flavor-providing chemicals. The companies then hire flavor and fragrance companies to engineer flavor packs to add back to the juice to make it taste fresh. You can see in the name the whole idea behind the slogan “not from concentrate” — it is a better, higher-quality, fresher juice than from concentrate, with the idea that from-concentrate is an inferior product. But in fact, not-from-concentrate juice is also a heavily processed product. Many of the ads show the oranges being squeezed and then going right into the carton or a straw punctured into an orange suggesting that this is pretty much straight from the tree, but it’s not.

To continue reading this interview, please click here.

WAMC's The Roundtable interview

On August 17th, Alissa Hamilton joined the discussion on WAMC's "The Roundtable" on Northeast Public Radio. Click the link below to listen to the full interview:

Download Interview with Alissa Hamilton

Behind the label: orange juice

The following article by Pat Thomas originally appeared on July 13 in the Ecologist:

Most orange juice manufacturers would have you believe that OJ is purity in a glass; a simple, natural, single-ingredient product.

But behind this image of purity is a product that is heavily processed and engineered. If it's made from concentrate, the juice goes through a process where all the water is removed - and with it much of the flavour. In the case of 'not from concentrate' juice, the liquid is pasteurised and 'deaerated' so it doesn't oxidise. It's then put in huge storage tanks where it can be kept for upwards of a year.

This process also strips the natural flavours form the juice. When the juice is ready for packaging, companies add chemical 'flavour packs' consisting of orange oils and flavourings to make it taste fresh again. The flavours they add are designed to meet local taste expectations; thus OJ in California might taste completely different from that in Spain or the UK.

The end product may taste fine, but to call it 'natural' is probably stretching credibility.

Orange juice as a mass-produced product grew out of attempts to supply vitamin C to soldiers stuck on the front line in WWII. From a health perspective OJ does contain useful amounts of antioxidants - but these rapidly deteriorate once the product is opened. Most types of orange juice, whether they are made from concentrate or not and whether they are chilled or not, are similar in terms of vitamin C and antioxidant content.

But of course this really misses the point. For those with no access to other better sources of vitamin C such as fresh fruits and vegetables, orange juice may well be an important source of such nutrients. But the fact remains that for someone on a good diet, processed orange juice is a nutritionally unnecessary and inferior way to get the fullest spectrum of vitamins and antioxidants.

Even so, the UK market for fruit juices and health drinks (i.e. smoothies, vitamin enhanced waters etc) was worth an estimated £2.92bn in 2007, and fruit juices accounted for around half of that. In the UK OJ is still our best seller.

Now in addition to its health properties, consumers are being invited to ponder the carbon implications of the world's favourite fruit juice. In January of this year PepsiCo in the US announced that its best-selling orange juice brand, Tropicana (also the UK's biggest selling fruit juice), had gained accreditation from the UK's Carbon Trust. This entitled the product to carry the Carbon Label, which tells consumers what the carbon footprint of a product is on its package (although the label has yet to appear on Tropicana products anywhere).

That not-from-concentrate orange juice? It's not so good for your budget

The following article by John Ewoldt originally appeared in the Minneapolis Star Tribune:

The orange juice industry is picking an extra dollar from your grocery budget, and you probably feel good about it. But you shouldn't.

If you've recently switched to orange juice labeled "not from concentrate" (NFC), you've been picked like low-hanging fruit.

In Alissa Hamilton's book Squeezed: What You Don't Know About Orange Juice from Yale University Press, she says that people looking for fresher, less processed foods won't find it in a carton of Minute Maid Premium, Tropicana or Simply Orange.

"It's a misconception that it's freshly squeezed from the groves of Florida," she said.

Rather, it's often a heavily processed product. In the pasteurization process, it's heated, stripped of oxygen and flavor chemicals, then put in huge storage vats for up to a year. When it's ready for packaging, flavor derived from orange essence and oils is added to make it taste fresh. Each company has its own special flavor pack, but to call it natural at this point is a real stretch, she said.

The phrase "not from concentrate" came about when Tropicana (an NFC juice) suddenly had to compete with similar looking cartons that were reconstituted from concentrate. The phrase was introduced to try to make consumers pay more for a product that is more expensive to manufacture but not fresher, said Hamilton. Orange "flavor" isn't listed on the label ingredients because that disclosure isn't required.

We decided to try a blind, unscientific taste test to see if people could pick out freshly squeezed from "not from concentrate." I chose Lunds/Byerly's freshly squeezed, unpasteurized juice and placed it unmarked alongside NFC store brands from Aldi, Cub, Rainbow and Trader Joe's. I chose the store brands because they're about 20 percent cheaper than name brands from Coca-Cola (Simply Orange and Minute Maid) and Pepsi (Tropicana). One easy way to know that "not from concentrate" isn't fresh from the groves is cartons with a freshness date 45 to 60 days away. Lunds' freshly squeezed juice should be used within a week of purchase, said a Lunds produce manager.

Six of the eight testers rated Lunds' OJ the winner. Fresh doesn't come cheap, though. At $7 for 48 ounces, it's about 14 cents an ounce. Cub's NFC came in second, and Trader Joe's and Aldi tied for third. If you're trying to save money, Aldi's Nature's Nectar in the clear jug is the cheapest at about 4.5 cents per ounce, followed by Trader Joe's.

But if you start your day with a glass of OJ, you'll probably get as much freshness from frozen concentrate, or concentrate in a carton, as the more expensive "not from concentrate."

Say it ain't so, Bing Crosby.

Writers Read

The following piece by Alissa Hamilton originally appeared on Writers Read:

It's summertime, the season for a great romance, thriller, or mystery, whether read between covers or viewed on the big screen. And yet all I seem to be reading these days is non-fiction, the film equivalent of the documentary, which you might think is more fall/winter appropriate. Think again. Docs can be entertaining: remember March of the Penguins, when the two pudgy penguins too impatient to wait their turn get momentarily stuck, Abbot and Costello style, in the hole in the ice on their way fishing?

Similarly, Non-fiction can be gripping. I'm going to take a chance and pick Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life as proof. I confess I have not read this year-in-the-life, but it's on my shelf, next in line. Kingsolver, who appropriately made her name writing delicious fiction (The Bean Trees was her first novel), begins Animal, Vegetable, Miracle with an elaborate drawing of an every-vegetable-plant followed by the evocation:

Picture a single imaginary plant,
bearing throughout one season all the
different vegetables we harvest...
we'll call it a vegetannual

With a start like this, I'm confident it won't disappoint. Especially since squash, which may be my single most favourite vegetable, crowns the drawing.

If you're more in the mood for a thriller, I recommend A Question of Intent: A Great American Battle With a Deadly Industry, by David Kessler, former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration. Kessler was largely responsible for exposing and cracking down on the tobacco industry. Although the book was published in 2001, it is timely given a recent article co-authored by Kelly Brownell, Yale psychologist and author of Food Fight: The Inside Story of the Food Industry, America's Obesity Crisis, and What We Can Do About It, and Kenneth Warner, tobacco researcher and Dean of the University of Michigan's School of Public Health, about the similarities in the marketing tactics used by the food and tobacco industries.

Hot docs for what I hear is going to be a hot summer.

Orange Juice 101

The following article by Georgia Orcutt originally appeared in the Boston Parents Paper:

It’s another morning and your household is buzzing as everyone gets up, gets dressed and grabs something to eat. Out comes the cereal, the toast, and, most likely, the orange juice. Chances are you consider it one of the most important items on the breakfast menu and you even nag your kids to finish it. But do you really know anything about what’s in that carton?

Alissa Hamilton, author of Squeezed : What You Don’t Know About Orange Juice (Yale University Press, 2009) suggests we all take a closer look. Her history of the drink reveals that the juice we buy isn’t as pure as manufacturers would like us to think. In fact, even the brands such as Tropicana that promise they are pure, natural and fresh have been heated and processed, stripped of their volatile flavor-producing chemicals, held in tanks for up to a year and then engineered to taste fresh.

Hamilton’s book digs deep to unearth industry secrets. While working on and visiting farms in Central America after law school, she realized that if she wanted to work in the field of food policy, she needed a better grasp of the links between food production and consumption. She decided to focus on understanding the effects that the processed food industry is having on the growing of major crops. Orange juice seemed the perfect case study because of both its popularity and the seamless connection between the raw agricultural commodity and the processed product: orange juice is processed oranges. Hamilton shared these thoughts with us.

What surprised you the most as you researched the history of orange juice?

The degree to which consumers have bought the myths that the industry has created about orange juice. I was not surprised by the extent to which products such as "not from concentrate" orange juice, which is marketed as "pure" and "natural," are processed, but by the reactions of dismay and betrayal that I continue to receive when I describe what has to be done to juice that has a shelf life of sixty plus days and is available year round.

You say in your book that consumers act like robots when it comes to orange juice. What do you mean?

Orange juice has become a national breakfast staple. Almost two thirds of American households buy orange juice. Yet if you ask people why they do the answers sound programmed: it's healthy, it's a good source of vitamin C, it's a good way to start the day. It's true that orange juice is a good source of vitamin C for soldiers without access to fresh fruits and vegetables. Frozen Concentrated Orange Juice, which entered the market in the late 1940s, was invented with World War II soldiers in mind. But for those of us with a choice, a whole orange contains more vitamin C than a glass of juice. That doesn't necessarily mean don't drink orange juice. But it's important to know what you're drinking and why.

What is there about orange juice that the average consumer doesn’t know?

Florida used to produce most of the nation's orange juice. However, over the last couple of decades Florida's orange groves have been turned into condominiums as the industry has moved to Brazil, where land and labor are cheaper and where there are fewer environmental regulations. The farther juice travels and the longer it sits in storage the more heavily it is processed. Now the big orange juice companies hire flavor and fragrance companies, the same ones that make popular perfumes and colognes, to engineer flavor packs to add back to their juice to make it taste fresh. Even most "not from concentrate," which is marketed as a fresher, higher quality product than "from concentrate," can sit in storage for a year and has flavor added to it. To call it natural is a real stretch.

If you could wave a magic wand how would you change the industry?

There needs to be more transparency surrounding the production of processed foods, orange juice included. We take it for granted that we should know what's in food but we know very little about how most food is produced. I don't expect juice companies to fill their labels with the details of how their product is processed. But it is reasonable to expect that the information they do provide be truthful and meaningful. "Nothing Added, Almost Nothing Removed" fails on the first count: for one, flavor providing essences and oils have both been added to and removed from the juice being advertised. "Squeezed from fresh oranges" fails on the latter count: one would hope the oranges were fresh when squeezed. Although meaningless, the statement could easily be misread as saying "fresh squeezed." If I could wave a magic wand such marketing tricks would no longer be the norm. Food labels would inform rather than deceive and mislead.

Many dietitians recommend eating a fresh orange and drinking a glass of water rather than buying orange juice. Are you in their camp?

I don't buy orange juice, but not as a result of writing the book. I never did. Personally, I'd rather eat an orange and drink a glass of water. In general, I prefer eating whole foods, literally: when I eat an orange I even eat the pith and save the peel for cooking. I'll leave the health advice to the dietitians. But I have nothing against orange juice, especially if it's fresh squeezed from Florida Valencias, the premium juice orange. It's Valencia season in Florida so now's the time. My dad squeezes a glass every morning. He loves it and at the same time he's supporting Florida growers. The routine seems to be working for him: he looks better than men half his age.

Georgia Orcutt is associate editor of the Boston Parents Paper.