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exmadscientist 23 hours ago [-]
The other thing that I can't help but think has seriously hurt the industry is that, between concentrate and flavor packs, almost all supermarket orange juice tastes like garbage. Fresh-squeezed orange juice is, of course, the benchmark. If you ever taste Minute Maid back-to-back with fresh-squeezed, well, you probably won't be buying Minute Maid again any time soon. It just doesn't even taste like oranges. There are a few brands available (the expensive ones, of course) that do come close enough to actually taste like oranges, but when the mass-market product falls that far down in quality, you can't help but wonder how anyone still wants to buy it.
somat 20 hours ago [-]
The process to make never concentrated orange juice logistically viable involves removing all the oxygen from the juice so it stores well. Now you can take a seasonal product like oranges and sell the juice the entire year around. Unfortunately removing the oxygen also removes most of the flavor. so what the bottlers do is add an engineered "flavor package" when they bottle the juice to add the flavor back.
I am halfway convinced that flavor wise frozen concentrated orange juice is "closer to the tree" than the "never concentrated" stuff. Nothing on fresh squeezed. But that is the price we pay to have a non-seasonal product.
qup 21 hours ago [-]
I haven't had minute maid in a long time, but I enjoy Simply, and Sam's club house brand is pretty good as well.
Nothing like a fresh Florida orange, though. I used to know a secret tree in a public preserve that had the best oranges known to man.
I might drive down this winter and see if it's still there.
dcrazy 19 hours ago [-]
It may surprise you to learn that Simply Beverages is owned by Coca-Cola, who also own Minute Maid.
Simply is definitely the superior of their product lines.
BoneShard 20 hours ago [-]
It was a sad day for me when I realized that a glass of orange juice(or any juice in general) isn't much better for your health than a can of soda and probably even worse than diet/zero coke.
Noumenon72 19 hours ago [-]
I love cutting grapefruit in half and digging out chunks because at the end you get to drink grapefruit juice the way it was intended, as a reward for eating grapefruit.
pfannkuchen 17 hours ago [-]
Do you eat the seeds and poop them out somewhere nice? I think that’s what the grapefruit intended.
hedora 17 hours ago [-]
Most artificial sweeteners have metabolic side effects, and lead to weight gain.
You’re probably better off drinking cane sugar soda because it is more filling than HFCS soda.
Anyway orange juice is probably better still. At least it has some vitamin C and maybe trace fiber in it.
jpfromlondon 13 hours ago [-]
no metabolic effects from sweeteners, wish you lot would stop moving the goalposts on why sweeteners are unhealthy:
> However, given this study applied a heterogeneous ASB formula, it could not adequately consider the role of specific artificial sweeteners. Further research is needed to evaluate the potential effect of different artificial sweeteners and their doses on health.
jpfromlondon 8 hours ago [-]
it's also not the only study, just one example, besides that's standard boilerplate CE so as not to assume liability.
pjc50 10 hours ago [-]
This reminds me of the collapse of the Gros Michel banana variety, also due to disease. Near-100% loss of a food crop, even a luxury one, is an alarming thing to see though.
(I was wondering if climate change would be mentioned, but that doesn't seem to be critical there yet. Starting to be noticed in European grape terroir.)
HardwareLust 11 hours ago [-]
It's not who killed it, it's what killed it and the answer is greed.
nerdsniper 9 hours ago [-]
For anyone not aware, the most proximate cause of the disappearance of "Florida Orange Juice™ " is the Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus bacteria. Monoculture is often blamed, but the bacteria affects all citrus trees - oranges, limes, lemons, grapefruits, pomelos, etc.
Looks like premature collapse of a monoculture due to excess stress, much of it a result of human effort.
nerdsniper 9 hours ago [-]
I don't think monoculture is relevant for once; the bacteria affects all citrus trees: oranges, limes, lemons, grapefruits, pomelos, etc.
fuzzfactor 6 hours ago [-]
Yeah, not just one or two susceptible varieties.
But when you have nothing but the perfect host for the infection, in incredibly massive proportions as far as the eye can see, a little bacteria goes a long way.
I am halfway convinced that flavor wise frozen concentrated orange juice is "closer to the tree" than the "never concentrated" stuff. Nothing on fresh squeezed. But that is the price we pay to have a non-seasonal product.
Nothing like a fresh Florida orange, though. I used to know a secret tree in a public preserve that had the best oranges known to man.
I might drive down this winter and see if it's still there.
Simply is definitely the superior of their product lines.
You’re probably better off drinking cane sugar soda because it is more filling than HFCS soda.
Anyway orange juice is probably better still. At least it has some vitamin C and maybe trace fiber in it.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12098100/
> However, given this study applied a heterogeneous ASB formula, it could not adequately consider the role of specific artificial sweeteners. Further research is needed to evaluate the potential effect of different artificial sweeteners and their doses on health.
(I was wondering if climate change would be mentioned, but that doesn't seem to be critical there yet. Starting to be noticed in European grape terroir.)
But when you have nothing but the perfect host for the infection, in incredibly massive proportions as far as the eye can see, a little bacteria goes a long way.
Which can be even worse :(