Concentrate Vs Freshly Squeezed Commercial OJ

Prosper

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In terms of nutritional value and possible health effects, how big is the difference between these two on average? Organic freshly squeezed OJ is extremely expensive here (~5 times the price of generic OJ from concentrate).

I would like to drink 1-2 liters per day but the price is holding me back, so would it be a sensible decision to buy cheaper OJ concentrate instead? Fluoridated water is not an issue in my country.
 

Luna

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Apr 2, 2016
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There are so many considerations to buying Orange Juice:
I think the best orange juice is for you to buy your own oranges and make it yourself.

I find that generic OJ brands has about 3 categories:
1) Too acidic, you will stop using those brands in the long run because of the acidic taste.
2) Sensitivity, some orange juice taste like garbage. It is probably laden with orange peels and orange oils, all the toxins of the peel and artificial chemicals to supposedly make the juice more appealing. When you have juiced enough fresh oranges at home yourself to understand what fresh orange juice is. You will quickly realize the orange juice of any stores with a shelf life of more than a day or two to be fake orange juice. The exception is the supermarket made orange juice (of which the only caveat is that the grocer forgot to wash his machine properly with soapy taste left behind; and you would have to trust that they took out all the damaged oranges by hand before letting the machine run with the oranges.).
3) Plastic container smell of containerized juice (I guess my nose is just sensitive, when I feel poor $, I just buy the concentrate cardboard stuff and dilute it with water, that way I control which water is used.). With option 3, you would probably miss out on the heat sensitive nutrients. As most juice are pasteurized except for your local grocer/supermarket made juice, ironically it is their containers that smell the worst of plastic (probably didn't choose the right container for storing acidic liquids).
With heat pasteurized, they only bother to add the Vitamin C and folate back in. But the damage is in everything else of the cooked orange juice.
Pros of the container juice, you get water, vitamin C, folate. You will be hydrated, but the rest of the other missing vitamins have to come from your other foods.

Expiration date:
1 day
1 week
1 month
Grocer restocks per day, every 2 days, every 3 days...etc.

Price:
5x $ for organic fresh squeezed supermarket juice.
x $ for container of pasteurized containerized juice.

Processing:
Pasteurized
UHT Pasteurized
Non Pasteurized
Concentrated
Non Concentrated
Held in Tank (Tank Material, Tank Cleaning, Tank Residue, Tank Contamination).
Not held in Tank
Fresh
Non Fresh
Frozen
Non Frozen
Diluted
Non Diluted
Sat in a vat for over months held in storage facility at processing plant.
Juice centrifuged and selected for a flavour.
Cold Pressed
Mechanically Pressed
Hand Squeezed
Fresh Squeezed
Home Squeezed style
Squeezed (at your home)

Container Materials:
Containerized in Plastic (any BPA, metals leeched...etc)
Containerized in Glass (any lead...etc)
Containerized in Tetrapack (Cardboard plus some plastic layers.)

Pesticides and Chemicals:
Organic Freshly Squeezed
Non Organic Freshly Squeezed
Squeezed near the rind/ peel (pesticides might get in)
Oranges washed
Oranges washed with detergents or soaps (things that you might not want to eat)
Oranges not washed
Oranges with fungal growth or moulds or damages removed from juicing.
Sprayed with fungicide...pesticides.
Machines washed with detergents or soaps (things that you might not want to eat). Soapy taste from poor maintenance of supermarket equipment.
Artificials:
Flavour Packs
Flavoured
Non Flavoured
Vitamins added

Pulp
Pulpless
with Pulp
Pulp strained out (at your home)

Acidity:

Acidity
Low Acid
Sodium Bicarbonate Added

Water Added:

Diluted with (any) Water
Fluoridated Water
Reverse Osmosis Water (Plastic Tubing, leaching of chemicals from tubes).
Spring Water
Mineral Water
Tap Water
 
Last edited:

zztr

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Nov 2, 2016
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I'm not aware of any reason to prefer fresh over frozen concentrate. In fact I would suspect the frozen to be less oxidized and have less metal leeched into it from holding tanks. The source oranges are what would matter and I've never heard any comments about which ones get steered to be frozen concentrate. I think the frozen stuff in America mostly comes from Brazil. I have no idea if that's better or worse than Florida oranges.
 
OP
Prosper

Prosper

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There are so many considerations to buying Orange Juice:

Thanks for that extensive analysis. Well yeah, homemade OJ would of course be ideal (and tasty!), but also by far the most expensive method. For the price of a quart/liter of fresh-squeezed OJ I can only make 70% of that amount by handsqueezing the oranges myself.
 
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i get OJ from a machine at the market that squeezes them. It is usually fantastic. This time around, a bit tart, I suppose the oranges aren't really that ripe. But I know where it comes from at least.

I have found a few commercial brands are fine but even those vary from one bottle to the next. Even the big names vary bottle to bottle.
 

sladerunner69

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In terms of nutritional value and possible health effects, how big is the difference between these two on average? Organic freshly squeezed OJ is extremely expensive here (~5 times the price of generic OJ from concentrate).

I would like to drink 1-2 liters per day but the price is holding me back, so would it be a sensible decision to buy cheaper OJ concentrate instead? Fluoridated water is not an issue in my country.


Peat has recommended in an email that concentrate juice is better than carton juice. Obviously fresh squeezed is the best but concentrate i probably okay too. I buy it and store it as a back up for when I run out of fresh squeezed. I have found that msot brands don't taste very appealing, but I am spoiled with fresh squeezed juice.
 
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I think vitamin C would disappear with time... and if pasteurized there probably won't be any to start with.
 

DrJ

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I find Oj from concentrate to usually be sweeter, so I prefer it for the higher sugar content. I suspect they make the concentrate during ripening season when there are so many oranges they don't have any choice but to send the extras to concentrate. The bottled supposed fresh squeezed is usually so bitter I can't drink it, probably because they pick them when they need them regardless of ripeness. But that means the pectin hasn't converted to sugar so you're getting lots of pectin.
 

Milena

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Is it a problem if I blend peeled oranges instead of juicing them? Any downsides or upsides to this?
UK oranges from the market.
 

Dhair

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Cold pressed and fresh squeezed are the best in my opinion. I won't buy anything else. When I'm broke, I just drink Mexican cokes because I live in the Southwest where they are available at almost every convenience store.
 

kaybb

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Jun 24, 2015
Messages
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In terms of nutritional value and possible health effects, how big is the difference between these two on average? Organic freshly squeezed OJ is extremely expensive here (~5 times the price of generic OJ from concentrate).

I would like to drink 1-2 liters per day but the price is holding me back, so would it be a sensible decision to buy cheaper OJ concentrate instead? Fluoridated water is not an issue in my country.
If you go to Dan's Toxinless.com website, he has a list of brands and information about them. In the USA Uncle Matt's tastes great, organic and no added enzymes or flavor packs.
 
OP
Prosper

Prosper

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I find Oj from concentrate to usually be sweeter, so I prefer it for the higher sugar content. I suspect they make the concentrate during ripening season when there are so many oranges they don't have any choice but to send the extras to concentrate. The bottled supposed fresh squeezed is usually so bitter I can't drink it, probably because they pick them when they need them regardless of ripeness. But that means the pectin hasn't converted to sugar so you're getting lots of pectin.
Makse sense. Perhaps I'll just buy a few different brands of concentrate juice and try to determine the best one by taste.

If you go to Dan's Toxinless.com website, he has a list of brands and information about them. In the USA Uncle Matt's tastes great, organic and no added enzymes or flavor packs.
That's a neat site indeed, although not particularly useful when you live in northern Europe :D
 

Dan W

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A useful coincidence, Peat just responded to someone asking about what to do when fruit quality is low:
Ray Peat said:
In the winter in the US, I use a lot of frozen orange juice concentrate, because good fruit is scarce. When you use refined sugar it’s important to avoid the starchy foods, emphasizing milk, cheese, eggs, fruits, and occasional liver and seafood. Cooked leafy greens and mushrooms should substitute for starchy vegetables.



For people in the US: I noticed Safeway Select generic concentrate tastes better than the brand names, at least for whatever harvest they're currently using.
That's a neat site indeed, although not particularly useful when you live in northern Europe :D
I can't help it that I only recently learned that other countries exist :)
 

DrJ

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For people in the US: I noticed Safeway Select generic concentrate tastes better than the brand names, at least for whatever harvest they're currently using

Funny I've noticed the same thing! I've always had good luck with the Safeway Select stuff.
 

Milena

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For those in the UK. Another thread, a couple of years ago, rated M&S Freshly squeezed Valencia Orange juice.
 

encerent

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Sep 16, 2014
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I only can squeeze my own now. Commercial OJ's do a hard number on my gut.
 

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