Scary Things About Juice

We all know that fresh produce is always more nutritious than packaged foods, but recently I learned something that really brought it home, and more than a little freaked me out.  I read an article regarding the process a standard bottle of juice goes through before it gets to your grocery cart.  I'm not talking cheapo juice, or the flavored corn syrup we all just call juice... I mean real, supposedly high-quality juices.

As it turns out, most of what we buy on grocery store shelves has sat around for so long, that manufacturers have to add in what is called a "flavor packet" just to get the juice to taste like what it should taste like.  Most juices sit on shelves for a least a few months and some up to a year before the flavor packet is added and then it's sent to a grocery store.  There are various reasons why this happens this way, which I won't get into, because my point isn't really the reasons behind it, but the impact on us, the consumers.

We all know that fresh produce loses nutrients over time.  Juice an apple and you have a lot of nutrients.  Come back to the same glass the next day and the nutrients have reduced significantly.  Come back six months later, and... well, you see my point.  The fact that they have to add in flavor packets is evidence that the nutritional value is basically nil.  Flavor packets in, for example, apple juice, are part of the manufacturing process for basically every major apple juice brand on your grocery store shelf.  A flavor packte isn't listed on the ingredients because it isn't required to be.  Basically, except for the vitamin c which is added to the bottle, you may not be drinking more than flavored water, from a nutritional standpoint.

You think when you are drinking apple juice that you are getting the benefits of what is in an apple.  But nope!  Just another screw-you from our fabulous food manufacturing system.  If you want your kids to have the nutition of an apple, they are going to have to eat an actual apple.  Or... like I've decided... you could just make your own juice.

Yup, I'm one of those people now.  I bought a juicer.  Take that, food manufacturers!  I will still buy crummy store juice sometimes, but I wanted to give this whole juicing thing a try, now that I know the evils of grocery juice.  It's a little more expensive but it's certainly healthier.  I already made apple juice and it was soooooooo good.  Like fresh cider from the cider mill.  And I certainly will be getting more nutrients than the bottled kind (not to mention none of those evil plastics chemicals everyone is screaming about now). 

I also bought a bag of oranges and I'm looking forward to delicious fresh squeezed oj in the morning.  I guess I'm a juicer-owner. 

Happy drinking!