Ever wonder why commercial orange juice–even the premium, not-from-concentrate, “100-percent pure” juice kind–tastes the same each time you buy it, but doesn’t taste exactly like a freshly peeled orange?
Turns out there’s a lot more to making juice than simply squeezing some citrus. As part of the mass-production process, big-name brands like Tropicana, Minute Maid, Simply Orange, and Florida’s Natural add artificial flavoring in order to make sure your juice tastes consistent from carton to carton–and to make sure it tastes like oranges.
They left out an important fact.
The reason some fresh-squeezed orange juice tastes more like oranges is largely due to one thing.
There are two (2) juices in an orange. The one you expect and are familiar with is from the pulp cells inside the orange. But it takes more than that to get the full value of orange juice.
The second juice is in the PEEL of the orange. It has a much lesser volume but it's very powerful. You can physically see the power of this juice by squeezing some of it on an ordinary styrofoam cup. The tiny droplets that squirt out of an orange peel hit the surface of the cup and leave tiny divots as if they were cannon balls. The peel juice is so powerful chemically that
it melts the plastic of the styrofoam cup. The juice from inside the orange cannot do that.
When you squeeze oranges, it's this peel juice that gets into your skin on your hands and makes them take on a fresh orange smell after you're done squeezing juice. You can also feel the effect on your hands. They feel more intense, vibrant and alive. By washing the fruit to remove dirt and unwanted material from the fruit skin before squeezing the juice, you can then more completely squeeze the fruit, without being worried about the juice from the peel making a mess of things. In fact, it's a good idea to twist the emptied peel husk to break up the juices locked inside then drop the peel into your squeezed juice for a minute before taking it out and twisting it off again before you throw the peels away.
I have found local juicers who do this, put the entire orange into their squeezing machine, and their juices are always by far the tastiest product. Juicers who only squeeze out the contents of the orange and ignore the juice in the peel always have less than wonderful juice. This is a fact I have observed time and again in many places.
The orange juice commercially available that has the most complete juice flavor, in my opinion, is made by a company with an unfortunate name: Evolution Fresh, Inc. They take the whole orange, sliced in half (probably to inspect it for defects), and squeezed under something like 20,000 psi (the Rep told me) to extract ALL the juice from the pulp and the peel without distinction. You can't beat the flavor of their product. If you'd like to try some, it's available at Starbucks Coffee houses and at some natural foods stores like Whole Foods and others. The people at Evolution are eager to talk to customers and the general public. Their number is on the containers: 800-794-9986. Their offices are in Rancho Cucamonga, CA, 91730. Evolutionfresh.com
Ask them if they add anything to their juice for flavor. They'll tell you they don't. And I think it's true, because their juice has variation in flavor from place to place and week to week. The label says "INGREDIENTS: ORANGE JUICE" and on the back panel, "We start with our favorite fruits and veggies." (Some of their juices are vegetable juice.) "Then they are pressed, squeezed and bottled cold. We apply ginormous pressure (instead of heat pasteurizing). Nutrients and flavors sing, with no added flavors or preservatives. Nature approves."
The bottom line is, Evolution Fresh orange juice tastes indistinguishable from fresh-squeezed orange juice. I have tried this test several times and I'm amazed, that I cannot tell which is the fresh squeezed and which is the Evolution Fresh. Sometimes I prefer one and sometimes the other. But this amazing commercially available juice is consistently competitive with the best fresh squeezed juice from the tastiest oranges I can find. And there are a lot of fresh oranges in my area, because not too long ago this area used to be orange groves as far as the eye can see.
Last but not least: price. Fresh-squeezed orange juice made by someone else costs about $30 - $40 per gallon. The Evolution Fresh juice I mentioned above is $4 for a 15.2 fl. oz. bottle. The markets (like whole Foods) sell larger bottles for a slight price break. There are 8.42 bottles like this in a gallon, or $33.68 for an equivalent gallon. Local orchards squeezing juice like I described (whole friut) charge about $8 per quart.
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