Thread: 100 % Juice

Why is it so that on some bottles is written 100% juice, even if it is diluted with water and there are flavors and acids mixed by?
As I understand it, it is not 100% then anymore.

Which country are you referring to? In the US you cannot dilute it and call it 100 % juice unless it was made from concentrate in which case it has to be labeled "from concentrate." Other flavorings and such can be added without changing the name of the product. You could still call it 100% juice to distinguish it from the watered down products called "juice beverage" or "drink" or "cocktail." The ingredients have to be listed in any case, so I think it's reasonable.

i think a good portion of juice just is water, naturally.

@Harold:
Well, I do refer to the US.
That's where I noticed it.
But what I think is that it may well be possible that they write "from concentrate" and then dilute it.
But why is it then still "100% juice"?
Because concentrate is concentrate and juice is juice.

@Chemboy:
Yes, but it would be false to claim that it is 100% juice when diluting it.

Mastermind,

Obviously you have to add water to reconstitute the concentrated juice. I don't know the rules for how much water can be added back in and still call it 100% juice. Do you have reason to believe it is more than the water removed in the concentration process?

"Juice" isnt exactly the most scientific of terms, I'd say thats more of a branding term than a scientific issue!

@Harold:

Well, if I talk of juice, then I refer to the liquid which is squeezed out of fruits (or sometimes vegetables). True is the fact that it isn't really a scientific term.
BUT,
if I say 100% juice, then my logic tells me that there is nothing in it but juice, only juice, and no acids mixed by, or flavors, for then it is not 100% anymore.
And further, you can tell by the taste that juice from concentrate is definitely different from genuine juice, and thus there must have been something lost in the process.

The thing for me is not that it is still juice, but what bothers me is the 100%.

It's a marketing tool, look at the coca cola "Dasani" scandal.

Mastermind, if you don't like juice from concentrate there is a simple solution. Don't buy any. The labeling laws have done their job. It's a beautiful thing.

Don't spend too much time thinking about it. 100% juice is an irrelevant expression, if the term "juice" is not clearly defined and could include any arbitrary percentage of water. Obviously, we think of orange juice as the product you obtain from pressing a bunch of oranges. But how much water is in that liquid clearly depends on the oranges.

Salesmen like using absolute terms and numbers to impress their potential customers and set their products apart from their competitors'. Numbers appear very objective and scientific to a lot of people, so using numbers in a meaningless statement is a popular way of creating a false impression of absolute objectivity.

Now, it all might make some sense if "juice" meant "undiluted liquid extracted from the fruit". However, that may not be a definition protected by law,... it's just a common sense definition you can't take for granted.

Oh well, one just can't agree with everything...

But thanks for your replies. Yeah it's kinda true that numbers appear to be objective.

u might find this interesting


THE FDA:

http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~lrd/qa2.html#juice

at my school they sell a drink as bottled 'Blackcurrent juice' but when you look at the lable it sais "contains 54% grape juice"

I find it funny when there are containers that say "with real juice", and then on the side you can read "contains 1% juice". :-D

This is just another legal con-industry, licenesed to rip pff people.

For it to be 100 % pure juice, the juice dehydrated, the water removed is measured. The concentrate is exported, on the recieving end, the concentrate should be dilluted to exact volume amount of water removed initially.

Problem is there is nobody to monitor and check logs if of water taken off and the amount re-constituted.

Worth sending email to be companies like Del-monte and asking for reports. :x

Originally Posted by shiva108

This is just another legal con-industry, licenesed to rip pff people.

For it to be 100 % pure juice, the juice dehydrated, the water removed is measured. The concentrate is exported, on the recieving end, the concentrate should be dilluted to exact volume amount of water removed initially.

Problem is there is nobody to monitor and check logs if of water taken off and the amount re-constituted.

Worth sending email to be companies like Del-monte and asking for reports. :x

Just look at the nutritional information/volume of liquid, and compare it to a "not from concentrate" version. If they don't put exactly the same amount of water back in, their nutrition labeling will be off and the company would face an FDA smackdown.

I can't read those small prints.
That's another con again!

I can't read those small prints.
That's another con again!

Good counterword!

I can't read those small prints.
That's another con again!

Do you have good reason to think you are being cheated or do you just have a pessimistic outlook on life?

I think it is like the term all natural. There seems to be no rules on what it means but more a way to get your attention. It is up to the consumer to read the ingredients. I personally put water in all my juice, it is still 100% juice, is it not? If I took the water out than it wouldn't be juice.

Why are people still discussing this!!!

Originally Posted by DaBOB

I think it is like the term all natural.

Convincing people that "all natural" means "safe" or "good for you" is possibly the biggest con that the food industry has ever pulled on consumers. Cyanide, arsenic, mercury, uranium, snake venom, and the toxins that give you food poisoning are "all natural," but that doesn't mean it's safe or healthy.

Well, I just taste a difference between concentrate - based juice (especially orange juice) and fresh pressed juice or "real" juice.
Real juice just tastes better.
That means that something must happen while the concentrate was extracted and then diluted again to juice that changes the taste.

I mean, let's say I buy bread. Then I eat the bread. The bread is all-natural. It tastes good.
A week later I buy another bread, but I don't eat it. I wait two months, while I lay my bread into an environment which is moist and warm.
The bread becomes alive.
It's still all-natural, isn't it?
But the chemicals have changed.

So orange juice may be natural, but the chemicals may have changed in a NATURAL way. So it would be a deception.

Convincing people that "all natural" means "safe" or "good for you" is possibly the biggest con that the food industry has ever pulled on consumers. Cyanide, arsenic, mercury, uranium, snake venom, and the toxins that give you food poisoning are "all natural," but that doesn't mean it's safe or healthy.

The food industry is only giving consumers what they want, they didn't have to convince anybody. This all started back in the 60s when the hippies were convinced they were being poisoned by "chemicals" hence the demand for "natural" foods. If enough people want a product somebody is going to sell it to them.

I'm not completely sure on how this all works, but I think they pasteurize milk AND juice, by heating it to a certain temperature for a certain amount of time to kill bacteria and give it more of a shelf life. With juice I can understand adding a little water to replace the moisture that evaporated during pasteurization. I can also understand throwing in a preservative or two, again, to extend shelf life.
What separates this from other "juice" drinks is that they don't add corn syrup and other sweeteners, dyes, and artificial flavors.