The Secret Ingredient in Orange Juice • Hacker News Board

Re: The Secret Ingredient in Orange Juice

#261

Post by kobayashi » Fri, Nov 27, 2015, 3:50 PM UTC

mediumdeviation wrote: post #165

kobayashi wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think he was questioning the health or safety of the additives, I think he was questioning the nutritious list of oranges or the foodstuffs that lack flavor. This would make sense given that humans have evolved to taste and enjoy flavours based upon the nutritiousness of that food.

Human beings evolved senses to perceive food which will aid in the individual's survival on the plains of the African savannah. There's no reason to believe that food perceived to be flavorful necessarily contains the correct nutrients for us, and (more importantly) contain them in the right amounts. Otherwise if we can all just trust our taste buds then nutritionists would be all out of jobs.

Actually, there is a good reason to believe that natural flavours that taste good to us do so because they're healthy and contain the correct nutrients for us, and our bodies even can know about when we've consumed enough of them.

This book outlines all of that http://www.amazon.ca/Dorito-Effect-Surprising-Truth-Flavor/d...

If you don't want to read the whole book, here's the audio from a program called The Agenda with Steve Paikin with the author of The Dorito Effect. http://podcasts.tvo.org/theagenda/audio/2301343_48k.mp3

Re: The Secret Ingredient in Orange Juice

#262

Post by anticitizen » Fri, Nov 27, 2015, 4:03 PM UTC

beloch wrote: post #87

"Juice removed from the fruit is just concentrated fructose without any of the naturally-occurring fiber, pectin, and other goodies that make eating a whole fruit good for you. Did you know, for example, that it takes 6-8 medium sized apples to make just 1 cup of apple juice? You probably wouldn’t be able to eat 6-8 medium apples in a single sitting. (I know I can barely eat one!) But you can casually throw back a cu…

>Don't mess around with fermenting juices and all that probiotic jazz.

Fermenting reduces the sugar in the beverage.The sugar is processed by the cultures.

Re: The Secret Ingredient in Orange Juice

#263

Post by Jemmeh » Fri, Nov 27, 2015, 4:07 PM UTC

tedmiston wrote: post #195

dwich wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I maintain that toxinless.com page and usually buy the brands that claim to avoid flavor packs. It could be placebo, but I notice more flavor variation throughout the year with Costco and Whole Foods' brands, which I think supports their claims of using different sources of oranges throughout the seasons.

From your experience, is there one certain mid-price brand that stands out amongst the non flavor pack varieties?

We've been drinking Uncle Matt's for a while now. It's usually about $4-5 where I live and that seems quite reasonable to me.

No flavor packs, enzyme and BPA free. And it's organic. And it actually tastes like oranges.

Re: The Secret Ingredient in Orange Juice

#264

Post by pdkl95 » Fri, Nov 27, 2015, 4:16 PM UTC

NotOscarWilde wrote: post #254

pdkl95 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An interesting type of (approximately) zero sugar drink is mixing bitters with {,cabonated} water. In particular, a dash or two of Peychaud's Bitters in soda water is almost like a floral (gentian) "kool aid"-style drink without the excessive sweetness.

Forgive my inexperience with alcohol (I have never drunk it and I am not from the States), but bitters as defined here [1] seem to be alcoholic -- therefore a bad choice for anything but after hours, leisure drinking, right? [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitters#Cocktail_bitters

You only use a few drops. It's like vanilla extract - you use so little of it that the EtOH is insignificant.

Re: The Secret Ingredient in Orange Juice

#265

Post by a-j-h » Fri, Nov 27, 2015, 4:33 PM UTC

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #252

ascorbic wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dasani is tap water that has been purified with reverse osmosis and then remineralised.

It's rather strange as a Brit to hear that some bottled waters in the US are tap water. Here everything seems to be mineral water.

Dasani was launched in the UK in the mid-2000s. Was a bit of a marketing disaster and then was found to be contaminated and had to be recalled.

Re: The Secret Ingredient in Orange Juice

#266

Post by rdtsc » Fri, Nov 27, 2015, 4:43 PM UTC

mokkol wrote: post #242

sparkzilla wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I think it is rather common sense Common sense is not proof. >Flavor compounds if done right will not be massive. Have you ever added spices or vanilla to anything you cook or bake. How much of the total volume is it? It usually isn't much. Then it's not a problem

I hate this mentality. Why does it have to be proved to be sure it is unhealthy? It should be the other way around. It has to be proved to be healthy for you to eat it. Back in the day, smoking wasn't proved that it was unhealthy while it was common sense that it was.

The mentality is not accidental, it is a cornerstone element in propaganda related to health and environmental concerns.

It used by oil companies, agro-businesses, and other industries, and of course tobacco companies. As part of their campaigns over the years they have instilled those ideas pretty well at at fundamental level in everyone's minds specifically that:

1) Stuff is safe unless we have hard scientific evidence that it is not

2) One should not interfere with or harass big companies too much, because if you hurt them it will hurt the economy. They know what they are doing, are smarter, have better scientists and in general are mature enough to police themselves.

3) Only conspiracy theory people, hippies, and communists worry about health and mother earth, those people are irrational and crazy. You don't want to be like them. You want to be an American.

When consumers would say "we'd like to label explicitly this and that", or "this seems unhealthy, we should probably disallow its usage in food" the reply is "Where is your sauce? Do you have hard science? No? Ok then we are a rational science based society so we should allow it".

It is a very effective tactic in general and no wonder it is used all the time.

Re: The Secret Ingredient in Orange Juice

#267

Post by infinite8s » Fri, Nov 27, 2015, 5:41 PM UTC

jjoonathan wrote: post #222

pmoriarty wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you would you advocate the so-called Noble Lie? [1] The problem to me with such an approach (even given that the end is in fact alturistic and beneficial) is: who gets to decide which lies get to be told, and who decides what is beneficial? Beneficial to whom? the whole society? some subset of society? Do we allow all lies in advertising? Or just ones you or some elite (perhaps scientists or technocrats) determine…

And who gets to define what is a lie and what isn't? Where you see a lie, I see a truth that causes misdirection when vitalists trip over their own logical shortcomings. Let's get one thing straight: you're the one who wants to extend the current definition of "lie" to include this particular brand of misdirection and then censor that misdirection. You're the one who wants to "hold advertisers to a higher standard" i…

Well if a lie is a misdirection of truth then you've just agreed with the GP.

Re: The Secret Ingredient in Orange Juice

#268

Post by tripzilch » Fri, Nov 27, 2015, 8:02 PM UTC

rdtsc wrote: post #133

sparkzilla wrote: post #88

On its face, I find this difficult to believe because why would any company pay to add massive amounts of chemicals to something to give it a taste that it has naturally? The most important point in the article is that storage in the oxygen-less tanks deprives the juice of its flavor. No proof is provided of this assertion. When I follow the source link I get a similar article [1] that then is sourced to a similar on…

> any company pay to add massive amounts of chemicals to something to give it a taste that it has naturally? Unless they plan on selling the juice just during harvest time, they need to store it. Try and store some juice you squeezed from oranges even in the refrigerator and see how long it will last and how it will taste. It will last some but not for 6 months. Consistency. Tropicana tastes one way, others taste dif…

Sure, frozen/stored food will lose some flavours, change some others, but the article says it's "quite flavourless", which seems like a bit stronger claim.

Next time I juice fresh oranges--and if I remember--I will freeze some, just to see what happens :) Especially interested if it'll taste more like the stuff we get from the shop here (which is nearly all "from concentrate").

Re: The Secret Ingredient in Orange Juice

#269

Post by tripzilch » Fri, Nov 27, 2015, 8:12 PM UTC

aardshark wrote: post #259

tripzilch wrote: post #257

> Do you buy orange juice at the store? If you do, I’m sure you’re careful to buy the kind that’s 100% juice and not made from concentrate. After all, that’s the healthier kind, right? The more natural kind? The kind without any additives? The kind that’s sold in the refrigerator section so it must be almost as good as fresh-squeezed orange juice? I'll tell my experience when visiting the US a few years ago. I'm from…

The article mentions the different chemicals favored by palates in different regions, so maybe you're just accustomed to the NL chemicals rather than the US ones.

That's very possible. Which would mean the Brazilian flavour packs are similar to the Dutch ones.

Though my main point was wondering whether "100% juice from concentrate" versus "real 100% juice not from concentrate" matters a lot for the flavour.

The Brazilian-oranges juice I bought in the US was not-from-concentrate, but still tasted very similar to the NL 100%-juice-from-concentrate stuff. While the Floridian-orange juice not-from-concentrate did almost like fresh juice.

It's not like I didn't like them btw. I don't expect it to taste like fresh juice anyway :)

Re: The Secret Ingredient in Orange Juice

#270

Post by noobermin » Fri, Nov 27, 2015, 10:17 PM UTC

jsprogrammer wrote: post #248

noobermin wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

H2O is acidic, producing a significant concentration of H+ ions (arguably, the strongest reducing agent) at a concentration of 7 pH, or equivalently, 10^16 ions per liter of water!

Right, so why did I get downvoted?

Perhaps some people can't take a joke. FWIW, I upvoted you.