THE HIDDEN SECRET OF FRUIT JUICE

REASONS WHY YOU NEED THE WHOLE FRUIT BUT NOT THE FRUIT JUICE

Beverage and food adulteration is a keen public menace that involves other edible products. Most of the fruit juice industries have the propensity to adulteration due the high cost of the fruit, and the possibility of poor harvests conflicting with high consumer demand and high commodity of products.in this 21st century fruit juice processing, storage conditions and the region of productions has made it a difficulty in preventing and determine the adulteration.

The most common forms of adulteration that occur within the fruit juice industry usually take the form of juice dilution, the addition of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), or the addition of other fruit juices.Determining the authenticity of food is becoming more cumbersome. Criminal investigations of juice adulteration have shown that, as analytical capabilities have improved, adulteration practices have become more sophisticated. It is possible for unethical firms to gain a market advantage over honest competitors and to defraud the consumer through the intentional adulteration of any juice drink. The primary advantage is the cost saving the manufacturer can realize by extending or replacing a product with ingredients of lesser value. 

The most common adulteration methods for fruit juice include dilution with water, addition of sugars (cane and beet sucrose (BS), invertor medium invert syrup, high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), and hydrolyzed insulin syrup), addition of pulp wash solids, or addition of a less expensive fruit juice. Adulteration of fruit juice is likely to remain a problem while the price of sugar and syrups is significantly cheaper than the juice itself.

The consequences of misrepresentation and adulteration for financial gain cannot be ignored, as these practices may lead to the production of food that is harmful, with implications for nutrition and safety. An extreme instance of this was the Toxic Oil Syndrome epidemic in Spain in 1981, which arose following consumption of oil fraudulently sold as pure olive oil. Detecting adulteration of foods rich in carbohydrates, such as apple juice, is particularly difficult because of the variety of commercial sweeteners available that match the concentration profiles of the major carbohydrates in those foods. A second significant challenge in the detection of adulterated apple juice is the natural variation in authentic samples, a result of differences in species, maturity, climate, growing regions, seasons, processing, and storage conditions.

Fruits are very paramount element in the life of vegetarians aside the vegetables and other natural product and supplement they consume. Why fruit and not the fruit juice that is been sold out there? Now whole fruit contains nutrients in their right proportion of which fruit juice does not. Whole fruit contains the right amount of fiber needed for the body basic needs. 

Let look at the functions of fiber or better still the role fiber play in our health life, but before that bear in mind the that we have two types of fiber namely:

Soluble fiber (is the type of fiber that dissolves in water, the digestive system and can be digested by gut bacteria as well). Examples of food that contain soluble fiber include fruits such as apple, vegetables such as carrots, oats and beans.

Insoluble fiber (is a type of fiber that doesn’t dissolve in water, it does not have any gut bacteria activity it pass through the gut without any breakdown. Examples of food that contains insoluble fiber include cereals, rye bran whole meal bread.

Importance of fiber

• Fiber helps to improve your digestive system
• Fiber helps prevent digestive problems
• Fiber helps to prevent heart diseases
• Diabetes
• Weight gain and some
• Cancers
• Fiber helps to reduce blood sugar level

Fruits come into contact with sunlight directly and by so doing it absorbs different wavelength of light. These wavelength absorb comes as a result of the varieties of colored pigments produce from the interaction with direct sunlight. These pigments (example carotenoids and flavonoids) help us to live healthy by researches. According to researchers carotenoids are behind the hues (shades of colors) of many fruit and vegetables.

• Some carotenoids are converted by the body to vitamin A, which help improve eye sight and brings about growth and development.
• Carotenoids also have anti-inflammatory and immune system benefits and are sometimes responsible in prevention of heart related diseases.
• Carotenoids acts as an antioxidant
• Carotenoids also have strong cancer-fighting properties by researchers.

Now when you take in a whole fruit you get all these carotenoids and flavonoids naturally and all the health benefits that comes with it.

With fruit juice manufacturing almost all the natural stuff that comes with whole fruit is either denatured by heat or lost during the production line, due to these some fruit manufacturers maneuver their they way out by adding sugar to enhance the taste. This is however to the disadvantage of diabetes.

Other substances such as Sweeteners and gum are also added. Gum gives the product ‘body’ and sweeteners to enhance taste. Again during the production sometimes the vitamin C is lost in the process of heating, so what manufacturers do is to add ascorbic acid to the juice.

Enzymes are added to the fruit after it has been crushed to allow the breakdown of the cellulose structure of the fruit to yield maximum juice extract. 

During the production process the juice is placed in the aseptic storage tanks during which oxygen is taken away for months or years. the removal of oxygen brings about the loss of flavor that comes with the whole fruit, making it a necessity for some manufacturers to add flavor packs. these flavors and sweeteners are added depending on the countries consumers taste.