Things We Always Sort of Knew, But Wish We Didn’t

Apple taste differently, but have you ever wondered why every glass of 100% apple juice tastes exactly same no matter where in the world you buy it?  The fact is all that “100% juice, not from concentrate” stuff you’ve been drinking is not really 100% orange juice, as Huffington Post reported back in 2011. Pure juice powder you purchased either from supermarket or bulk supplier is also not pure.

As industry expert explains - Once the juice is squeezed, powdered and stored in gigantic vats, they start removing oxygen. Why? Because removing oxygen from the juice allows the liquid to keep for up to a year without spoiling. But! Removing that oxygen also removes the natural flavors .Yeah, it’s all backwards. So in order to have actually taste like fruit, companies hire flavor and fragrance companies, the same ones that make perfumes, to create these “flavor packs” to make juice taste like fruits.

As required by law,100% juice has to be made from only fruits, but since these flavor packs are made from byproducts, they don’t have to be considered an ingredient, and therefore are not required to appear on food labels.

The problem is the flavor packs, or some may call RECIPES, are not made only from by-products but chemically altered. All recipes are altered in unique ways, and that is why juices from different companies taste differently.

So, as an organic food lover, what should you do about it? 

We interviewed Dr. Zhang, Lead Scientist from Laybio R&D department. First of all, as Dr. Zhang suggests, drinking juice, whether homemade or from supermarket at moderate amount is still recommend as it is good for your health. Dr. Zhang’s second piece of advices is that it is nearly impossible to stay out of the processed food system if you live in industrialized world , so to drink organic he suggests make juices by yourself which is not something difficult with blenders.

But for organic food companies that has to purchase tons of juice powders, what should you do?

The solutions for food and beverage companies are of course different from individual solutions. We have to admit that there is no powder without chemical altered flavors, the important thing is that you have to control the chemicals to the minimum level. Dr. Zhang’s suggestion to organic food companies is  to purchase only from reliable sources that manufacture responsibly with USDA certificates and can be transparent to all your questions.

Laybio, founded in 2010, is a premium organic herbal extracts company that specializes in the manufacturing process and R&D. Our best-selling organic products are ganoderma lucidum extract, lion’s mane extract, amygdalin, phosphatidylserine, cranberry extract, hemp protein and pea protein.