Orange juice only? think again!

 This piece is taken from "The 6 Most Horrifying Lies The Food Industry is Feeding You"

Read more: http://www.cracked.com/article_19433_the-6-most-horrifying-lies-food-industry-feeding-you.html

#5. Zombie Orange Juice

Quick, name the most healthy drink your nearest store has to offer. You said orange juice, didn't you? It's what everybody makes you drink when you get sick. Hell, that s@$t must be like medicine or something. And the labels are always about health benefits -- the cartons scream "100 percent natural!", "Not from concentrate!" and "No added sugar!"

"Less than four thumbs per gallon!"

And why not believe them? When it comes to making the stuff, orange juice isn't sausage. You take oranges, you squeeze oranges, you put the result in a carton, with or without pulp. End of story, beginning of deliciousness.

But what if we told you that "freshly squeezed" juice of yours can very well be a year old, and has been subjected to stuff that would make the Re-Animator puke?

Tropicana's bottling room. Not pictured: Anything orange.

Packaging Gateway

The Horror:
Ever wonder why every carton of natural, healthy, 100 percent, not-from-concentrate orange juice manages to taste exactly the same, yet ever so slightly different depending on the brand, despite containing no additives or preservatives whatsoever?
The process indeed starts with the oranges being squeezed, but that's the first and last normal step in the process. The juice is then immediately sealed in giant holding tanks and all the oxygen is removed. That allows the liquid to keep without spoiling for up to a year. That's why they can distribute it year-round, even when oranges aren't in season.

Thanks to science, we can enjoy screwdrivers from Christmas to the 4th of July.

Amazon Fresh

There is just one downside to the process (from the manufacturers' point of view, that is) -- it removes all the taste from the liquid. So, now they're stuck with vats of extremely vintage watery fruit muck that tastes of paper and little else. What's a poor giant beverage company to do? Why, they re-flavor that s%^t with a carefully constructed mix of chemicals called a flavor pack, which are manufactured by the same fragrance companies that formulate CK One and other perfumes. Then they bottle the orange scented paper water and sell it to you.

And, thanks to a loophole in regulations, they often don't even bother mentioning the flavor pack chemicals in the list of ingredients. Hear that low moan from the kitchen? That's the Minute Maid you bought yesterday. It knows you know.

"Braaaaaaaains!"

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