Being a journalist, especially a food journalist, means wanting the truth when it comes to food. And this is why I hate shopping in the juice aisle.
We all know to watch for the phrase "juice cocktail" to avoid those containers. However, buying 100% juice isn't enough to know what you are getting in your juice.
Even if the label says "cranberry" or "pomegranate" or "mango," the primary ingredients, even in 100% juice, will be apple or grape or white grape juice. The name of the product doesn't reflect that reality.
Juice blends emphasize sweeter juices in the ingredient list while painting a different picture on the front of the label. Since companies are required to list ingredients in descending order, we can find out the truth. But the truth isn't obvious unless you are looking carefully.
Let's use a real-life example of Tropicana's Farmstand Strawberry Banana. Sweet potato juice, grape juice, apple juice, and carrot juice are listed before any mention of strawberry or banana on the ingredient list.
The juices are filtered water and concentrates as well. Again, this isn't unique to one company, but one example in the marketplace.
Cranberry, mango, and pomegranate are what is used to sell the juice that does technically contain those flavors. This would be the equivalent of mentioning cranberry in a headline and then you don't read about cranberry until halfway through a story. Even then, you don't find out much about cranberry.
That might work for BuzzFeed, but food isn't about Internet clicks.
With truthful labeling, virtually all major brand juice blends would read something like:
Apple and white grape juice
Special appearances by cranberry, pomegranate, and mango juices and/or concentrates.
I was duly impressed when touring through Eataly Chicago for lots of reasons, but was overjoyed to see the ingredient list on the products from Italy. The labels listed the ingredients in descending order, but also posted percentages of the primary ingredients.
Instead of knowing that "Ingredient A" was the dominant product, the label would read "Ingredient A 74%."
The difference caught my eye, but also made me more likely to buy a product knowing the percentages of the primary products.
For the juice blends, this approach would sway me to buy or not buy based on percentages. Let's compare two hypothetical juice blends:
Juice blend A: apple juice 32%, grape juice 27%, cranberry juice (water, cranberry juice concentrate) 18%, pomegranate juice (water, pomegranate juice concentrate) 14%, pineapple juice 7%, other juices 2%.
Juice blend B: apple juice 24%, grape juice 22%, cranberry juice (water, cranberry juice concentrate) 20%, pomegranate juice (water, pomegranate juice concentrate) 16%, pineapple juice 7%, white grape juice 6%, mango juice 5%.
Juice Blend B would be a much better pick, though you need to factor in the white grape juice in the second juice blend. In Juice Blend A: the really sweet juices come out to 59%; in Juice Blend B, the really sweet juices come out to 52%.
The percentages are slightly higher in Juice Blend B for the cranberry and pomegranate juices, plus the mango has a nice contrasting flavor, though maybe Juice Blend A has mango in the "other juices" category.
The ideal solution would be to buy 100% cranberry juice, pomegranate juice, or mango juice, and dilute it with as little of a sweeter juice as you could stand to drink. You would likely save money, though this would take up more time. The key is you get to play with the percentages: you could put cranberry juice at 32% and apple juie at 16%. And you would know what those percentages are since you came up with them. U.S. ingredient labels leave us clueless; when you are in charge of the juice blend, you have all the power and knowledge.
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