The juice on fruit drinks

We are led to believe that fruit juices are bursting with natural vitamins and pack a powerful nutritional punch. But, with an ever-expanding array on supermarket shelves, are they really nutritionally good?

"The health-conscious shopper values fresh ingredients and flavours more than ever," says nutritionist Ingrid Haitink of Thrive! Nutrition. "But don't expect carton or bottled fruit juices to naturally cleanse as most are pasteurised and diluted with water or are lower in nutritional content as a result of processing."

The only true way to guarantee it is nutritionally fresh is to juice yourself or look for modest, organic independent companies that have a manageable turnaround and therefore don't have to rely on an intensive manufacturing process to prolong their sell-by-date.

One such company is Phytojuice, headed by Alan Walker. "Because I produce in small quantities I can guarantee my juice is fresh and has been squeezed no longer than three days earlier," he says. "You have to remember: the longer the shelf life, the lower the nutritional content."

So what do the labels mean? Here are some of the major misleading claims...

Freshly squeezed

"If it's sold in a supermarket with a 14-day sell-by-date then you have to wonder how fresh it actually is," says Walker.

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) indicates that the words "freshly squeezed" should only be used to describe juice obtained directly from the fruit, which sounds very healthy, but according to Walker to have a two-week shelf life the juice probably would have been heat treated (pasteurised) to kill micro-organisms for a longer juice life.

"The freshest juice has a very short sell-by-date," says Alan. Also note that where there's a blend of two juices one may have been added as a purée. "This probably would have been heavily processed," says Ingrid Haitink. The longer it takes to process the more nutritionally deplete it becomes.

Pure Juice

The FSA reports that the term "pure" may be used for concentrated juice (boiled down to reduce transportation costs then reconstituted with water). Furthermore, juice made from concentrate can be up to two years old. Legislation permits the addition of sugar or citric acid to correct sweetness along with the addition of an antioxidant used as a preservative during the processing of the fruit juice.

"Ultimately this is juice that's been boiled and added to, so again you have to question the quality of the natural vitamin, mineral and enzyme content," says Ingrid. Walker says many of these cartons are found in the chill cabinets at the supermarkets with the hope of passing themselves off as a fresh singlestrength juice to achieve a higher pricing.

A rich source of Vitamin C

Haitink explains: "This is where half or more of the natural vitamin C has been destroyed by pasteurisation and is replaced by synthetic vitamin C. It's listed as ascorbic acid."

Free from articifial sugars

"This is usually where there is not enough sugar content from the fruit because the fruit percentage is low, so it is put back back in as fructose," explains Haitink. This form of sugar is found in fruit and honey and is often added as a preservative and flavour enhancer. It contains just as many calories as many other forms of artificial sugars.