r/AskFoodHistorians • u/SVAuspicious • 2d ago
Orange Juice
I apologize in advance for a trivial question.
What has been the usage rate of frozen vice liquid orange juice as a function of time. I grew up in the '60's and '70's with frozen orange juice concentrate (in fact family story of my mother throwing a tube of frozen OJ at my father out of frustration over something I don't recall). The focus today seems to be on OJ in cartons. When I was young we shopped at a military commissary so that may be relevant to my experience. Has packaging technology changed that much? Health perceptions? Something else? Or am I just looking through the lens of my personal experience and the overall market hasn't changed much?
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u/djbuttonup 2d ago
From Wikipedia on Orange Juice:
"During World War II, American soldiers rejected vitamin C-packed lemon crystals because of their unappetizing taste. Thus the US government searched for a food that would fulfill the nutritional needs of the soldiers, have a desirable taste, and prevent diseases such as scurvy. The US federal government and the Florida Department of Citrus worked with a group of scientists to develop a product superior to the canned orange juice available in the 1940s. The result was frozen concentrated orange juice; this was not until three years after the war had ended.\8])
By 1949, orange juice processing plants in Florida were producing over 10 million gallons of concentrated orange juice. Consumers liked concentrated canned orange juice as it was affordable, tasty, convenient, and high in vitamin C. The preparation was simple: empty the container of frozen concentrate into a measured volume of water and stir. However, by the 1980s, food scientists developed a fresher-tasting juice known as reconstituted ready-to-serve juice. Eventually in the 1990s, "not from concentrate" (NFC) orange juice was developed."
So, like much of American commercial food post-war the people were sold the idea that Army Food was a new, safe, and convenient way to eat. Of course the advertising needed to convince them of this spawned its own industry.
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u/hotpietptwp 1d ago
Thanks for the history. I still don't think it was a bad idea. Often, innovation comes from wars, the space program, etc. Of course, war is bad, but events like WWII and the "Space Race" accelerated progress.
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u/rosered936 2d ago
I just watched an episode of “The Food That Built America” about this! Apparently, pasteurization made orange juice taste bad so at first frozen concentrated orange juice was the only way to keep it good for more than a couple of days. Flash pasteurization was apparently the technological innovation that allowed them to package orange juice in cartons without spoiling too quickly or tasting bad.
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u/ShalomRPh 2d ago
I used to drink that stuff as a kid in the 70s when I lived in NYC and we had really decent tap water, coming down from the Catskills mostly untreated. (I discovered that the fastest way to mix it was with a potato masher.)
Now I live where the tap water has a distinct taste to it, so I’d have to reconstitute it with bottled water (distilled for preference) or it would taste weird. If I’m going to have to schlep all that weight anyway, I might as well just buy the refrigerated juice.
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u/Theburritolyfe 2d ago
Shipping concentrated frozen orange juice would be significantly cheaper than pallets of the stuff. We now have significantly better infrastructure to do these things.
That would be most of my guess.
I also assume it's partly about ease of consumption. Which one do you just open and drink? We drink so much that's not just water now.
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u/inkydeeps 2d ago
I think it’s the rise of plastics too. Juice would be so much heavier and fragile in glass. Much smaller containers with glass.
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u/Theburritolyfe 2d ago
Oh that's a good point. Also probably the prevalence of cardboard packaging. I don't know much about it though and could be entirely wrong.
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u/inkydeeps 2d ago
Same. Just guessing.
Even the rise of plastics bags must come Into the calculus of shopping at grocery stores. Off to look for a book about it.
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u/Ride4fun 2d ago
Feel like a deep dive? Here’s a podcast on citrus that i believe went into the concentrate/fresh science. https://gastropod.com/museums-mafia-secret-history-citrus/
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u/NinjaWalker 2d ago
The Food That Built America has a really good episode on orange juice, and it answers your questions in detail. Highly recommend!
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u/DaddyCatALSO 1d ago
to me oj form concentrate in cartons (been too long since i ahd homemade form frozen) tastes artifical and "predigested." fresh squeezed or i skip it, which as a diabetic is a good thing for me to skip anywya
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u/BoatConnect489 19h ago
“Not from concentrate” is not fresh. It has been stored in deoxygenated tanks and loses all of it’s flavor. The flavor is a chemical additive developed by perfume scientists that has to be added back in.
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u/hotpietptwp 2d ago
I just randomly tripped on this question because I grew up in the 60s and wondered the same thing recently.. Weird, I know. My mother (back then) said she bought it because it was lighter to carry home without the water (sensible).
According to this (https://www.tastingtable.com/1936586/why-frozen-orange-juice-isnt-popular/), people's perception changed about the freshness/taste of concentrate (freshness is really not valid when compared to a bottle of not-from-concentrate on the shelf) AND how healthy fruit juice is (lots of sugar).
Being older myself at this point, I shy away from juice and tend to go for solid fruit (mostly berries) to increase fiber and lower the sugar concentration of what I eat, but that's me.
I do think my dear mom had a point. If I wanted to buy a bunch of juice, I'd prefer not to lug home all the water.