Green Drink Reviews

Juice Drinks, Pasteurization, and the Loss of Nutrients

March 26th, 2010

Many people don’t realize that almost all liquid drinks — whether juice, milk, or even sodas — go through a pasteurization process, where the liquid is heated to kill bacteria. Liquids that do not go through this process are required by law to carry a nasty warning, such as:

WARNING: This product has not been pasteurized and, therefore, may contain harmful bacteria that can cause serious illness in children, the elderly, and persons with weakened immune systems.

No doubt, there’s not a drink company around that wants this warning on their product! But along with the killing of bacteria, heating the liquids also kills some of the nutrients and you end up with a less-healthy product as a result. When you drink 100% pure orange juice in a bottle, you are not getting fresh-squeezed oranges. You’re getting a processed product — often made from concentrate where the added water is not included as an ingredient on the label (and could be tap water in an amount that is greater than nature, resulting in a diluted juice).

But I digress. This little article is about heating the juices and what gets lost along the way. Here’s a quick summary of the types of pasteurization that gets applied to bottled juices:

1. Standard Pasteurization: The juice is heated and placed into the containers hot, then allowed to cool inside the container to room temperature. This type of pasteurization removes a great deal of nutrients from the end product, but extends the shelf-life and the end product usually does not need to be refrigerated.
2. Flash Pasteurization: The juice is heated and then quickly cooled and then bottled. The product is often kept chilled and it ends up with quite a few of the original nutrients retained, but has a shorter shelf-life.
3. High-Pressure Pasteurization: A new process that uses pressure to kill bacteria, while leaving most of the nutrients intact. This is still in experimental stages, but may be coming to the market soon.

So is it always better to purchase juice in powdered form? Well, usually it is…but it depends on the company that is processing the juice powder. In most cases, the powdered form does not require pasteurization, but there are many ways to create a dry powder from fruits and veggies and some of those include creating a concentrated “juice” that is then dried and powdered. This type of drying process could include pasteurization of the juice concentrate before it’s powdered.

But in general, yes, the dry powders are usually going to be healthier than the liquid products. And that’s the bottom line. But none of them are as healthy as juicing your own fruit…provided it’s organically grown without pesticides…but then, I digress.

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