Orange Juice Good For More Than Colds

Cold and flu season triggers a gold rush at supermarkets, as shoppers put orange juice into their carts.

Orange juice sales traditionally spike during January, February and March, thanks to consumers trying to stay healthy. But the sun is shining on this juice year-round as more and more people get the word about its nutritional value.

Although orange juice consumption has increased to an all-time high - an annual 5.6 gallons per person - the potential for growth still is great.

“Orange juice is primarily a breakfast beverage, but still constitutes only 14 percent of the beverages consumed at breakfast,” said Chris Bozman, manager of public relations for Minute Maid. “It’s competing with coffee, tea, cocoa, milk, other juices and soda.”

Most sodas, teas, coffees and fruit drinks offer little more than calories from sugar. But one glass of orange juice delivers a day’s worth of vitamin C, an antioxidant that helps in the fight against certain forms of cancer (including breast cancer) as well as heart disease.

It also fulfills one-fifth of the day’s requirement for folic acid, the B vitamin that reduces the risk of birth defects and also may offer some protection against heart disease.

Orange juice provides more than 10 percent of a day’s potassium (which helps prevent high blood pressure) and thiamine, plus at least 5 percent of magnesium, copper and vitamins A and B-6.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest ranked orange juice No. 1 nutritionally, followed by grapefruit, lemon, prune and pineapple juices. Cranberry juice, which contains a little less than a day’s requirement of vitamin C, falls short on other vitamins and minerals.

Grape, apple, and pear juices, often added to juice beverages because they’re inexpensive, came in near the bottom of the CSPI barrel. However, a limited study has since indicated that pure red grape juice, containing flavonoids, may offer some help in preventing heart disease.

Vegetable juices, although they contain substantial amounts of vitamins A, B-6 and C as well as copper and potassium, generally were too high in sodium to suit CSPI.

Offering orange juice in ready-to-pour cartons - either fresh juice that has been pasteurized, or juice that has been made from concentrate - in addition to frozen cans of concentrate also has juiced up sales. Struggling to combine globs of frozen concentrate with water no longer is necessary, unless a consumer is very budget conscious.

Tropicana-Dole Beverages, the nation’s leading orange juice producer, touts its ready-to-pour, not-from-concentrate Tropicana Pure Premium line as the gold standard of orange juices.

Coca-Cola-owned Minute Maid, one of Tropicana’s leading competitors, claims its premium ready-to-pour juices made from concentrate deliver “sensational taste like eating a fresh, ripe orange.”

Although consumers will have to decide the taste questions, the experts say there’s little difference nutritionally between the two types of ready-to-pour juices or frozen concentrate that’s reconstituted at home.

Apart from its form, orange juice comes in an assortment of varieties ranging from Pulp Free Minute Maid to the pulp-laden Tropicana Grovestand. (Tropicana spokesman Meghan Flynn cleared up a misconception, however: “The pulp does not add much fiber to the juice. There’s still less than 1 gram per serving.”)

There are orange juices blended with tangerine and grapefruit juices. There are orange juices fortified with extra vitamin C, calcium, and vitamin E.

“Fortification is fine, as long as it is not fortified junk,” according to CSPI officials who noted: “A juice like Tropicana Plus Calcium and Extra Vitamin C is a good juice made better, especially for teen-age girls and women who need calcium to strengthen their bones.”

But unlike milk, orange juice is not fortified with Vitamin D, which also is important for bone formation and the prevention of osteoporosis.