Fruit juice
Juice is a liquid naturally contained in vegetable or fruit tissue. For example, orange juice is the liquid extract of the fruit of the orange tree. Juice may be supplied in concentrate form, requiring the user to add water to reconstitute the liquid back to its 'original state' (Generally, concentrates have a noticeably different taste than their comparable "fresh-squeezed" versions). Juice should not be confused with a squash, which is usually an artificial juice to be diluted with water. Common methods for preservation and processing of fruit juices include evaporation and spray drying.
Juice normally has a standard defined level of purity; this is 100% in some countries. In Bulgaria and New Zealand (and possibly others), juice denotes a sweetened fruit extract, whereas nectar denotes a pure fruit or vegetable extract. These terms are reversed in other countries, such as Norway, Spain and Moldova.
Popular juices include but are not limited to apple, orange, prune, lemon, grapefruit, pineapple, tomato, carrot, grape, strawberry, cherry, cranberry and pomegranate. It has become increasingly popular to combine a variety of fruits into single juice drinks. One of the most popular examples is Apple and Blackcurrant. Prepackaged single fruit juices have lost market share to prepackaged fruit juice combinations. A number of new companies have had considerable success supplying prepackaged fruit juice combinations on the basis of this transition. "Innocent" and "P&J" are UK examples; "Nudie" is an Australian example. Juice does not contain a carbonated beverage. Juices are often consumed for their health benefits. For example, orange juice is rich in vitamin C, while prune juice is associated with a digestive health benefit.
Juice bars have also become commonplace across most of the western world and offer similar juices. Most of these juice bars offer freshly made fruit juices and claim that that confers greater health benefit. The rationale for this claim is that once the fruit has been juiced, its antioxidants start to react with oxygen free radicals and so lose their health benefit.Template:Fact Juice is also commonly found in many cooking recipes around the world. The most popular are lime and lemon juice which help to add a slightly more sour or bitter taste to dishes.
In the UK, the term "fruit juice" can only legally be used to describe a product which is 100% fruit juice, as required by the Fruit Juices and Fruit Nectars (England) Regulations[1] and The Fruit Juices & Fruit Nectars (Scotland) Regulations 2003 [2] However, the term "juice drink" can be used to describe any drink which includes juice, even if the juice content is 1% of the overall volume.[3]
Fruit juice consumption overall in Europe, Australia, New Zealand and the USA has increased in recent years [4], probably due to public perception of juices as a healthy natural source of nutrients and increased public interest in health issues.
However, fruit juice labels may be misleading, with juice companies actively hiding the actual content. "No added sugar" is commonly placed on labels, but the products are often made from "reconstituted concentrates" which function similarly to sugars. It is difficult for the consumer to know the contents of the concentrates[5][6].
The widespread perception of fruit juice as a healthy source of vitamins has recently come under suspicion due to the lack of fiber that one would normally consume when eating whole fruit. The high amounts of fructose in fruit juice, when not consumed alongside fiber, are now being suggested as a contributor to the growing diabetes epidemic in the West.Template:Fact
