Orange Devolution

Spurlock writes:

Once, I had the pleasure of seeing where Ronald's [McDonalds] orange juice comes from. It's delivered in a giant plastic sack of Day-Glo goo. One one side of it is a little tube they attach to the juice machine, then they roll the sack inside and close it up. The goo is mixed with water to deliver to you, the happy customer, a beverage that tastes a bit like orange juice and a bit like the inside of a garbage bag. (p. 136)

McDonalds orange juice is made by Minute Maid. Its ingredients?

Oranges.

That's it. No added sugar. No preservatives. Just juice from oranges.

The orange juice is concentrated to make it easier to ship and store. It's then remixed with water at the restaurant and served. It's no different than buying frozen orange juice concentrate at the grocery store, taking it home, mixing it with water, and drinking it.

Comments

[mobile]

Maybe he's thinking of the Orange Drink that's served from the soda fountain? Also from http://www.mcdonalds.com/app_controller.nutrition.categories.ingredients.index.html#7:

Hi-C® Orange Lavaburst:
Water, high fructose corn syrup and/or sucrose, citric acid, ascorbic acid (vitamin C), potassium benzoate (to protect taste), modified food starch, natural flavors (vegetable source), glycerol ester of wood rosin, yellow 6, brominated vegetable oil, red 40.

[Evan Williams]

But, but, why do they have to bring it in in a big SACK!? I mean, jeez!

Better yet, why not offer fresh not-from-concentrate OJ too? Oh, wait, they already do. It costs more, of course, because it's more expensive to make and transport. Of course, Spur[ious]lock is right in that their from-conc stuff (just like all from-conc OJ) tastes like it's been left in the summer sun for a few days. Which is why I choose to pay a little more for the NFC OJ.

[Brian]

Interesting. Spurlock is describing concentrated OJ just in a way that makes it look like MdDees is serving glop.

As to 'why a bag' .. cost? Ease of install? Milk machines in cafeterias use bags as well - and liquids are heavy. I've had the job of reloading milk and juice machines - adding the heft of a container rigid enough to contain the liquid and you're talking about something seriously heavy.

[Bill]

Although I'm barely aware of Spurlock, I came across this site and thought that OJ in a plastic bag thing is worth a comment.

Whether it's OJ or Orange Drink, it's the plastic bag that's probably a source of danger. Phthalates, for example, the plasticizers that make plastics more flexible. They're endocrine disrupters, implicated in damaged sexual development in males, plus liver, lung and kidney ailments. With all the untested chemicals that have been introduced into the environment and into our bodies, who knows what other damage is being done?

Plastic bags, plastic film, and regular hard plastic containers all leach chemicals into the drinks and foods they contain, to varying degrees.

So Spurlock may be onto something there, even if by accident.

[MT]

All Spurlock's quote says to me is that the process of making the drink is unappetizing. Spurlock says that they use orange glop and water (this practice is indeed very common in the beverage industry). All you seem add is that the orange glop is made of oranges.

I'm not impressed by Spurlock's point, since I seem to remember that you can grow delicious vegetables with manure or manure derivatives. But he is essentially correct. Food comes from yucky places. Just wait till he learns where babies come from....

[Timothy]

Bill: Re Phthalates, no, they're not dangerous. Try this tech central article and its sources:

http://techcentralstation.com/062705E.html

That phthalate danger claim is completely spurious.

[Bill]

Timothy: re Phthalates - the article you cited doesn't reflect the latest research, which is from the U. of Rochester.

http://www.news-medical.net/?id=10515

News-Medical.Net

Pregnant women's exposure to phthalates has adverse effects on genital development in their male children

Published: Monday, 30-May-2005

For the first time, researchers have identified an association between pregnant women's exposure to a nearly ubiquitous class of chemicals known as phthalates and adverse effects on genital development in their male children.

The findings, reported in a study published today in the online edition of the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Health Perspectives, are the first to "support the hypothesis that prenatal phthalate exposure at environmental levels can adversely affect male reproductive development in humans," the authors write.

Read 'em and weep.

[ralph]

They use plastic bags because they are less expensive to transport, because they weigh less than if they transported the unconcerntrated juice in (for example) glass containers. Even paperboard half-gallon containers are heavier than plastic bags. Spurlock and his ilk are also supposed to be trying to cut down on use of fossil fuels - well, this accomplishes that goal, by cutting down on transport costs. The real alternative is to not drink OJ unless you live in FL during the harvest season, and can press your own juice off of the trees in your back yard. Anything else requires transport that is directly proportional to the distance from the tree.

[Timothy]

Bill: Interesting paper, but it basically says that some of them show a possible relationship and some don't. Then it uses the summary data to say that they're all dangerous. If you look at Table 4, some of the metabolites show almost no correlation what so ever, and others show a fairly decent one when you control for age.

MBP, MEP, and MiBP seem to show the strongest correlation. Some of the others (MBzP, MEHHP, MEOHP) seem like they'd be good to look into further in larger studies, and the others appear completely unrelated to the relevant measures.

It's an interesting study, and I think it tells us that further exploration is definitely warrented. Maybe comparing them pairwise would be interesting, or looking at all possible combinations of high-exposure levels to see which combinations seem to have the largest effect. Definitely isn't as closed as I thought it was.

Look out, lads, that chest tube will make your giblets shrink!

[Timothy]

Also, I think there are going to be confounding genetic factors with studies of this sort, so the mean can only tell you so much.

[Shep]

Dudes, are you really getting orange juice at McD's ? Well then you are clueless. I don't need Spurlock to tell me that this juice is crap, and it doesn't make a difference how it's transported.

I'd rather go for a Diet Coke because I am under no delusion that industrially produced orange juice is in any way tasty or healthy.

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