Is Simply Orange Pasteurized? Exploring the Safety and Nutrition

The Pasteurization Process of Simply Orange Juice

With the growing popularity of cold-pressed and raw fruit and vegetable juices, many health-conscious consumers are questioning if pasteurization is necessary or if it diminishes the nutritional value of juices like Simply Orange. Pasteurization is the process of heating liquids to a specified temperature to kill harmful microorganisms like bacteria, viruses, molds, and yeasts.

Why Pasteurize Orange Juice

Simply Orange and most commercially produced orange juices are pasteurized to make them safe for people to drink. Without pasteurization, the juice could contain pathogens that cause foodborne illnesses. The FDA regulations require that orange juice and other fruit and vegetable juices be pasteurized to control these risks.

Pasteurization provides two major benefits:

1. It protects consumers from getting sick by destroying pathogens like E. coli, Salmonella, and Listeria in the juice.
2. It extends the shelf life of juices by inactivating enzymes and reducing spoilage microorganisms.

How is Simply Orange Juice Pasteurized?

There are two main types of pasteurization used on fruit and vegetable juices like Simply Orange:

1. High-Temperature Short-Time (HTST) - The juice is heated to between 190-212F for a few seconds to a couple minutes.
2. Low-Temperature Long-Time (LTLT) - The juice is heated to between 150-170F for 30 minutes or longer.

Simply Orange undergoes HTST pasteurization, which minimally impacts the flavor while still protecting safety. The juice flows as a thin film through heated metal plates or inside tubes and is heated rapidly to 190F for approximately 15 seconds before being rapidly cooled again.

Pasteurization Effect on Nutrients

While pasteurization does destroy some vitamins like vitamin C and vitamin B, it preserves most of the nutritional value of orange juice. Studies comparing fresh squeezed, unpasteurized orange juice to commercially pasteurized juice found that pasteurization reduced vitamin C content by around 16-18%. Other heat-sensitive vitamins like folate, thiamin, and vitamin B6 loss range from 0-15%.

However, pasteurization had no significant impact on levels of vitamin A, potassium, magnesium, calcium, sodium, or iron in orange juice. So while there are some losses from heat exposure, most minerals, antioxidants like carotenoids, and other nutrients are retained after commercial HTST pasteurization.

Should You Choose Cold-Pressed Over Pasteurized?

Cold-pressed juices that are not exposed to heat have grown in popularity due to perceived nutrition and flavor benefits. However, avoiding pasteurization also increases the risk of foodborne illness from drinking juice.

Food Safety

Unprocessed, raw fruit and vegetable juices have caused many juice-associated disease outbreaks. Over the past couple decades, hundreds of people have gotten sick and even died from drinking contaminated, unpasteurized juices contaminated with E. coli or Salmonella bacteria.

While pathogens are less common on produce with hard surfaces like oranges, the FDA still considers unpasteurized fruit or vegetable juices to be potentially hazardous. So drinking unpasteurized cold-pressed orange juice does come with an increased safety risk.

Nutrition Content

On the positive nutrition side, cold-pressed orange juice retains about 3-6% higher vitamin C and carotenoid antioxidant levels compared to heat-pasteurized orange juice. However, shelf life is reduced to just a few days due to lack of pasteurization preventing microbial growth.

So there are some vitamin losses with HTST pasteurization used for Simply Orange, but it's lower than what people expect. And the increased safety and longer 3-4 week shelf stability of pasteurized juice often makes it favorable over fresh pressed options.

The Bottom Line

When it comes to Simply Orange and other commercially produced orange juices, pasteurization is primarily used to protect consumer safety by destroying pathogens. HTST pasteurization preserves most of the nutritional content of oranges, including vitamin C, antioxidants, minerals, and other nutrients.

While there are some losses from heat exposure, the alternative of consuming potentially hazardous unpasteurized orange juice is rarely worth the small nutrient differences. So pasteurization achieves crucial safety measures without excessively impacting the nutrition of orange juice.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. Always consult with a healthcare professional before starting any new treatment regimen.