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Yale Agrarian Studies Series
Squeezed: What You Don't Know About Orange Juice
Close to three quarters of U.S. households buy orange juice. Its popularity crosses class, cultural, racial, and regional divides. Why do so many of us drink orange juice? How did it turn from a luxury into a staple in just a few years? More important, how is it that we dont know the real reasons behind OJs popularity or understand the processes by which the juice is produced? In this enlightening book, Alissa Hamilton explores the hidden history of orange juice. She looks at the early forces that propelled orange juice to prominence, including a surplus of oranges that plagued Florida during most of the twentieth century and the armys need to provide vitamin C to troops overseas during World War II. She tells the stories of the FDAs decision in the early 1960s to standardize orange juice, and the juice equivalent of the cola wars that followed between Coca-Cola (which owns Minute Maid) and Pepsi (which owns Tropicana). Of particular interest to OJ drinkers will be the revelation that most orange juice comes from Brazil, not Florida, and that even not from concentrate orange juice is heated, stripped of flavor, stored for up to a year, and then reflavored before it is packaged and sold. The book concludes with a thought-provoking discussion of why consumers have the right to know how their food is produced.
284 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 26, 2009
17 people are currently reading
992 people want to read
About the author
Alissa Hamilton
7 books2 followersAlissa Hamilton holds a Ph.D. from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and a J.D. from the University of Toronto Law School. She has been a Graham Research Fellow in International Human Rights at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law. She is a former 2008-2009 Food and Society Policy Fellow with the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP). She lives in Toronto.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 38 reviews
June 2, 2012
Americans slam orange juice like its medicinal soda. I remember finishing off half-full jugs in my parent's refrigerator with impunity. Somehow the notion of juice, with all its vitamins and natural ingredients negated any notion of all the sugar it contained. Suggesting a product comes from natural content does a lot to warp perceptions.
Only in adulthood, after years of not drinking orange juice, did I discover that orange juice was the key reason I had an upset stomach through most of high school. A glass of orange juice feels like a punch to the stomach at this point.
So I don't feel so bad after reading Alissa Hamilton's book. She gives a pretty damning argument that modern orange juice isn't anymore natural than most soda.
It comes down to the simple fact that pure orange juice is damn hard to get to the store shelves intact without treatment of some sort. But pasteurization kills a lot of the flavor. So they strip out all the oxygen, oils, and essence, sell it off to a group that turns those ingredients into flavor packs, and then sell those flavor packs back to the orange juice makers to put back in the finished product.
So essentially jug orange juice is naturally flavored with orange juice. And technically because its all from oranges they don't feel remotely compelled to explain this to the consumer.
The book's discussion of orange juice history ends up tying together the history of modern food in a way that's both eye-opening and disturbing at times. Reading about the ten year discussion of what constitutes "peanut butter" proved slightly baffling, because it had never occurred to me that there needed to be a discussion of what you consider a food.
Unlike some other books on the topic of modern food, "Squeezed" doesn't feel padded with extra chapters meant to make the approach seem more biographical, nor does it have the usual fluff of bullet points about how you can manage orange juice or any such nonsense. It's a concise work of nonfiction with a very direct purpose.
My ultimate conclusion was that the only way you get fresh orange juice is to squeeze the damn thing yourself.
Only in adulthood, after years of not drinking orange juice, did I discover that orange juice was the key reason I had an upset stomach through most of high school. A glass of orange juice feels like a punch to the stomach at this point.
So I don't feel so bad after reading Alissa Hamilton's book. She gives a pretty damning argument that modern orange juice isn't anymore natural than most soda.
It comes down to the simple fact that pure orange juice is damn hard to get to the store shelves intact without treatment of some sort. But pasteurization kills a lot of the flavor. So they strip out all the oxygen, oils, and essence, sell it off to a group that turns those ingredients into flavor packs, and then sell those flavor packs back to the orange juice makers to put back in the finished product.
So essentially jug orange juice is naturally flavored with orange juice. And technically because its all from oranges they don't feel remotely compelled to explain this to the consumer.
The book's discussion of orange juice history ends up tying together the history of modern food in a way that's both eye-opening and disturbing at times. Reading about the ten year discussion of what constitutes "peanut butter" proved slightly baffling, because it had never occurred to me that there needed to be a discussion of what you consider a food.
Unlike some other books on the topic of modern food, "Squeezed" doesn't feel padded with extra chapters meant to make the approach seem more biographical, nor does it have the usual fluff of bullet points about how you can manage orange juice or any such nonsense. It's a concise work of nonfiction with a very direct purpose.
My ultimate conclusion was that the only way you get fresh orange juice is to squeeze the damn thing yourself.
June 28, 2009
This book is written in a very academic style, and it's best for somebody who truly cares about a history of not just how orange juice evolved through the last century but about processed foods in general (with OJ as a specific example). There's nothing too sinister about OJ and it certainly won't kill you, but the marketing definitely misrepresents the final product. OJ is heated several times during processing and orange oil is removed from the juice (oil that got into the juice by squeezing the peels, I believe). The heating evaporates the "orange essence" - hundreds of chemicals that make OJ taste as heavenly as it does - and then to doctor up the final product so it's palatable, "flavor packs" are added back to the juice (that's the part I am at right now, so I don't know much about it yet). The question the book asks is: When something isnt bad enough to kill you (like OJ), do we still deserve to know how our food was produced?
January 5, 2015
If you're into food books, then this one is not only worth your time to read, but should be part of your library too. If you're a casual reader about the food industry, then you might find this one in too much of a niche or potentially boring.
I personally enjoyed her writing style and didn't find it academic; if anything, I was surprised by how quickly she bounced around and wondered if her colleagues might frown on the non-exhaustive presentation of the topic. So finding it stuffy or not seems to be relative to the reader based on what else they've read, but in comparison to other books from academic publishers, I felt that this one was extremely enjoyable and easy to read.
Hamilton has done a great job at presenting the evolution of orange juice, specifically in America circa 1960 until today, but what sets this book apart from the standard "look at how much processing is done to your allegedly fresh food" book, is the inclusion of excerpts and summaries of hearings that happened with the citrus industry and the FDA in the 1960s.
This trial feels like an invaluable part of the FDA history as it sets the tone for how this regulating body will manage and deal with industries for decades to come. So ignoring orange juice completely, if you're looking for a resource about the FDA, then this book provides (seemingly) a resource (6,000 pages of trial hearings) that was lost until Hamilton discovered it in an obscure citrus museum maintained by a Florida University. Sadly, as you will learn in the introduction, this resource is so scare that no one seems to have it, and worse, it may have been ruined since the publication of this book. (The university closed the museum after the curator passed, and what happened to the documents within this museum is unknown.)
As for Orange Juice, if you don't want to read the book and are only interested in the bullet points about its processing, here are the main summary points about juice that is labeled 100% fresh orange juice from Florida oranges:
Orange juice that is labeled 100%, only has to be 90% (seriously?), so your juice may contain other stuff; tangerine juice was mentioned as a supplement.
Frozen concentrate is probably only heated once, while fresh-squeezed orange juice is probably heated twice. The reason for the additional heating process is that fresh-squeezed orange juice can be stored in large tanks (due to seasonal supply and demand) and the juice is heated up prior to going into the tanks, and again when leaving the tanks for packaging. So in an ironic twist, this makes fresh-squeezed more processed than frozen concentrate (frozen is just heated once).
Heat is good because it kills any potential harmful bacteria, but bad because it breaks down and ruins the juice, so the more you heat it, the more you have to do to it to get it back to tasting like normal orange juice (or what people are accustom to believing that taste is).
Juice that is heated twice, which would be some of the most processed juice available, can be, and is, labeled "gently pasteurized." The word "gently" is extremely misleading. (Neat trivia: the word "pasteurized" has to be in a font no smaller than 50% of the size of the phrase "orange juice" on a carton; if the brand Simply Orange were to append the word "juice" to their large logo, they would either have to drastically increase the word "pasteurized" on their jug or reduce the size of their logo.)
Prior to going into orange juice tanks, the juice has to be broken down for long term storage, where, depending on the market supply and demand, it may stay for up to a year (I'm still only talking about fresh-squeezed orange juice by the way).
While it is in the tanks, it not drinkable as orange juice, since many of the components have been removed for the storage process; at this stage, it is described as sugar water.
When the orange juice is ready to come out of the tanks to be sent to market, it must first be seasoned with a flavor pack, so that it tastes like orange juice (or what consumers believe that to be).
The flavor pack is what orange juice manufactures live and die by, and is what gives certain brands their distinct flavor (e.g. Minute Maid tastes more like candy).
The flavor packs can come from flavor companies. These companies use components of the orange, such as the peel, to derive flavor and oil from the orange. Other additional components are unknown (e.g. synthetic flavoring); regulation is unknown, but seemingly non-existent. Since these are made by 3rd party companies, the orange juice manufacturer may not be able to conclusively say to the consumer (even if they wanted to) what is in their flavor pack, since the orange juice manufacturer does not have specific oversight of the development process of the pack (potentially willingly).
Although the flavor pack is supposed to only contain components from the oranges of the country/state of origin that is listed on the carton, it does not seem plausible that this is the case given that the flavor companies source oranges from all over the world. So if the orange juice says it's from Florida, it's probably deriving its flavor from components of oranges of unknown origins-most likely Brazil-but since other countries grow oranges, and since their environmental conditions (i.e. pesticide usage) are either unknown or unregulated, it additionally raises the question of what else is inadvertently in the flavor pack.
So as a consumer, when you buy a carton that only says "100% premium fresh-squeezed gently-pasteurized Florida orange juice," it could just be broken down sugar water that was stored for up to a year, heated twice with a flavor pack mixed in, and in that flavor pack are some natural elements from oranges (from all around the world-not just Florida), and, well, we're not sure what else-oh, and up to 10% of it may a completely different juice or substance.
If you're looking to buy juice that a normal person (not a committee in charge of food labeling) would classify as "100% fresh squeezed orange juice," you won't be able to based on the label. This defeats the whole purpose of the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act of 1990: to inform the consumer of what's in the box.
A company trying to minimize what consumers know is obnoxious, and hardly ground breaking journalism, still, that doesn't mean it should be ignored, and since the publication of this book, there seems to be quite a bit online about flavor packs and orange juice processing. Some companies have officially responded, some have not (or I couldn't find them).
Reading their responses in tandem with this book should allow you to make an educated decision about the product.
I personally enjoyed her writing style and didn't find it academic; if anything, I was surprised by how quickly she bounced around and wondered if her colleagues might frown on the non-exhaustive presentation of the topic. So finding it stuffy or not seems to be relative to the reader based on what else they've read, but in comparison to other books from academic publishers, I felt that this one was extremely enjoyable and easy to read.
Hamilton has done a great job at presenting the evolution of orange juice, specifically in America circa 1960 until today, but what sets this book apart from the standard "look at how much processing is done to your allegedly fresh food" book, is the inclusion of excerpts and summaries of hearings that happened with the citrus industry and the FDA in the 1960s.
This trial feels like an invaluable part of the FDA history as it sets the tone for how this regulating body will manage and deal with industries for decades to come. So ignoring orange juice completely, if you're looking for a resource about the FDA, then this book provides (seemingly) a resource (6,000 pages of trial hearings) that was lost until Hamilton discovered it in an obscure citrus museum maintained by a Florida University. Sadly, as you will learn in the introduction, this resource is so scare that no one seems to have it, and worse, it may have been ruined since the publication of this book. (The university closed the museum after the curator passed, and what happened to the documents within this museum is unknown.)
As for Orange Juice, if you don't want to read the book and are only interested in the bullet points about its processing, here are the main summary points about juice that is labeled 100% fresh orange juice from Florida oranges:
Orange juice that is labeled 100%, only has to be 90% (seriously?), so your juice may contain other stuff; tangerine juice was mentioned as a supplement.
Frozen concentrate is probably only heated once, while fresh-squeezed orange juice is probably heated twice. The reason for the additional heating process is that fresh-squeezed orange juice can be stored in large tanks (due to seasonal supply and demand) and the juice is heated up prior to going into the tanks, and again when leaving the tanks for packaging. So in an ironic twist, this makes fresh-squeezed more processed than frozen concentrate (frozen is just heated once).
Heat is good because it kills any potential harmful bacteria, but bad because it breaks down and ruins the juice, so the more you heat it, the more you have to do to it to get it back to tasting like normal orange juice (or what people are accustom to believing that taste is).
Juice that is heated twice, which would be some of the most processed juice available, can be, and is, labeled "gently pasteurized." The word "gently" is extremely misleading. (Neat trivia: the word "pasteurized" has to be in a font no smaller than 50% of the size of the phrase "orange juice" on a carton; if the brand Simply Orange were to append the word "juice" to their large logo, they would either have to drastically increase the word "pasteurized" on their jug or reduce the size of their logo.)
Prior to going into orange juice tanks, the juice has to be broken down for long term storage, where, depending on the market supply and demand, it may stay for up to a year (I'm still only talking about fresh-squeezed orange juice by the way).
While it is in the tanks, it not drinkable as orange juice, since many of the components have been removed for the storage process; at this stage, it is described as sugar water.
When the orange juice is ready to come out of the tanks to be sent to market, it must first be seasoned with a flavor pack, so that it tastes like orange juice (or what consumers believe that to be).
The flavor pack is what orange juice manufactures live and die by, and is what gives certain brands their distinct flavor (e.g. Minute Maid tastes more like candy).
The flavor packs can come from flavor companies. These companies use components of the orange, such as the peel, to derive flavor and oil from the orange. Other additional components are unknown (e.g. synthetic flavoring); regulation is unknown, but seemingly non-existent. Since these are made by 3rd party companies, the orange juice manufacturer may not be able to conclusively say to the consumer (even if they wanted to) what is in their flavor pack, since the orange juice manufacturer does not have specific oversight of the development process of the pack (potentially willingly).
Although the flavor pack is supposed to only contain components from the oranges of the country/state of origin that is listed on the carton, it does not seem plausible that this is the case given that the flavor companies source oranges from all over the world. So if the orange juice says it's from Florida, it's probably deriving its flavor from components of oranges of unknown origins-most likely Brazil-but since other countries grow oranges, and since their environmental conditions (i.e. pesticide usage) are either unknown or unregulated, it additionally raises the question of what else is inadvertently in the flavor pack.
So as a consumer, when you buy a carton that only says "100% premium fresh-squeezed gently-pasteurized Florida orange juice," it could just be broken down sugar water that was stored for up to a year, heated twice with a flavor pack mixed in, and in that flavor pack are some natural elements from oranges (from all around the world-not just Florida), and, well, we're not sure what else-oh, and up to 10% of it may a completely different juice or substance.
If you're looking to buy juice that a normal person (not a committee in charge of food labeling) would classify as "100% fresh squeezed orange juice," you won't be able to based on the label. This defeats the whole purpose of the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act of 1990: to inform the consumer of what's in the box.
A company trying to minimize what consumers know is obnoxious, and hardly ground breaking journalism, still, that doesn't mean it should be ignored, and since the publication of this book, there seems to be quite a bit online about flavor packs and orange juice processing. Some companies have officially responded, some have not (or I couldn't find them).
Reading their responses in tandem with this book should allow you to make an educated decision about the product.
May 29, 2010
Orange juice won’t kill you but that doesn’t mean that we are buying what we think we are. Hamilton points out the degree of misinformation and the marketing manipulation at work in production and consumption of Florida orange juice. I have read Fast Food Nation, Omnivore’s Dilemma , Chicken , Tangled Roots , Stuffed and Starved , Food Politics , and many other similar works and still I was shocked.
Alissa Hamliton’s research into the history of the orange juice industry and the production and marketing of orange juice as we know it is impressive. However, she could have told the story in a more enjoyable and intriguing manner. The majority of the book details a 1961 hearing over the “standardization” of Orange Juice identity. I felt like I was reading the archives along with Hamilton rather than a narrative of the conclusions she reached from her research.
Additionally at times I was lost. Sometimes she assumed too much knowledge of her topic on the part of the reader. I still can’t explain to you exactly how orange juice is produced
I felt like I was reading a dissertation that really needed another round of editing. I feel guilty making that judgment because the topic, the ideas, and the research were all top notch but the book really needed some work to reach its readership.
This is not to dilute what I did learn from reading this book. I had not realized exactly how processed 100% pure Orange Juice was. I also always assumed that when something was labeled “100% Orange Juice” and had no ingredients label then orange juice was the only ingredient.
Actually, it means the FDA has held a standardization hearing and agreed upon what can and cannot be in the product and still label it as that product. Ingredients lists exist for products that have not had standardization hearings.
The best parts of the book were the preface and final two chapters. Here Hamilton’s voice and perspective came through the clearest. The purpose of the book was most directly articulated in these segments.
Alissa Hamliton’s research into the history of the orange juice industry and the production and marketing of orange juice as we know it is impressive. However, she could have told the story in a more enjoyable and intriguing manner. The majority of the book details a 1961 hearing over the “standardization” of Orange Juice identity. I felt like I was reading the archives along with Hamilton rather than a narrative of the conclusions she reached from her research.
Additionally at times I was lost. Sometimes she assumed too much knowledge of her topic on the part of the reader. I still can’t explain to you exactly how orange juice is produced
I felt like I was reading a dissertation that really needed another round of editing. I feel guilty making that judgment because the topic, the ideas, and the research were all top notch but the book really needed some work to reach its readership.
This is not to dilute what I did learn from reading this book. I had not realized exactly how processed 100% pure Orange Juice was. I also always assumed that when something was labeled “100% Orange Juice” and had no ingredients label then orange juice was the only ingredient.
Actually, it means the FDA has held a standardization hearing and agreed upon what can and cannot be in the product and still label it as that product. Ingredients lists exist for products that have not had standardization hearings.
The best parts of the book were the preface and final two chapters. Here Hamilton’s voice and perspective came through the clearest. The purpose of the book was most directly articulated in these segments.
March 29, 2014
I read this book prepared for it to be a polemic that would make me want to stop drinking orange juice.
Surprisingly, the book was a much better than that. This book gives a brief history of oranges, and then it gets into twentieth century food policy in the US explaining how the standard of identity for orange juice was developed.
It was interesting how the FDA did not want orange juice makers to lie to hapless housewives and how advertisers did not want the truth to confuse them.
Orange juice makers did not want to include the word "pasteurized" on their labeling, but the word pasteurized has to be written at least half of the size of the words "orange juice." With these rules, many brands of orange juice include their brand name much more prominently than the words "orange juice."
The discussion of the standard of identity was fascinating in understanding how far feminism has come. The poor "housewife" was expected to be stupid and in charge of household purchasing. Some female nutritionists and food scientists took part in the conversations about what a housewife could be expected to understand, but a lot of men shaped policy.
I thought that "Not from Concentrate" juices were made in the US, but they can now be transported in refrigerated cargo ships from Brazil. That juice is pasteurized at every transition: when it gets on the ship, when it gets off the ship. These processes leave a lot of juices tasting like not much more than sugar. But that is how juice gets its 60 day shelf life.
Flavor packets containing orange essence and orange oil are added back to juice to make it more palatable, but there is really no way to test whether these ingredients have been artificially added to a juice or not. The flavor of Minute Maid, which I never liked, is something that people apparently created on purpose.
Tropicana, one of my favorite juices, is really good at advertising and not actually better than other juices.
Surprisingly, the book was a much better than that. This book gives a brief history of oranges, and then it gets into twentieth century food policy in the US explaining how the standard of identity for orange juice was developed.
It was interesting how the FDA did not want orange juice makers to lie to hapless housewives and how advertisers did not want the truth to confuse them.
Orange juice makers did not want to include the word "pasteurized" on their labeling, but the word pasteurized has to be written at least half of the size of the words "orange juice." With these rules, many brands of orange juice include their brand name much more prominently than the words "orange juice."
The discussion of the standard of identity was fascinating in understanding how far feminism has come. The poor "housewife" was expected to be stupid and in charge of household purchasing. Some female nutritionists and food scientists took part in the conversations about what a housewife could be expected to understand, but a lot of men shaped policy.
I thought that "Not from Concentrate" juices were made in the US, but they can now be transported in refrigerated cargo ships from Brazil. That juice is pasteurized at every transition: when it gets on the ship, when it gets off the ship. These processes leave a lot of juices tasting like not much more than sugar. But that is how juice gets its 60 day shelf life.
Flavor packets containing orange essence and orange oil are added back to juice to make it more palatable, but there is really no way to test whether these ingredients have been artificially added to a juice or not. The flavor of Minute Maid, which I never liked, is something that people apparently created on purpose.
Tropicana, one of my favorite juices, is really good at advertising and not actually better than other juices.
Read
July 7, 2018Don't settle for pulp fiction. Wait'll you read the juicy part. Hamilton has a zest for storytelling.
Read
August 4, 2009Academic, but good info. Tropicana ain't what it says it is!
May 14, 2016
This book was a good read. For anyone who drinks orange juice it is a MUST read but I would recommended it for anyone who wants to know more about how food labelling works and how companies get around labelling laws. The retelling of the FDA hearings was a little dry in the middle but their overall message was summarized well. The amount and quality of research done by the author was top notch. She really put her heart and soul into digging for every detail in this book. The tl;dr: if you drink Tropicana you are (1) wasting your money on marketing hype and (2) NEED to read this book. It got five stars for the topic and research but the content would have been four stars alone.
April 7, 2012
Great book, we do not drink OJ anymore after reading this!!!
February 19, 2020
I recently switched to a citrus press to make fresh orange juice after having bought a jug of Tropicana every week for years. The difference in taste was so stark, that I was curious to know what exactly I'd been buying all this time. It turns out that Pepsi advertisers are tricky, and do their best to exploit holes in regulatory laws to hide the fact that Tropicana is pasteurized (heated up) and de-aerated so it can be stored longer, and that flavor is added back using orange oils and essences.
And there you go! I just saved you 200 pages and $20, because there really isn't much more going on in this book. It's disorganized and brutally repetitive, and feels like a student reaching towards a minimum word limit. The conclusions seem reasonable: the forces of marketing and globalization have steered this industry to a place that's detrimental to consumers and the environment, but this point could have been made just as clearly in a single chapter.
And there you go! I just saved you 200 pages and $20, because there really isn't much more going on in this book. It's disorganized and brutally repetitive, and feels like a student reaching towards a minimum word limit. The conclusions seem reasonable: the forces of marketing and globalization have steered this industry to a place that's detrimental to consumers and the environment, but this point could have been made just as clearly in a single chapter.
October 25, 2021
I was really excited to read this book just because the origin story of orange juice sounded fascinating. This book, while on the shorter end and easy to chomp down on pages, is just so dense and written for academia. I had heard that previously in reviews, and didn’t mind how dense it was rather I felt like it kept repeating the same points over and over again in varying dense manners. I didn’t have any real new takeaways from this that I couldn’t have just assumed were the case.
June 26, 2023
As backstory, my coworker and I play Redactle when we need a break and I noticed this in the references when the article was on orange juice. It piqued my interest. However, I would have preferred to listen to a podcast interview with the author. I would love to hear the author be on Maintenance Phase or similar talking about the FDA and the history of orange juice regulation. This book was a bit descriptive for my liking without enough fun commentary. However, it reinforced my view that fresh orange juice is astronomically yummier than processed crap. Also fresh pulp is delicious - I don’t get people who don’t like pulp.
November 9, 2018
This book is like word porn for nerds! Conspiracy, lies, cover-ups all mixed with data, testimony and history. I’m a sucker for these types of books. At this rate, I won’t be able to shop at a grocery.
October 26, 2023
i don’t know if it’s fair to log this since i only read 2/3 of it for a class but this is the most i’ve enjoyed a reading in a long time. not written in the greatest way but very interesting and they get the point across. very interesting analysis of marketing and FDA policy. solid 3.5
December 28, 2017
very dull. did not flow well.
April 25, 2018
I'm sure it has great information but it's so dry and dull that I couldn't be bothered to find it.
September 28, 2010
Orange juice is healthy and wholesome. We drink it because it's fresh, full of Vitamin C and made from the natural fruit of orange trees. Right? Not hardly, says Alissa Hamilton in this darkly absorbing history of the Florida orange juice industry. Even if the carton says "not from concentrate," what you drink when you pour a glass of conventional, pre-squeezed orange juice is wholly industrialized, more a product of laboratory "food science" than of those sunshine-nourished orange groves Bing Crosby and Anita Bryant once pitched.
Hamilton set out to chronicle the orange juice industry's influence on the biodiversity of the sweet orange. When she and Dixi, her Jack Russell terrier-Chihuahua mix, drove to Lakeland, Florida, for four months at Florida Southern College, she hit the historian's mother-lode in the Thomas B. Mack Citrus Archives, presided over by Professor Mack himself, a nonagenarian who had studied the citrus industry for more than half a century "collecting weird and wonderful memorabilia along the way."
Documents Hamilton stumbled across in her "unmethodical" search of the archives--"the only type possible in the disarray," she comments in a wry aside--changed the direction of her research and painted a damming picture of the "wholesome" citrus industry and its "tree-fresh" product. Her discoveries--and the loss of the archives after Professor Mack died--have all the ingredients of a gripping detective story. Unfortunately, this thoroughly researched book is uneven, with long stretches that read more like a dissertation than a popular book.
It's not that Hamilton isn't a good writer. But in her enthusiasm to document the metamorphosis of the Florida orange juice industry from a fresh product to a laboratory evocation, and from individual growers hand-tending orchards of decades-old trees to industrial-scale orchards of trees "depleted" and replaced like worn-out dairy cows, the story bogs down. (The acronyms don't help: I kept stumbling over FCOJ for "frozen concentrated orange juice" and NFC OJ, "not from concentrate orange juice.")
The story in Squeezed, about an industry that became so successful in deceiving the consumer that it may have killed its own market, is an important contribution to the annals of our everyday food and how it is produced and marketed.
"I wrote this book with a modest ambition," Hamilton says in the Preface, "to make you look at your glass of presqueezed orange juice differently and begin to see through the opaque packages of food that surround you." She achieves that ambition and more. Although not an easy read, Squeezed is definitely worth the effort.
This review originally appeared on Story Circle Book Reviews: http://storycirclebookreviews.org/rev...
Hamilton set out to chronicle the orange juice industry's influence on the biodiversity of the sweet orange. When she and Dixi, her Jack Russell terrier-Chihuahua mix, drove to Lakeland, Florida, for four months at Florida Southern College, she hit the historian's mother-lode in the Thomas B. Mack Citrus Archives, presided over by Professor Mack himself, a nonagenarian who had studied the citrus industry for more than half a century "collecting weird and wonderful memorabilia along the way."
Documents Hamilton stumbled across in her "unmethodical" search of the archives--"the only type possible in the disarray," she comments in a wry aside--changed the direction of her research and painted a damming picture of the "wholesome" citrus industry and its "tree-fresh" product. Her discoveries--and the loss of the archives after Professor Mack died--have all the ingredients of a gripping detective story. Unfortunately, this thoroughly researched book is uneven, with long stretches that read more like a dissertation than a popular book.
It's not that Hamilton isn't a good writer. But in her enthusiasm to document the metamorphosis of the Florida orange juice industry from a fresh product to a laboratory evocation, and from individual growers hand-tending orchards of decades-old trees to industrial-scale orchards of trees "depleted" and replaced like worn-out dairy cows, the story bogs down. (The acronyms don't help: I kept stumbling over FCOJ for "frozen concentrated orange juice" and NFC OJ, "not from concentrate orange juice.")
The story in Squeezed, about an industry that became so successful in deceiving the consumer that it may have killed its own market, is an important contribution to the annals of our everyday food and how it is produced and marketed.
"I wrote this book with a modest ambition," Hamilton says in the Preface, "to make you look at your glass of presqueezed orange juice differently and begin to see through the opaque packages of food that surround you." She achieves that ambition and more. Although not an easy read, Squeezed is definitely worth the effort.
This review originally appeared on Story Circle Book Reviews: http://storycirclebookreviews.org/rev...
December 31, 2025
I love orange juice. That vibrant, cheerful glass is a little burst of optimism in the morning, a promise of good things to come. But is it a promise kept? Squeezed shattered my illusions about my beloved OJ, revealing a world of industrial processes and manufactured flavors that are anything but cheerful.
Is it a good read overall? This book is like that documentary you know you should watch but keep putting off because you suspect it's going to be a bit dry. And, well, it kind of is. Hamilton dives deep into the world of orange juice, and I mean deep. This isn't your casual "orange juice is healthy" kind of read. We're talking about the industrial complex, the global trade, the chemical processes, and the sheer weirdness of what we've come to accept as "fresh" orange juice. It's informative, meticulously researched, and extremely academic in tone. Think footnotes, jargon, complex molecules and processes and enough details about orange production to make your head spin at times
But here's the thing: if you can power through the occasionally dense prose, it's totally worth it. Hamilton peels back the glossy veneer of the orange juice industry, revealing a world that's far more complex (and frankly, less appetizing) than you might imagine. She explores the history of orange juice, from its humble beginnings to its current status as a ubiquitous breakfast staple. She delves into the science of flavor, explaining how "fresh" orange juice can sit in giant tanks for months, only to be "reconstituted" with added flavor packs to achieve that consistent, artificially enhanced taste we've come to expect.
It's a real eye-opener, and it might just make you rethink your morning glass of OJ. So, if you're curious about the real story behind your favorite breakfast beverage (and you're not afraid of a little academic heavy lifting), Squeezed is definitely worth the slowwwwww pace and long words. Just be prepared to have your orange juice-loving world turned upside down.
Is it a good read overall? This book is like that documentary you know you should watch but keep putting off because you suspect it's going to be a bit dry. And, well, it kind of is. Hamilton dives deep into the world of orange juice, and I mean deep. This isn't your casual "orange juice is healthy" kind of read. We're talking about the industrial complex, the global trade, the chemical processes, and the sheer weirdness of what we've come to accept as "fresh" orange juice. It's informative, meticulously researched, and extremely academic in tone. Think footnotes, jargon, complex molecules and processes and enough details about orange production to make your head spin at times
But here's the thing: if you can power through the occasionally dense prose, it's totally worth it. Hamilton peels back the glossy veneer of the orange juice industry, revealing a world that's far more complex (and frankly, less appetizing) than you might imagine. She explores the history of orange juice, from its humble beginnings to its current status as a ubiquitous breakfast staple. She delves into the science of flavor, explaining how "fresh" orange juice can sit in giant tanks for months, only to be "reconstituted" with added flavor packs to achieve that consistent, artificially enhanced taste we've come to expect.
It's a real eye-opener, and it might just make you rethink your morning glass of OJ. So, if you're curious about the real story behind your favorite breakfast beverage (and you're not afraid of a little academic heavy lifting), Squeezed is definitely worth the slowwwwww pace and long words. Just be prepared to have your orange juice-loving world turned upside down.
June 21, 2010
Sadly, as I sit to write this review I discovered that I misplaced the many notes I took on this book. First, for a book published by an academic press I found it quite approachable considering I have little experience in nutrition, American food history, or the agricultural history of Florida. I learned a good deal about all of these topics and found the book informative and reassuring, in that I knew I wasn't drinking the OJ my brain wanted if I bought it at the supermarket, and probably not even if I purchased the oranges there to squeeze myself. However, I found the book quite disorganized and couldn't quite follow the story-arc that Hamilton attempted to write. She would mention an event in say the 1940s and follow a paragraph later with a quote from within my lifetime (I was born in the last days of the 70s). Furthermore, despite a key, I often was bogged down by UUoA (Unnecessary Use of Acronyms) and wished the author found another way to distinguish various agencies and procedures key to telling the story of the Orange Juice industry of the United States. Despite my desire for a different editing of the prose, this was informative and opened a whole world I never knew about-- such as the regulation of various food staples, it makes me rethink my uninformed quips about EU & ugly fruit.
October 3, 2009
What does Bing Crosby, the agricultural revolution, NFC and FDA S.341 have to do with orange juice? They all help 'define' orange juice as we know it today. Squeezed examines Florida orange juice, the product and the industry, from a historical perspective to its current state as we all find in the grocery aisle. Squeezed tries to answer this basic question, is orange juice really orange juice?
While I found the book to be interesting, especially development of a orange juice standard, the evolution of juice processing and the marketing of foreign juice, it is written in a academic style unlike other non-fiction books that I've recently read. Not a bad thing but different. The book goes beyond orange juice and ask as consumers do we really know what is in our food? Will I stop drinking OJ after reading the book? Probably not, but I will definitely look much closer at the label.
While I found the book to be interesting, especially development of a orange juice standard, the evolution of juice processing and the marketing of foreign juice, it is written in a academic style unlike other non-fiction books that I've recently read. Not a bad thing but different. The book goes beyond orange juice and ask as consumers do we really know what is in our food? Will I stop drinking OJ after reading the book? Probably not, but I will definitely look much closer at the label.
April 9, 2016
This review was originally posted on jasonreads.com
Squeezed by Alissa Hamilton is a great kind of non-fiction, but you have to be ready for it. Coming off some very thrilling YA novels, I found it difficult to slow down and really process Hamilton’s points. I did find myself getting lost in all the information, but I enjoyed that feeling and I like researching again as well. I enjoy learning things like 96% of all oranges grown in Florida are processed into juice. There was a lot to take in from this book. I’m going to lay out the essentials here so you can skip the rest of the review if you want. But before I do, did I like this book? Yes, it gets 4 our of 5 stars. Having said that this book is not for the faint of heart. It can be dry for those not interested in the particular topic. I’ve always been fine with dry books as I’m interested in everything. Consider yourself fairly warned.
Squeezed by Alissa Hamilton is a great kind of non-fiction, but you have to be ready for it. Coming off some very thrilling YA novels, I found it difficult to slow down and really process Hamilton’s points. I did find myself getting lost in all the information, but I enjoyed that feeling and I like researching again as well. I enjoy learning things like 96% of all oranges grown in Florida are processed into juice. There was a lot to take in from this book. I’m going to lay out the essentials here so you can skip the rest of the review if you want. But before I do, did I like this book? Yes, it gets 4 our of 5 stars. Having said that this book is not for the faint of heart. It can be dry for those not interested in the particular topic. I’ve always been fine with dry books as I’m interested in everything. Consider yourself fairly warned.
Want to read
March 11, 2009Squeezed: What You Don't Know About Orange Juice is about the orange juice industry and the practices used by companies in making it. It follows the same type of content as in Fast Food Nation (but by a different author), except this book is about orange juice. If you want to read an interview of the author and get a better sense of the book, you can read it here. I’ll post my own thoughts of the book when I read it.
February 1, 2016
The Jungle for the orange juice industry. This book does a great job of explaining how the content of ornage juice has changed in the US over the last 60 years although the labelling has not (at least too much). While slow in spots, especially as it drags through a good deal of FDA testimony from the 1960s, overall the book does a good job of connecting to many of the current issues surrounding the politics of food in the US (right to know, trade, urban sprawl, globalization, etc. One of the better commodity histories I have read
January 2, 2011
You know those books like Freakonomics that are written by 1 content person and 1 professional writer? This book could have seriously benefited by using this method. Instead it is just the content person who is a decent writer but not great. Fortunately the content is amazing and completely new -- I guarantee you will not have thought about 80% of what she talks about in the book. Acknowledge the sometimes-painful writing style and read the book anyway -- you'll be glad you did.
December 26, 2012
This book was really useful for me; I stopped drinking juice almost entirely. So, the content is great, and super-important. However, the actual writing and therefore readability of the book were not at the level of most of the non-fiction I read.. The book seemed more academic, and had large swaths of fairly difficult reading...
July 12, 2016
Books in this YUP tend to be great, and I first found out about this while reading Every Twelve Seconds. My enjoyment of esoteric and technical topics may not be shared by other readers, but I really admired how doggedly the author figured out some of her facts, and how carefully she analyzed them.
October 24, 2010
Quite a slog to work through, but still interesting enough. Most of what we eat just isn't at all what it appears to be. Even when we DO read the labels. OJ isn't harmful, but it also isn't just orange juice.
July 11, 2012
I WILL NEVER BUY ORANGE JUICE AGAIN! I BOUGHT A JUICER AND SQUEEZE MY OWN STUFF!!
Alissa Hamilton brings to light the ugly truth about processed juice -- it’s certainly not fresh, wholesome, or natural!!
Alissa Hamilton brings to light the ugly truth about processed juice -- it’s certainly not fresh, wholesome, or natural!!
August 27, 2015
OK book. Did not know all of this. Suspected some of this. Bottom line, "fresh" orange juice is not fresh. There's "big oil", and "big pharma". There's also "big OJ".
Anne read this too.
Newmarket library.
Anne read this too.
Newmarket library.
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