Cutting fruit juice health rating to that of soft drink is a fizzer

Giving pure fruit juice the same health rating as soft drink should surely go flat, writes Ed Gannon.

Australia and New Zealand Ministerial Forum on Food Regulation will next month decide whether to cut orange juice’s star rating from five stars to 2.5 stars.

THERE’S nothing like a cold glass of orange juice made from 100 per cent squeezed oranges.

Tastes great, is refreshing, and is, obviously, healthy.

Or is it?

Not so, according to a government body that is considering downgrading fruit juice’s health rating down to that of soft drink.

The Australia and New Zealand Ministerial Forum on Food Regulation will next month decide whether to cut orange juice’s star rating from five stars to 2.5 stars.

One hundred per cent orange juice has held a five-star rating since the health star system was introduced in 2014.

To cut it in half would take it to the same level as Coke, Fanta and every other full-strength soft drink.

The Dietitians’ Association of Australia already says fruit juice should be limited to 125ml serves, and that “most types naturally contain a similar amount of sugar and kilojoules to soft drinks”.

Now, bear in mind we are talking 100 per cent orange juice, where the only thing in the bottle comes from the orange. No sweeteners, no preservatives. Just juice.

Contrast that with a can of Fanta which, incidentally, promotes itself as containing no artificial colours or flavours.

But it does contain carbonated water, sugar, food acid, flavour, natural colour, preservative, antioxidant and – wait for it – 2.1% orange juice from concentrate.

That’s not even juice straight from an orange, but concentrate – the type you buy by the shipping container from South Africa.

Compare that to Nudie Pulp Oranges Juice. According to the label it is, “orange juice (100%) … and nothing else! No concentrates”.

But it is when you compare the sugar levels in Fanta and pure orange juice that things get interesting.

Per 100ml serving, Fanta has 10.9 grams of sugar, while Nudie’s 100 per cent orange juice has 7.6 grams.

The juice has less sugar, but perhaps more than expected.

And that‘s because unlike Fanta, where a truck of refined sugar backs up and is tipped into a vat, sugar is found naturally in fruit. It is called fructose, and has become a target for some nutritionists in recent years.

Those nutritionists say all sugar, no matter if refined or occurring naturally in fruit, can be bad for you.

A movement has grown around that view that has gradually demonised fruit for its high levels of sugar.

We have diets that now advocate people don’t eat fruit.

And there is always a celebrity who will claim they lost 10 kilograms because of such a diet.

As you can imagine, fruit growers are not happy with the development.

They argue that juice is minimally processed and has no added sugar, so should not be compared to a manufactured product with no nutrit­ional benefits.

“We’re really concerned this is an incorrect message for someone trying to do the right thing and pick a healthy product,” Citrus Australia chief executive Nathan Hancock told The Weekly Times.

And it appears the Federal Government has come to the same view, with Agriculture Minister David Littleproud saying ”I am concerned that the decision has resulted in a health star rating on juice that doesn’t pass the pub test”.

Mr Littleproud told The Weekly Times he will ask the ministerial forum to reconsider any moves to downgrade fruit juice’s health rating.

It seems a sensible thing to do.

Sure, fruit has sugar in it. But you’d think we’d be in better shape if we were steered towards 100 per cent juice instead of soft drink when standing in front of the milk bar or supermarket fridge.

• Ed Gannon is editor of The Weekly Times

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