Cold-pressed juices are the latest fad. Sangeeta Yadav talks to experts on what makes it the healthiest drink to have and how it is different from other bottled beverages
Call it a fad or the need for consuming healthy drinks, consumers these days are moving away from concentrated or preservative juices and opting for cold-pressed juices which contain only fruits juiced by using a new pressing technique. Even celebrities like Beyonce like cold-pressed juices so much that she now owns the cold-pressed juice brand for watermelon and lemonade. From its treatment to packaging, the technique of juicing is natural and has high nutritional value.
“Cold press juices work on the principle of high pressure processing. You treat every fruit separately like pineapples have to be scraped properly and an orange has to be peeled first. Each fruit is washed and put together, cut and then it goes into a bag. There is about 8,000 meteric tonnes of pressure goes into squeezing the juice out. Since the fruits are juiced in cold temperature, there is no loss of nutrition as there is no heat involved. It’s a very slow process where the drops get collected in a drum. Once the drum is full, it starts filling up these bottles which are sealed in vacuum. There are no preservatives. Since the technology to extract the juice is expensive, the product is expensive too. It can survive for 21 days at the same temperature,” Aditya Pattanath, Head of communications RAW Pressey, tells you.
Apart from cold-pressed juice, there are two types of juices available in the market — centrifugal juice and masticator juice.
The centrifugal juice uses metal blades to break down the fruit or vegetable to make juice. The heat generated by the metal blades destroys the delicate enzymes and brings down the nutrition value of the juice. The process leads to high wastage and oxidation in 20 minutes. Whereas masticator juice uses a slow rotating gear to break the fruit or vegetable thus it’s able to retain more nutrients due to less heat and leads to lots of wastage and oxidisation of juices limiting their nutritious value.
The biggest factor that determines how healthy your juice is is the ingredients which we ignore. “The food authorities have set guidelines which say that all ingredients that have been used in the juice must be mentioned in a descending order of composition which basically means that the largest ingredient goes first on the label. In any juice brand, you will see ingredients like concentrate, pulp, water or sugar in top five. This is the most important thing to know,” Pattanath says.
Some of the juices have artificial preservatives and flavours, as expert says, not good for health. “Simple things like acidity regulator which range from 1.1, 2.3 to 4.0 is nothing but mere chemicals that are going into your juice which is not making it fresh. Consumers are unaware of the fact that there is a stark difference between a fresh juice and what people have come to believe is as fresh. Even the 100 per cent fruit juice category which is london-based brands like Tropicana and Real, also contain preservative or chemicals. Technically you do not know how much preservatives have gone in. If the preservatives in the juice are below 10 per cent, then it is within the healthy limit,” Pattanath tells you.
Then there are added flavours. “Mixed fruit juice is the most dangerous because there will be apple, guava, banana and pineapple. logically if you were to mix all these juices in whatever composition, it will not taste like juice that you are having. It tastes good because of added flavour and sugar. Some juices use concentrative chemical to thicken the juices which is unhealthy,” he explains.
Then there are 100 per cent fruit juices which have no concentrate. But to preserve these, there are pasteurised which kills all the enzymes and nutritions from the juices.
“Juices like Frooti and Maaza are 100 per cent concentrated drinks and contain no fruit. But since it is high on sugar, it is harmful for your body. The sugar-based juices contain absolutely no fruit and even the label sometimes says it contains no fruit. For instance, you have mango drinks which are nector-based drinks and 100 per cent concentrate. There is no real fruit in it. You will also find a lot of carbonated beverages which are mixed with fruit. It has a lot of sugar which gives us energy. It’s the simplest form of energy that people can find. If you are a runner, a drink that contains a lot of sugar is essential for you. It boosts your energy to keep you active throughout the day. But if you are looking at the long run, it is really harmful for your body because you will start inducing a lot of diseases,” Pattanath says.
The best alternative then is to make the fresh juice at home, include the natural fibre of the juice as it helps in digestion and drink it within a time frame. Another trend that is picking up these days is of flavoured water. “You pour water in the dispenser and slice a lemon or orange or mint in it and leave it for some time. This will keep you hydrated all day and give you flavour and freshness. It cuts down on a lot of fat because you are continuously drinking water. Since we add fruits in it, it gives out natural sweetness to the drink,” he tells you.