Last year an announcement came out that fungicides have been discovered in orange juice imported from Brazil. I made a list of those orange juices that use strictly Florida or U.S. sources for their oranges. I have updated the post to talk about GMOs.
1) Florida’s Natural
Florida’s Natural Growers have been around for over 75 years. Their website has information about their growers, so you can learn a little bit about who is growing the oranges in your juice. Florida’s Natural can be found in most supermarkets across the country.
2) Uncle Matt’s Orangic
Uncle Matt’s is a 4th generation family of citrus growers. All of their juice meets the standard of the USDA for organic juice. Fungicides, pesticides and synthetic fertilizers are not allowed, so no worries here. Their orange juice contains a mix of Hamlin and Valencia oranges. It’s available at Kroger stores as well as Whole Foods Market. I bought some once from Whole Foods, it’s delicious stuff!
3) 365 Brand Orange Juice
The store brand of Whole Foods Market uses 100% Florida orange juice in their products.
4) Indian River Orange Juice
This 100% Florida orange juice is never from concentrate and doesn’t use flavor packs. It is available in the south at these stores: Publix, Sweet Bay, Albertsons, Ingles, Walmart, the Fresh Market, Winn-Dixie, and Kroger.
As I do more search I hope to add more brands to this list. If you have a brand that you know of, please tell us in the comment section below.
Another way to assure you are drinking juice from only American grown oranges is to buy the orange yourself and make your own juice. You can purchase an electric juicer
for that, or if you have a KitchenAid mixer, they have a juicer attachment
that works well and is inexpensive. But be careful to confirm the oranges you are juicing are indeed from this country.
Are There GMOs in Orange Juice?
A question that I have been getting several times is are their GMOs in my favorite orange juice? At this point in time there are no genetically modified orange trees growing anywhere. There isn’t a lot of concern about this problem either in the short term or the long term. What you do have to watch out for is making sure you are drinking 100% orange juice. If you have something that isn’t 100% juice and contains some type of sweetener like high fructose corn syrup or sugar than most likely you have GMOs in your orange “juice” cocktail.
Concerning your article about Florida orange juice, in the final comments you suggest that one juice oranges. Instead of the juicer with the mechanical cones that rotate back and forth, I recommend a “squeeze” type juicer which uses leverage to crush the orange halfs. Less pith and better tasting orange juice.
I am the National Sales Manager for Indian River Select. Just wanted to let you know that our juice will soon be available in Whole Foods stores NATIONWIDE. You will be able to shop for our Ruby Red Grapefruit Juice, Original OJ and Valencia OJ.
Indian River Orange juice tanker trucks are seen by those living in Texas and Mexico up and down the highways as they fill their tankers with Mexican Orange Juice. This was brought to my attention by a friend who lives half the year in both places… I guess it is sort of a joke with the locals there, considering the sides of the trucks advertise 100% Florida Orange Juice.