Fruit Beverages
February 4, 2020 | by Sravani Pathakamuri | Posted in Nutrition Facts
In India, a little over 60% of fruit produced is used in fruit based beverages. There are some different types of fruit beverages:
1. Fruit Juice:
This is a natural juice pressed out of a fresh fruit. This is unaltered in its composition during preparation and preservation. Ex: fresh juice and canned natural fruit juice.
2. Fruit Drink:
This is made by liquefying the whole fruit. At least 10% of the volume of undiluted drink must be whole fruit. Ex: grape juice, apple juice and mango juice.
3. Fruit Squash:
This is made from strained fruit juice, sugar and preservative. This contains 25% fruit juice, 45% sugar. Ex: mango squash, grape squash.
4. Fruit Cordial:
This is a fruit squash from which all suspended matter is completely eliminated by filtration or clarification. It is done by the use of pectic enzymes. These enzymes produce a flocculent which gradually settles carrying down with it colloidal suspension. Clarified juice can be preserved by using freezing technique, pasteurization or the addition of chemical preservatives such as sodium benzoate or potassium metabisulphite.
Ex: lime cordial, clear juices prepared from banana and apple.
5. Fruit Punch:
These are made by mixing the desired fruit juices. This contains 25% of total fruit and 65% of sugar.
6. Fruit Syrups:
In fruit syrups only one type of fruit is used. These are concentrations of fruits juices preserved with sugar. The fruit is crushed to a coarse puree and left overnight for fermentation. This concentrates the flavour and causes the juice to separate from the solids. It is filtered. When this juice is heated with sugar it transforms into syrup. Proportions of 500g sugar to 1/2 pint of juice will make the syrup of medium strength. It is tinned with water or soda water and served with ice and also with milk. To prevent milk from curdling milk is poured into the syrup very gradually and the mixture is stirred briskly.
7. Fruit Juice Concentrates:
This is the fruit juice which has been concentrated by the removal of water either by heat or freezing or by reverse osmosis.
Reverse osmosis is done to concentrate mango juice. Juice is liquified by using pectic enzyme and further clarified by ultrafiltration before subjecting to reverse osmosis. The clarified juice could be concentrated from 9° to 30° Brix by reverse osmosis.
One modern method is to freeze the juice until enough ice can be centrifuged off. This is cheap and easy but some acids freeze out with water. Concentration by evaporation at reduced pressure or even freeze-drying are now routine. This methods give excellent products in liquid or powder form-there is only a small loss of volatile flavours and loss of nutrients. Oxidation drastically spoils flavours and degrades vitamin A,C and E.
8. Carbonated Fruit Beverages:
Carbonation is the process of mixing sufficient carbondioxide with water or beverage so that when served, the product gives off the gas in the fine bubbles and the characteristic pungent taste or tang one feels.
Another advantage of carbonation is the removal of air which results not only is anaerobic condition, but also reduces the oxidation of ascorbic acid.
Fruit juice beverages are generally bottle with carbon dioxide content varying from 1 to 8 g/litre, though this concentration is much lower than that required for complete inhibition of pathogenic bacteria. For citrus carbonated beverages, there is a need for a weighting agent to raise the specific gravity of the flavours oil to enable its uniform distribution. So far, soft drink industries were using Brominated vegetable oils for this purpose but on the recommendation of WHO.