Orange juice is awesome. Nothing like the refreshing juice of 3 or 4 fresh squeezed oranges, tart and sweet at the same time, and chock full of nutrients.

If there’s one company that has turned orange juice into an art form, it’s got to be Tropicana (now a part of PepsiCo). They’ve got a gazillion different varieties, regular juice, light juice, fortified with this mineral, adding that vitamin, more pulp, less pulp, mixed with juice from other fruit, in plastic, carton, small, large, extra large…

It seems that just orange juice takes half up an aisle at the supermarket all by itself.

Therefore it was no surprise that earlier this week Tropicana announced a new line of orange juice under the brand name Trop50. From their PR department:

Breakthrough innovation with the goodness of orange juice and 50 percent less sugar and calories

What exactly is the breakthrough?

What you need to know:

Orange juice is sweet because of the natural sugar (fructose) found in oranges. An 8 fl oz serving (one cup) has 22 grams of natural sugar in it. Yep, that’s a bit over 4 teaspoons. At 4 calories per gram of sugar, that one cup costs 110 calories.

That’s where diet orange juice comes in.

Diet orange juice has been and will most likely continue to be based on a simple formula – dilute the 100% juice in 100% water. What you get is 50% water, 50% juice, and a product that cannot legally be called juice, but rather a “juice drink” or “juice beverage”. Oh, you also get only half the calories.

But the problem was that the resulting “juice drink” was not as sweet, it is the equivalent of only 2 spoonfuls of sugar. Manufacturers have been artificially sweetening their orange juice with aspartame (Nutrasweet) for ages.

Now we finally get to the breakthrough. Recently, more natural sweeteners based on stevia have been approved by the FDA.

Enter Tropicana Trop50 Orange Juice Beverage, with Vitamins, Calcium & Vitamin D, Pulp Free

A quick glance at the ingredient list shows the main ingredient as water, with second place going to orange juice (42% by weight). The breakthrough touted is in the replacement of aspartame with Purevia, aka Reb A, aka a formulations of stevia.

Did you expect something more exciting?

Personally we think the breakthrough is the amazing Kyra Sedgwick, who  looks amazingly fresh and healthy as the product’s presenter.

What to do at the supermarket:

Don’t be fooled by all the marketing hype, and don’t pay 100% of the price for just 42% of the product. If you want orange juice, get 100% pure orange juice with just one ingredient. Later at home, you can add as much free tap water as you want, and even some sweetener to taste.

Better yet, get a juicer, buy oranges, and make your own juice. The taste is uncomparable. Granted, this idea won’t work on hectic weekday mornings for most of us, but what a treat for the family on those long lazy weekends…

Get Fooducated: RSS Subscription or Email Subscription

Follow us on twitter: twitter.com/fooducate

Help us test our new food comparison tool: alpha.fooducate.com