• gmtom@lemmy.world
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    22 hours ago

    I never understood why Americans freeze this stuff? Like we have juice concentrates in the UK, be we just keep them as a liquid in a bottle or as a syrup in a little squeeze thing.

    • Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works
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      21 hours ago

      This isn’t the same as Robinson’s orange syrup. It’s literally frozen orange pulp and juice that’s been concentrated down by evaporating off the water. It’s not remotely shelf stable, but what you get is literally the same orange juice you could buy in a box in the store, at a fraction of the cost because you save on shipping weight and packaging. It’s amazing stuff and I wish I’d had access to it back when I lived in the UK.

    • ameancow@lemmy.world
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      21 hours ago

      It’s a relic from another time. For a very long time it was one of the only ways to keep fresh-tasting juice for long periods. There was a time when if you wanted orange juice when it wasn’t orange juice season, you would go grab a frozen brick of the stuff out of the freezer.

      That or get Tang powder or something, which is pretty far from tasting like real juice.

      • some_kind_of_guy@lemmy.world
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        9 hours ago

        I’d be wary of Tang… I was hopelessly addicted to the stuff in high school and, let me say, the withdrawal was quite unpleasant.

    • Rachel@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      19 hours ago

      I think it has the longest life before going bad and it was a popular choice for low income families who wanted to stock up on stuff. I think it also became popular for food banks to hand out as well. Though we’ve moved away from that mostly. I rarely see people buy them anymore and if they do they likely do it by habit because they grew up in a family that used it.

      I assume store brands and other brands will still keep making that stuff.

      • BranBucket@lemmy.world
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        11 hours ago

        Yup. My Mom got these for years to save money and make sure we got enough vitamin C. I hated orange juice for a long time because whatever brand she bought was awful and had an overly sour, almost fermented tang to it. Went on a road trip with friends to celebrate graduation and my uncle served us fresh squeezed OJ at one of our stops. It was almost life changing.

      • Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works
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        15 hours ago

        No, the British stuff lasts forever, but it tastes like ass. We call it “squash” and it’s just fruit flavoured sugar syrup. It makes something kind of like flat Fanta.

          • Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works
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            11 hours ago

            Yeah, water is infinitely preferable.

            It’s honestly made so worse by the fact that the average British mum will read the package directions, go “Oh no, that’s way too much” and proceed to add about a tea spoon of syrup to about a gallon of water, making something that vaguely hints at the concept of flavour, but ends up tasting mostly of dirty bath water.