Apple juice

Clarified apple juice, from which pectin and starch have been removed, in a plastic bottle

Apple juice is a fruit juice manufactured by the maceration and pressing of apples. The resulting expelled juice may be further treated by enzymatic and centrifugal clarification to remove the starch and pectin, which holds fine particulate in suspension, and then pasteurised for packaging in glass, metal or aseptic processing system containers, or further treated by dehydration processes to a concentrate. Apple juice may also be sold in an untreated state.

Due to the complex and costly equipment required to extract and clarify juice from apples in large volume, apple juice is normally commercially produced. In the United States, unfiltered fresh apple juice is produced by smaller operations in areas of high apple production, in the form of unclarified apple cider. Apple juice is one of the most common fruit juices in the world, with world production led by China, followed by Poland, Germany and the United States.^[1]

Uses

Apple juice is a common beverage for both children and adults, but in North America, it is often marketed specifically to children, who are informally considered its major consumers. Apple juice is also a component of several cocktails, and is a filler in some other fruit drinks, because it is less expensive and more widely available than other juices. It may also be produced and consumed in a carbonated form, referred to as sparkling apple juice.

Health benefits

Vitamin C is sometimes added by fortification, because content is variable,^[2] and much of that is lost in processing. Other vitamin concentrations are low, but apple juice does contain various mineral nutrients, including boron, which may promote healthy bones.^[3] Apple juice has a significant concentration of polyphenols that may protect from diseases associated with ageing due to the antioxidant effects which help reduce the likeliness of developing cancer. Research from the University of Massachusetts Lowell (UML) suggests that apple juice increases acetylcholine in the brain, resulting in increased memory.^[4] Mice given apple juice have shown to be less likely to suffer from alzheimer's disease than mice not given apple juice.^[5]

Apple cider

While "apple juice" generally refers to the filtered, pasteurised product of apple pressing, an unfiltered and sometimes unpasteurised, product commonly known as apple cider in the United States and parts of Canada, may be packaged and sold as "apple juice". In the U.S., there is an unclear distinction between filtered apple juice and "natural" apple cider.^[6] In other places, such as New Zealand, Australia and the United Kingdom, "apple cider" is an alcoholic beverage. The alcoholic beverage referred to as "cider" in these areas, is usually referred to as "hard cider" in the United States.

References

External links

• Production of cloudy and clear natural Apple juice
• Video on production of unclarified organic apple juice on The Sandringham Estate, England