Last week had me scratching my head a bit and not due to dandruff or tiny livestock. Maybe you can help explain this.

Full pulp, some pulp, no pulp. Typically I drink Florida orange juice, not from concentrate, because I like the taste. I really mean Florida orange juice or at least juices labeled as a product of the USA and hopefully that doesn’t include California. (But that’s a different post.)

Many orange juice products also include juice from Mexico and Argentina and although I like am not anti-immigrant, I prefer those immigrants not show up in my breakfast juice glass. Really, I can pick up a difference in taste. It might not be the juice. It could other things added to it because we all know that anything that says it’s 100% of something really means “all of it give or take a little.” Anyway, my go to OJ is with the Florida labeled variety with added calcium because I can use all the help I can get and no pulp because … why. Well, what I grabbed was a carton of juice with added calcium and some pulp. Oops!

What’s the deal with pulp? Is it to make you believe you are actually sitting on a patio in Florida under the orange trees with the juicer nearby on the table still wet from a fresh squeezing? And why the different levels of pulp in the juice. Full? Some? Extra? How much is some? How much more is full? Is extra more than full? What about just “with pulp” not further specified? Is full really full if it still pours? Can I get a carton of just pulp and eat my juice in the morning? Or would that involve a trip to the produce section? Help!!!

Only orange juice puts the consumer through this selection process. Apple juice is apple juice and there’s a lot more pulp involved with those little orbs. Cranberry juice bottlers don’t ask if you want it skin or skinless. Pineapple juicers don’t give you the option of with or without core. Grapefruits are pretty much like big, tart oranges and that juice is offered as just grapefruit juice options not available.

Maybe orange juice has something to hide behind those strands of what I guess are supposed to be the stuff left over from the pressing. I’d think if there is a ounce of pulp to every glass of juice then my glass just shrunk to 7 ounces. Not cool.  How about the bottlers of my favorite breakfast juice just stick to putting juice in those bottles before I start to question whether that juice is worth that squeeze.

Thank you reading. I needed to get that off my chest. And my back teeth, too. Yuck!