A bottle of Pom Wonderful landed on my desk the other day. A cute little rotund ball of juice, promising to bolster the body with antioxidants, relieve digestion issues, lower cholesterol and the like.
The first thing I always do, of course, is flip any product over and read the ingredient list. While many drinks are marketed as healthy, a considerable amount on supermarket shelves are loaded with all sorts of undesirable (and oft-unpronounceable) ingredients.
I was pleasantly surprised to learn Pom Wonderful is actually pomegranate juice, albeit made from a concentrate. It also tastes pretty great.
While I think it’s an option for those who lead a busy life and don’t have time to make fresh juice, I’m personally not a fan of the pasturisation process, which is typically used to extend shelf life. However, the Pom Wonderful peeps use a flash method. My question is, is flash any better than the traditional process?
According Sally Fallon, nutrition researcher, chef, journalist and author of Nourishing Traditions – The Cookbook That Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and Diet Dictocrats the jury is still out: “flash pasteurization heats (the product) very rapidly and only holds it for a few seconds. So it’s unclear which is worse (pasturisation or flash pasturisation), whether there’s any advantage, nutritional advantage to one or the other. Both of the methods get rid of the enzymes and that is the test for successful pasteurisation.”
I had some questions for the Pom Wonderful company, which they were more than happy to answer…
I’m a big believer in many foods and beverages being consumed in their natural state, particularly to preserve the all-important enzymes. I notice Pom uses flash pasturisation—can you explain how this works?
Pom directed me to Wikipedia, which describes it as follows… Flash pasturisation is a method used to heat perishable beverages such as fruit and vegetable juices (and beer as well as some dairy products). Compared to other pasteurisation processes, it is said to maintain colour and flavour better. It is done prior to filling the product into containers in order to kill spoilage microorganisms, to make the products safer and extend their shelf life. The liquid moves in a controlled, continuous flow while subjected to temperatures of 71.5 °C (160 °F) to 74 °C (165 °F), for about 15 to 30 seconds.
Is Pom 100% juice?
Our juice is 100% as we do not add more water than occurs in the juice naturally. However, we do have to concentrate the juice since the pomegranate season on our orchards in California is fairly short. But, when reconstituting it, we only add back the water we took out.
In the fruit and juice industry, the standard for single strength bottled juices is a measurement of its solid content or brix. Freshly squeezed Pomegranate juice has a brix value of 16. We concentrate our Pomegranate juice – to allow for year round availability. When we are ready to bottle (each 16oz bottle contains the juice of approximately five pomegranates), we reconstitute the juice with the same quantity of water that was removed during the concentrating process. This added water has undergone a process of reverse osmosis to ensure the highest purity and quality standards.
So there you have it. The Pom Wonderful lowdown. I certainly would recommend reaching for a Pom Wonderful instead a cola or any other chemical-laden beverage. But you still can’t beat squeezing your own juice from organic fruit. Nature, without meddling, always knows best.
Some benefits of pomegranates
For centuries, the pomegranate has been associated with good health and preparations using parts of the pomegranate have been used to treat a variety of conditions. Hippocrates prescribed pomegranates to treat eye infections and to aid digestion; Roman author and scientist Pliny the Elder prescribed pomegranate juice for 26 ailments including morning sickness; and in the 12th century, Dioscorides cited pomegranates as a treatment for ulcers and other maladies.
Pomegranates boast:
- Polyphenol Antioxidants – helps protect the body against “free radicals” – molecules that cause damage to our bodies over time. Free-radical damage is a major factor in aging and chronic diseases such as heart disease and cancer.
- Vitamin C – helps maintain muscles and blood vessels, assists in the formation of collagen and helps the body absorb iron. Vitamin C may also reduce the length and severity of colds.
- Vitamin K – plays a key role in blood coagulation.
- Potassium – helps regulate blood pressure and maintain strong bones.
- Iron – needed by the human body for the production of hemoglobin, the oxygen-carrying part of blood.
- Fibre – helps maintain digestive regularity and may reduce LDL cholesterol, which may help lower the risk of heart disease.
