Orange juice
This cracked me up in the supermarket the other day. Juice here is somewhat hard to come by. You can find nectar everywhere, but that’s basically sugar water with “fruit” flavoring. It’s so sweet that it leaves no doubt as to where Chile’s problems with diabetes come from. Lots of restaurants also serve jugo natural, which is not surprisingly natural juice aka fruit blended up with water and sugar. It’s good, but it’s not the kind of juice you get at the supermarket in the States, just run of the mill liquid pressed or from concentrate or what have you.
Orange juice is probably the easiest to find, although that can be tricky too. Watt’s sells their “exprimido” (squeezed) for almost $2000, and it doesn’t taste any better than Sofruco’s OJ which is slightly less expensive. Don’t be fooled by the Watt’s or Soprole “100% naranja,” however. They are not 100% orange but rather water (fine), orange juice from concentrate (ok) and sugar (which makes them way too sweet for me).
When I saw this at the supermarket I rolled my eyes a bit:
There are plenty of Chileans who have lowered their sugar intake either for health or vanity reasons, but they tend to replace natural sugars with manmade sweeteners – going from bad to worse, in my opinion. This “light” packaging made me think that I had a case of sucralosa taking the place of azucar on my hands. But then I noticed this:
Which says no added sugars or sweeteners. So I picked the carton up to read this:
Water – fine. Orange juice from concentrate – ok. Ascorbic acid – no problem. No sugars. No fake sugars.
People, this isn’t light juice! This is just juice! I mean ok, it’s not fresh-squeezed, it’s from concentrate, but it still qualifies for me as normal juice. We should be marketing the sugar-added stuff with a special label – extra sweet? – not slapping “light” on something that is actually just as sweet as it’s supposed to be instead of having been sweetened up to tooth aching levels. I’m still laughing at how marketing and public perception have taken what I would consider to be totally average OJ and turned it into a diet product.
Haha, so funny you blogged about this! I figured this out a few months ago and I was literally in the orange juice section for 10 minutes reading the ingredients on every type of orange juice. This is the only one without sugar! And usually I'm so wary of light things because I hate the aftertaste that fake sugar leaves in your mouth. Watts Light Jugo Naranja FTW.
Also, I'm a firm believer that nectar should NEVER pass as juice…yuuucky.
that is hilarious! i never would've figured that out, definitely used to assume it had artificial sweetener in it.
Asia is like this, too!
I got into this really extended juice argument with my stepdaughter once. She tasted the real thing (OJ) and was like QUE ASCO because it wasn't laced with sugar. Oh, the constant deprogramming battle…
Here's a little marketing twist to this … back in the day when Coke brought their Diet Coke, the word "diet" was considered just for sick people (i.e. overweight, diabetes, etc). Then they decided to slap the label "Light" for those who are health conscious and NOT sick, but just want to live a healthier lifestyle. Hence, everything with the world "light" is for those of us who want something healthy and everything with the word "diet" is actually marketed to those with a special diet need.
In conclusion, as we all know, Chileans are not easy to 'deprogram' to use Amanda's word because we are fighting against generations of family influence. If you notice, advertising campaigns are targeted mostly to the mothers, who we all know, run the home or influence it in the biggest way.
Solution – target the moms and we can slowly begin to see real orange juice available and readily consumed. But that's a good 5 years down the line.
BTW, how did it taste? We buy the Watts (Nectar) Light, which is fine, but still way too sweet.
Abby, the Watt's Exprimido and Sofruco also have no added sugar, if you're in the market.
Em, I think this one is new, or at least it's new at my Lider. It's not the Light Nectar – ewww.
WeeMo, that's interesting. Do people there generally have a major sweet tooth?
Amanda, I can only imagine. It's such a question of getting used to one taste – Rodolfo is slowly weaning down to 1 sugar in coffee from 3.
Dre, I was hoping you'd chime in with your marketing knowledge
And that's interesting about diet vs. light. The juice was delish! The other two I mentioned are slightly thicker, but this still had some pulp and tasted like normal OJ – not too sweet.
That is really interesting… also something I think about all the time not just in Chile but whenever I am abroad. Yum!
Also, I HATE the fake sugars.
Finally, my solution in Chile is pretty much just to make my own juice with no added sugar. Besides the blender method (ala Chilena), I got really into boiling cherries and such to make compote when I was in Moldova. Yum!
Oh, this is great! As you know, I'm a big fan of supermarket products initiating posts. I can't stand artificial sweeteners anymore. There were plenty in Brazil, but when I broke my d. coke habit the sweeteners went with it. I would have walked right by a juice called light.
I was expecting it to be watered down with extra water to make it light. I guess that comes next (extra light?)
I am one of three people in the universe that doesn't really care for fruit juice, so this particular insult hasn't affected me much, but I understand it's a major thing for people who do like juice.
How's the Afe brand juice? it looks vaguely juice-like.
Eileen, I will look past your juice issues to say that Afe is also good. I've only tried apple, and it's real juice, but it's also on the thicker/sweeter side – haven't checked to see if that's from added sugar or just very sweet apples.
reading this is like being in Wills (My husband) head.
he is always looking for "real" juice and he also thinks we are weirdos.
Anita
ps: i think he went to your house the other day but i just found you reading blogs of gringos in Chile.
upsssssssssss te dije gringa y vi el nombre de tu blog
como les digo entonces?
para mi will simpre ha sido MI gringo. no lo sigo en un mal sentido.
Anita, he did come to my house
Y no te preocupes por decir gringo, de hecho ni me acuerdo porque puse ese nombre para el blog pero siempre fue en broma, me da lo mismo que me digan gringa (y siempre hablo de mis amigas extranjeras como "my gringa friends").
I need to take a closer look at some of the juice options here. Funny I have a similar post in my queue right now – about which juices are sugar free so that people can save some time at the supermarket!
(Meaning I need to take a closer look at the "light" ones. Like Lori I would normally walk right by!)
Finally someone talking about this in chile.
I get annoyed as hell when people offer me JUGO when they really mean NECTAR. I'd take the box/bottle and I'd kindly ask "where the f**k do you read JUGO?, read with me: N-E-C-T-A-R"
My family doesn't like ultra-sweet stuff, at parties we actually add water to the NECTAR if we can and avoid drinking soda at all. Which it's really difficult in chilean society. And we are chilean. While my best friend drinks 2lt of Coke per day.
Maybe we should start a Facebook group, something like: "Quiero JUGO, no nectar"
Any thoughts?, BTW I'm drinking my Watts Light Naranja as I type this…