a beverage made from fresh fruits, berries, or vegetables.
A distinction is made between clear juices, which are made by pressing already processed (usually chopped up) fruits or berries, and juices with pulp, which are obtained from the strained pulp of fruits and vegetables rich in carotene and other valuable water-insoluble components. Distinctions are also made between natural juices (from one type of fruit or vegetable without the addition of other substances), mixed juices (mixture of several types of juices), sweetened juices (with the addition of sugar or sugar syrup), carbonated juices (concentrated with carbon dioxide), and concentrated juices (evaporated juices).
Methods of preserving juices include pasteurization (or sterilization), freezing, treatment with antiseptics or other chemical substances (most often with sulfurous, benzoic, and sorbic acids and their salts), fermentation, and fortification with ethanol (which produces intermediates for wine-making).
Juices are particularly important as a source of vitamins, especially vitamin C. For example, the vitamin C content is 250–300 mg percent in blackberry juice and 100 mg percent in mandarin juice.
The most common fruit and berry juices in the USSR are grape, apple, cherry, and prune; the most common vegetable juices are tomato and carrot. Grape juice contains 15 percent dry matter (including 13.2 percent carbohydrates), 3.5 mg percent vitamin C, and 0.12 mg percent carotene. It has an acidity of 0.2 percent. Also contained in grape juice are vitamin B,, vitamin P, and salts of potassium, iron, calcium, and phosphorus. Tomato juice contains 4.8–5 percent dry matter (including 3 percent carbohydrates and 0.8 percent proteins), 15 mg percent vitamin C, and 0.5 mg percent carotene; vitamin B1; vitamin B2, vitamin PP, and mineral salts are also contained in the juice.
A. F. NAMESTNIKOV