Not Getting All the Juice I Paid For

I was going to launch this week’s opening salvo at the woman next to me on the Metro this morning who was chomping her gum and then sucking on it and then pop-ing it. Furthermore I won’t go into the fact that she was chewing spearmint gum at 7am...what the hell are you eating/drinking/not brushing your teeth that you have to chew mint gum that early in the morning? But I’m not going into that or her as promised.

However I will launch today’s opening at the nice folks at The Tropicana Juice Company. My wife recently brought home a container of your new “Trop 50” product. At first I was very excited to try this new juice which claims that it has “The goodness of orange juice with 50% less sugar and calories.” Wow! I can’t wait to try this.

From the first sip I noticed something wasn’t quite right but I couldn’t put my finger on it. The taste said “orange” but the consistency was a little to thin. It was almost as if somebody took a container of juice, poured out half and then refilled the bottle with water. I’d better have a look at the side of the juice carton:


Wha...wha...what????

Does that Trop50 on the left say “42% juice”? But I thought this was supposed to be orange juice, not “orange drink”?

Well evidently I was wrong. So the nice folks over at Tropicana have their founder Tony Rossi rolling over his watery grave (less calories in him too). Looks like my initial tastes were correct. Cut out 48% of the juice and add water...sounds nutritious to me.

Somebody has to explain to me how you can still get the same amount of vitamins in this water cut stuff then you do in the real OJ? You don’t get the same amount? Are you sure? You get half? Oh and it costs the same as regular orange juice? Damn!

Just to be clear here diet conscious readers. I understand the desire to cut your caloric intake but real OJ is made from natural sugars and sweetening. The calories in there are actually “good”. If you believe that this Trop50 is going to cut it for you then why don’t you go ahead and add water to your beer. Oh wait, that’s Michelob Ultra. Ok but you can add water to your Gatorade...nope...that’s G2.

Listen up marketers....stop trying to run this game on us. While I do understand that there is a percentage of this country’s population that will fall for this trick. I won’t...do you hear me! No Fake Birth Certificates and No Fake Orange Juice.