Orange juice is a breakfast staple in many American households, but a new proposal to lower the minimum sugar content could bring a change to the popular beverage.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced Tuesday that it had proposed a rule to amend “the over 60-year-old Standard of Identity for pasteurized orange juice” and lower the minimum standard sugar content by 0.5%.
The proposed amendment would specifically seek to reduce the minimum Brix requirement — “a measurement that indicates the sugar content of a liquid,” according to the FDA — from 10.5% to 10%. The announcement comes in the wake of a petition submitted by the Florida Citrus Processors Association and Florida Citrus Mutual in 2022.
That petition stated that since 2005, orange trees in the Sunshine State had been increasingly infected by something called citrus greening disease, or huanglongbing, a bacterial infection of citrus plants that “degrades” the fruit and eventually kills the tree itself.
According to the industry petition, the spread of citrus greening disease, combined with “substantial severe weather,” had damaged the state’s orange groves, resulting in lower crop production and affecting “normal fruit sugar content.”
While the lower sugar content standard may have some concerned about the sweetness of their orange juice, the agency noted that the less than 1% difference is “unlikely to affect the taste of orange juice and will have minimum impact on the nutrients found in orange juice.”
For those looking for a healthier swap for their morning OJ fix, the USDA states that “at least half” of a person’s daily recommended amount of fruit should come from nutrient-dense whole fruit, rather than 100% fruit juice, as whole fruit is higher in fiber.