Apple juice is a fruit juice manufactured by the maceration and pressing of apples. The resulting expelled juice may be further treated by enzymatic and centrifugal clarification to remove the starch and pectin, which holds fine particulate in suspension, and then pasteurized for packaging in glass, metal or aseptic processing system containers, or further treated by dehydration processes to a concentrate. Apple juice may also be sold in an untreated state.
Due to the complex and costly equipment required to extract and clarify juice from apples in large volume, apple juice is normally commercially produced. In the United States, unfiltered fresh apple juice is produced by smaller operations in areas of high apple production, in the form of unclarified apple cider. Apple juice is one of the most common fruit juices in the world, with world production led by China, Poland, the United States and Germany.[1]
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Vitamin C is sometimes added by fortification, because content is variable,[2] and much of that is lost in processing. Other vitamin concentrations are low, but apple juice does contain various mineral nutrients, including boron, which may promote healthy bones.[3] Apple juice has a significant concentration of natural phenols of low molecular weight (including chlorogenic acid, flavan-3-ols, and flavonols) and procyanidins[4] that may protect from diseases associated with aging due to the antioxidant effects which help reduce the likelihood of developing cancer and Alzheimer's disease.[5] Research suggests that apple juice increases acetylcholine in the brain, resulting in increased memory.[6] Despite its positive health benefits, apple juice is high in sugar. It has 28 g carbohydrates (24 g sugars) per 8 ounces. This results in 130 calories per 8 ounces (protein and fat are not significant), which compares to non-diet soft drinks such as Pepsi and 7 Up. Also like most fruit juice, apple juice contains the same amount of sugar, but lacks the fiber due to loss of skin.
While apple juice generally refers to the filtered, pasteurised product of apple pressing, an unfiltered and sometimes unpasteurised product commonly known as apple cider in the United States and parts of Canada may be packaged and sold as apple juice. In the U.S., there is an unclear distinction between filtered apple juice and natural apple cider.[7] In other places such as New Zealand, Australia and the United Kingdom, apple cider is an alcoholic beverage. The alcoholic beverage referred to as cider in these areas is usually referred to as hard cider in the United States.
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