How your glass of ‘pure orange juice’ could be TWO YEARS old

... and why raspberry flavouring’s made from beavers, in our series on the unsavoury truth behind some of your favourite foods

years without perishing. That’s hardly ‘fresh’ — but the real worry is the high levels of fructose or ‘fruit sugar’ contained in all types of orange juice, whether freshly squeezed or not.

All fructose is metabolised by the liver, so an excess of it contributes to an increase in visceral fat (the kind of fat you find around the vital organs). As a result, heavy fructose consumption can lead to cirrhosis of the liver, obesity, cardiovascular damage and even liver cancer.

Moreover, the damage caused by fructose is very hard to spot, mainly because those suffering from it tend not to look fat.

Increasing fruit juice and smoothie sales, together with the inclusion of fructose as a sweetener in many processed foods, mean that we now consume around three times more fructose than we did 15 years ago, and many believe this is a public health crisis in the making.

So, how much is too much? The British Dietetic Association says that, because of its high fructose levels, we should drink only one 150 ml glass of fruit juice a day.

Whatever you do, never use fruit juice as a replacement for actual fruit. When you eat a whole piece of fruit, the fructose in it comes equipped with fibre, giving your liver far more time to metabolise it than with fruit juice.

Smoothies are not much better, as when fruit is blended, the insoluble fibre is torn to smithereens.

So, while an apple a day may help to keep the doctor away, be sure not to overdo it on the juicy stuff.

Anyone for beaver flavouring?

WhIle you can find products on the market flavoured with 100 per cent fruit, it’s cheaper for manufacturers to produce most of the flavours found in processed food artificially.

With the help of a bit of biochemistry, scientists extract aroma-yielding chemicals from thousands of natural sources, such as plants, vegetables and different foods, and then mix them to create specific flavours.

Remarkably, this is often done without the use of any compounds derived from the food they are trying to mimic but, once combined, they capture its aroma perfectly.

For example, strawberry flavouring can be created using hundreds of dauntingly named and unusual aromas. These include: furanyl (a by-product of cooked sugar, said to have an aroma reminiscent of burnt meat); cis-3-hexenal (a colourless liquid distilled from peppermint oil and smelling intensely of freshly cut grass); and 2-methyl butyric acid ( a chemical with a sour taste that occurs naturally in beer and tobacco).

If these sound unappetising, how about castoreum, an ingredient in raspberry flavouring? This is derived from the scent gland of a beaver.

When cheese isn’t cheese at all

DeSpITe having access to over 700 distinctive regional cheeses (France, by the way, has a paltry 400), we British get through an astonishing 40,000 tons of processed cheeses annually, be it smooth philadelphia Spread, neon-orange Kraft Singles, or individually-wrapped laughing Cow Triangles.

While these three can be called cheese, many others cannot legally be labelled simply ‘cheese’. Instead, they are often referred to as ‘cheese food’, ‘cheese spread’, or ‘cheese product’, because of the amounts of additives and other ingredients used during their production.

These include water (which can account for around 56 per cent of the final product), while cheese, which you might suppose to be the most important ingredient, sometimes accounts for a feeble 10 per cent — just enough to give the product a cheesy flavour.

Five unhealthy ‘health’ foods

The diet industry is booming, and yet we’ve never been fatter. Could ‘healthy choice’ foods like the following have something to do with it?

GRANOLA: This combination of cereal, honey, dried fruit and nuts is commonly considered a healthy and delicious breakfast option. And why not? Most granolas feature energygiving fibre-rich oats as their primary ingredient. But having oats centrestage doesn’t automatically make granola a health food, and definitely doesn’t make it low-calorie.

In reality, most granolas are classified as high-sugar, with more than 12.5 g of sugar per 100 g, much of which has been deliberately added to make it taste more palatable than the stuff found in health food shops. And don’t be fooled by the addition of honey — it’s still a sugar.

LOW-FAT FOOD: Reduced-fat foods may sound great (especially if you’re dieting), but while less fat in your diet can be a good thing, products with these labels usually come at a price. For example, when the fat is removed from a product, its salt and sugar content are often bumped up.

ENERGY BARS: Many energy and protein- rich ‘ sports’ bars are marketed as ‘fuel for athletes’, but Brits of all activity levels consume them, wrongly believing they are a form of healthy snack.

In reality, energy bars are simply a portable way of delivering the highest number of calories in the shortest amount of time. helpful if you’re an endurance athlete — but not if you’re sat in front of a computer all day. FROZEN YOGHURT: You may feel virtuous ordering a creamy, white swirl of frozen yoghurt from the ‘real’ yoghurt vendors popping up across Britain: much of it is full of probiotics and it’s a lot lighter than your average dollop of ice cream, right?

Not so fast. Frozen yoghurt may be relatively low in saturated fat, but in terms of calories it isn’t far behind ice cream, especially with toppings. PROBIOTICS: Natural yoghurt may be brimming with gut-friendly bacteria but, according to some experts, they become all but useless once exposed to extreme temperatures, by freezing them for instance.

ExtractEd from Food Unwrapped: Lifting the Lid On How Our Food Is really Produced, by daniel tapper, published by Bantam at £14.99 ©daniel tapper 2015. to order a copy for the special price of £12.74 (valid until March 7), visit mailbookshop.co.uk P&P is free for a limited time only.