Fruit and grape juices in bulk containers Pt1
This series of pages contains several pictures of labels from steel drums, which were used to store and transport various fruit and grape juices, as well as brined mushrooms, sucrose and other substances.
Please view the part of the Terms of Use for this site, which pertains to the products and their containers on the pictures in this series of pages.
Since restaurants and banquet halls serve juices to their patrons, it makes sense for them to buy concentrated juices in bulk quantities, you can often find empty barrels outside their service entrances.
Next time you order a glass of juice, you may want to inquire about what kind of water was used to reconstitute it.
Quite naturally, if you desire to limit your fluorides intake to an absolute minimum possible, it also makes sense to ask what kind of water they use to cook, as well as to make tea and coffee.
Beer and soft drinks would also contain fluorides, if fluoridated water was used in their preparation.
That is why the reconstituted juices are by no means the only possible source of dietary fluoride intake.
White grape juice. There is no mention that it is concentrated juice. Whether or not the juice is concentrated can be determined from the Brix value, if you know the grape type, but it is not marked on this label.
Drums often have two labels on diametrically opposite sides. One is a full-featured label, with a company logo, the other one with just the basic data about the shipment.
This, obviously, makes handling and loading easier, since at least one of those labels can be seen from pretty much any angle.
I do not remember if these two pictures are from the same drum. My job was to quickly take pictures without attracting attention and to disappear.
This orange juice is concentrated. If you use concentrated orange juice and you want to minimize your exposure to fluorides, make sure you dilute (reconstitute) it with fluoride-free water.
The term "BRIX", which you can see on this drum, refers to the Brix scale (or degrees Brix). It is a value of the weight ratio or weight percentage of dissolved sucrose to water in a solution.
A value of 25 Brix solution is 25% of sucrose in weight units of both solution and solute ("weight over weight (w/w).
One liter of juice (Coca Cola concentrate, Pepsi concentrate or any soft drink concentrate) of 25 Brix contains 250 grams of sucrose sugar.
In the old days the value of degrees Brix (or simply Brix value) was being measured using saccharimeters, the actual number was produced from the value of specific gravity of liquid.
Nowadays it is measured with handheld digital refractometers, which are splash-proof and can be used on location.
You can find a similar value of ratio on packages of fluoridated toothpaste. It may look like this: "Sodium Monofluorophosphate 0.76% w/w"
There is also Balling scale and a Plato scale. The differences between them are minor, those scales are calculated for different reference temperatures. The Balling scale was developed by Karl Balling, a German chemist, and uses the reference temperature of 17.5°C.
The Brix scale was originally derived by Adolph Brix who simply recalculated Balling scale to a reference temperature of 15.5°C.
Subsequently the Brix scale was recalculated again, but the original name kept.
The new reference temperature is 20°C. This was apparently done to reflect the more common values of ambient temperatures at producer's premises.
The Plato scale is also a refinement of the Balling scale, with the same reference temperature of 17.5°C, but different modulus.
The Plato scale is primarily used in brewing industry.
The three scales are often used interchangeably since the differences are minor.
Old saccharimeters were calibrated in the Balling scale, which is still being used by wine industry in the more traditional countries.
Brix is mostly used in fruit juice, wine making, soft drinks, fruit canning and the sugar industry.
Sugar content is used to determine the best harvesting times of grapes.
Theoretically it can also be used to determine the sugar content in any other fruits for the same purpose of deciding on the optimal harvesting time, but, realistically speaking, if produce has to be shipped over thousands of miles, other factors enter the picture, which would necessitate harvesting of "green fruits" or unripened fruits, with the idea of minimizing spoilage during transportation. I heard that acetilen gas is pumped into the halls of ships for that same purpose.
However, the juice producers are not under the same constraints, as fruit producers. They can harvest their produce at the ideal time, produce juice, concentrate it, if they need, and ship it in refrigerated trucks or in the refrigerated halls of cargo ships to the final desination.
The markings on the drum do not say whether this juice is concentrated. This information should have been on the label then, but the label was not preserved on that drum.
Continue...Pt2
Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8
Pictures of industrial accident (propane explosion)
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