Stiftung Warentest tested apple juice – with mixed results. Non-concentrated juices perform best, most juices are average. The test method misses an important problem.
After orange juice, apple juice is the second most popular juice in Germany: we drink around six and a half liters of it per person per year – not including apple juice. The selection of products in the supermarket is so large.
Stiftung Warentest has now tasted and tested 26 apple juices in the laboratory. The result: only six drinks – all non-concentrated natural cloud juices – rated “good”. Most of the juices are satisfactory, three are fair, and one fails with the poor.
Apple Juice: The natural straight juice of the cloud convinces in the experiment
Of the 26 apple juices in the test, 16 were not from concentrate. This juice is briefly heated and bottled immediately after the apples are pressed. On the other hand, juice made from juice concentrate is heated through the concentrate, which is then returned to the juice with its water and flavors.
“Tests show that natural cloud-not-from-concentrate juices are superior to those made from concentrate, especially in terms of taste,” says project manager Janine Schlenker. Apple juice is naturally cloudy, but can be clarified by centrifuging and filtering. Sometimes gelatin is also used for filtration, so such milks are generally considered non-vegan.
According to Stiftung Warentest, natural cloudy waters are even healthier than clear ones because they contain more effective plant substances (polyphenols). These are mainly found in cloudy matter. However, apple juice rarely contains natural vitamin C.
Winning and losing the test
Among the six good waters are two organic waters:
- Voelkel Demeter apple 100% straight juice
- Van Nahmen organic apple juice from meadow orchards
Conventional ones too direct cloudy water from Edeka and Lidl do well
Both Non-concentrated water from Aldi Nord as well as well-known well-known liquid juices – for example from amecca and you – are only satisfactory in the test.
By cutting “enough” among others. natural cloudy water from Dm Bio and Granini serve Testers have criticized both the low flavor content and the grainy water for vague statements about sugar content and alleged CO2 neutrality.
Out of eight organic apple juices tested, only the above two fared well, the other four (Aldi Nord, Edeka, Lidl, Rabenhorst) satisfactorily.
Of the Alnatura apple juice is naturally cloudy only the drinking water does not pass the test – the laboratory found high levels of ethanol, volatile acidity and acetoin. According to Stiftung Warentest, this indicates poor quality apples or incorrect processing. However, the levels are not harmful to health.
The test ignores the drugs
What you need to know: In contrast to Öko-Test, “sensory judgment” (i.e. taste) is highly rated at Stiftung Warentest. “Chemical quality”, on the other hand, makes up only 15% of the overall assessment.
It is clear that the laboratory did not check whether there were any drug residues. The use of pesticides in apple cultivation is widespread. In 2020, Öko-Test tested apple juice and found traces of insects in all traditional juices – some in abundance and some particularly problematic.
Not dirty, but not necessarily healthy
After all, the Stiftung Warentest laboratory did not find any other residues or contaminants harmful to health, such as toxins or microbes, in any drinking water.
However, nutritionists often point out that fruit juices are not thirst-quenching. It has a lot of fructose.
The German Diet Association (DGE) does not even classify fruit juice as a drink, but as fruit and vegetables – because according to experts the drinks should be “low-energy”. This applies to water and unsweetened teas, but not to drinking water. To easily meet the recommendation of eating five portions of fruit and vegetables a day, one piece of fruit can be replaced with 200 milliliters of fruit juice, but not every day.
You can find detailed test results online at test.de or in the 3/22 test magazine.
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