Video Transcript
The image below shows a labeled
bottle of orange juice. Why might the company claim the
orange juice is 100 percent pure?
Here’s our bottle, here’s the
label, and here we can see stamped on the bottle the claim the orange juice is
100 percent pure. In everyday language, when we
see the word pure, it generally means that we’re dealing with that thing and
nothing else. So, this is orange juice and
nothing but orange juice. This means there’s no apple
juice, no blackberry juice, and no bananas. So, all of the juice in the
bottle came from oranges. Something else we might expect
when we see the word pure on food or drink is that nothing’s been added. This means sugars and
artificial sweeteners and so forth haven’t been introduced. The exception we might make for
orange juice is that water’s been added. Therefore, a company might
claim the orange juice is 100 percent pure because it contains no added or
artificial products.
Why might a chemist say that
the orange juice is not pure?
To a chemist, the word pure has
a slightly more specific meaning. We use pure when referring to a
sample that contains only one chemical substance. The substances inside orange
juice include water, different types of acid, sugars, and, depending on the
type, there may be more or less fiber from the pulp. But this is only a short list
of the many, many substances you might find in orange juice. All these substances are
different chemicals, so orange juice is not a pure chemical. So, a chemist might say that
the orange juice is not pure because it does not contain just one substance.
