Yet, the consideration of consumers continues to take a back seat in terms of the timing of these regulations. Recent FDA conversations with one vendor who sells citrus juicing equipment to retail establishments indicated that that vendor alone had sold approximately 20,000 units. The FDA has declared that the elderly, the immune impaired and children will be mentioned in the warnings on juices. However, pregnant women are also particularly susceptible to foodborne illnesses, particularly Listeria monocytogenes. Listeria monocytogenes can cause second and third trimester stillbirth and meningitis in newborns.
Unpasteurized juice is always more risky than eating a single fruit or vegetable.
As more and more fruit or vegetables go into a batch, the risk of contaminating the batch goes up. A person might eat as many as 50 oranges in one year, but a person drinking mass-produced, unpasteurized juice made from a 1000 oranges can be exposed to the contamination of a single contaminated orange in that batch. The United States today is also creating sweeter juices than were previously consumed. As the sweetness of the juice increases, the acidity goes down. The less acid a juice is, the easier it is for organisms to survive.