A while ago I was browsing the fruit juice section at my local Shop-Rite, and beheld some watermelon juice. I've obviously had watermelon many times in my life, as well as quite a few watermelon-flavored products (some which used actual watermelons, some which used artificial, chemical approximations). But never, to my recollection, the juice alone. So, I gave this a try. It was from the ISO Naturals company, which is based in NJ in the U.S. Although the label noted that the contents were a product of Turkey (spelled "Turkiye," with an umlaut over the "u"), so presumably the melons were grown and processed in Turkey, and then exported to the parent company in the U.S.A.
This is yet another entry in my growing-ever-longer list of companies which don't seem to want to talk about their owner(s), founder(s), or company history much at all. The official website noted that they've been in business "nearly a decade," but that was it. Alternate business-related websites like LinkedIn listed some employees' names, but none were the owners or founders. I looked up the names that were provided online to find out what ethnicity they were probably of, and leaned that they seemed Turkish in origin. So, it would seem that IOS Naturals was probably founded by some Turkish folks, or perhaps Turkish-Americans. Sometime around 2015 or 2016. Alternate juice selections include pear, apricot, cranberry, super chia, "forest fruits," "green," and "red." Aside from juices, IOS also markets spreadable fruits, seeds, salt & pepper, oils, fig balls, dried fruits, and capers. The business is extremely into being all natural, as their wares are organic, and lack GMOs, preservatives, artificial flavors, and added sugar.
Moving on the fruit whose juice I consumed, watermelons are native to Africa. Wild watermelon seeds have been found in Libya which date back 5500 years ago. A melon in Sudan is a good candidate for being the original progenitor for watermelons. They were domesticated in Egypt by 2000 B.C. Although these early watermelons were quite different, with yellowish-white inner flesh, and a bitter flavor. People have been breeding them for millennia to make them into the red-fleshed, sweet, relatively easy-to-open fruits we know today. Also, botanically this large fruit is technically a berry. In addition to eating the flesh, some people press the seeds for their oil, and some other eat the rinds after they've been cooked or pickled. In fact, I've had the rind in pickled form--see my long ago post on May 12, 2013 about Ottumwa, Iowa cuisine for more details about that.
IOS Naturals organic watermelon juice: It had a slight odor. The color was reddish-orange. The taste was rather thin, and kind of watery. It wasn't terrible, but not really appealing, either. Just bland. Not that sweet, not that much of anything. Kind of like the fruit itself. I probably mentioned this in previous posts, but I don't enjoy watermelon, because of its watery blandness. Therefore, it makes sense that I also find its juice to be dull, and not worth the trouble. I was also surprised by how high it was in calories--120 per serving, which was 8 ounces (240 mL). There was apple juice concentrate in it too--maybe the apples were the main culprit here. Anyway, I won't be buying this again, which is pretty much what I figured, since this fruit doesn't dazzle me. But if you're a fan of watermelon in general, you'll probably enjoy this. I'll stick to eating watermelon in the only way I've really liked, which was pickled. As I covered in the previous paragraph.
I also noted that the label on my bottle said that the juice had been "flash pasteurized." Which, as I learned, simply means that it was heated at a higher temperature, for a shorter amount of time, than the normal pasteurization process. This is thought to preserve the substance in questions' color and flavor better. Since this will still kill any harmful bacteria, this sounds like a win-win situation. Certainly better than the foolish alternative of drinking non-pasteurized drinks, and needlessly risking getting sick.
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