Lemonade

Description of product

Lemonades are soft drinks that mainly consist of water, sugar (at least 7%), flavouring, food-grade acids and natural colouring.

No artificial flavouring and preservatives may be added. For lemonade containing fruit juice, the percentage of juice must be given.

• Drinks designated as fruit juices have to contain a specific amount of fruit juice; any amount of sugar is permissible. The fruit content must be given on the label. Depending on the type of fruit, this is usually between 6% and 30%.

Cola is a lemonade containing natural extracts from the Cola nut, ginger, orange blossom, carob and lime peel. Caffeine and phosphoric acid are added by the manufacturer. The exact recipe is kept a strict secret.

• See also: fruit juice

Possible application of gene technology

Applications of gene technology are possible in the following ingredients that commonly are found in lemonade. However, the extent to which a particular product is affected by these possibilities cannot be stated with certainty:

• glucose syrup, dextrose, fructose, inverted sugar syrup
• sugar
• colouring agents such as riboflavin, beta-carotene, inverted sugar syrup
• for extraction of plant colouring agents or colouring foodstuffs, fruit extracts, herb extracts or flavouring extracts, pectinases
• anti-oxidation agents: ascorbic acid (vitamin C)
• for vitaminising lemonade: vitamins
• flavourings
• flavour enhancer: maltol
• acidity regulator gluconic acid
• possibly: fruit and food acids such as citric acid or lactic acid

Particularly for calorie-reduced products also:

• sweeteners such as aspartame