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Decoding 'Not From Concentrate' on Juice: What It Means for Calories, Sugars, and Nutrition

If you track calories or macros, “not from concentrate” sounds like it should tell you something big about nutrition. It does tell you something useful — but…

By Mara Solletti · Jul 22, 2026 · 23 min read

If you track calories or macros, “not from concentrate” sounds like it should tell you something big about nutrition. It does tell you something useful — but not the thing most shoppers assume.

In plain terms, not from concentrate means the juice was pressed or squeezed from fruit and packaged without first removing its water and later adding that water back. By contrast, juice from concentrate is made by extracting juice, removing much of its water for storage or transport, and then reconstituting it to drinking strength later.

For calorie logging, that distinction usually matters less than the marketing suggests. University of Maine Cooperative Extension, Lose It, and Frobishers all make the same core point in different ways: if both products are 100% juice, properly reconstituted, and don’t include added sugars or other calorie-bearing extras, their calories and sugars are generally very similar.

The bigger tracking questions are usually:

Is it actually 100% juice, or is it a fruit drink, cocktail, or blend?
Does the ingredient list include added sugars, flavors, or preservatives?
What serving size does the Nutrition Facts panel use?
How much did you actually pour?

So the right way to read the label is: product type first, ingredient list second, serving size third, NFC/FC claim fourth.

What ‘Not From Concentrate’ Means on Juice Labels

The simplest answer to what does not from concentrate mean is this: the juice was made from fruit juice in its original drinking strength, without a dehydration-and-reconstitution cycle.

That basic definition is consistent across neutral and commercial explainers alike. University of Maine Cooperative Extension describes not-from-concentrate juice as juice that is pressed or squeezed, pasteurized, then packaged and sold. Frobishers says the same. Eager describes it as fruit that is “squished and then pasteurised,” then packaged with its original water content.

A few practical points matter:

The original water stays in the juice. That is the defining difference. The juice remains at single strength rather than becoming a concentrated intermediate product.
“Not from concentrate” describes processing, not freshness. Lose It explicitly notes that not from concentrate is not the same thing as fresh, raw juice. NFC juice is commonly pasteurized, just like from-concentrate juice.
NFC does not mean untouched. Depending on the fruit and manufacturer, the juice may still be filtered, clarified, centrifuged, pasteurized, and standardized before sale. Rabenhorst’s description of “pure juice,” for example, includes sorting, pressing, optional filtration, pasteurization, and bottling.
The label does not guarantee better nutrition by itself. It tells you the juice skipped one specific step: water removal followed by re-addition. It does not automatically tell you the product is lower in calories, lower in sugar, raw, or closer to a just-squeezed glass at home.

That last point matters for calorie trackers. The phrase creates a health halo, but the label itself does not prove a calorie or sugar advantage.

Commercial examples help illustrate what the label is really doing. Eager says its orange, apple, pineapple, pink grapefruit, and tomato juices are not from concentrate, while some other juices in its range use concentrate. Frobishers similarly describes some of its juices as not from concentrate while using concentrate for other drinks. Those examples reinforce the real meaning of the phrase: it is a production-method label, not a complete nutrition verdict.

So if you see “not from concentrate” on the front of a carton, the most accurate interpretation is:

This juice was pressed from fruit and packaged without going through a water-removal and water-readdition step.

Useful? Yes. A shortcut for “lower-calorie” or “healthier”? No.

How Not From Concentrate Juice Is Made: Step-by-Step

For calorie tracking, it helps to picture the process. NFC juice is not mysterious; it is just a shorter production chain.

A typical not-from-concentrate process looks like this:

Fruit is selected, washed, and scrubbed. Modern Milkman, Frobishers, and Rabenhorst all describe cleaning and sorting as early steps.
The juice is extracted. Depending on the fruit, that may mean squeezing, crushing, blending, or pressing.
The juice may be filtered, finished, or clarified. Rabenhorst describes optional centrifuging and filtration. This can change texture and appearance, but it does not turn the juice into concentrate.
The juice is pasteurized. University of Maine Cooperative Extension, Frobishers, Eager, and Lose It all describe pasteurization as a standard part of commercial juice production. Its purpose is safety and shelf life.
The juice is bottled and sold at single strength. No dehydration step is used, so the juice keeps its original water content.

That last step is what defines NFC. The juice stays in drinkable form the whole time.

From a tracking standpoint, that means the juice reaches the bottle with its original water content intact. But it is still important not to overstate that. NFC juice may skip concentration, yet pasteurization and storage can still affect some nutrients, especially heat-sensitive ones. So the safest claim is about water content and single-strength status, not that every nutrient remains unchanged from fruit to carton.

Filtration can happen without changing the NFC status

Many shoppers hear “not from concentrate” and imagine cloudy, pulpy, minimally handled juice. That is not necessarily true.

Rabenhorst’s process description includes centrifuging and optional filtration before pasteurization. So:

NFC does not mean unfiltered
Filtered does not mean concentrated

This matters because appearance is not a reliable clue to the label category.

Pasteurization is standard, not a warning sign

Pasteurization sometimes gets treated like a flaw, but the evidence pack consistently describes it as routine for store-bought juice. University of Maine Cooperative Extension and Lose It both note that both NFC and from-concentrate juices are typically pasteurized to reduce pathogens.

So if you are reading labels for calorie logging, do not confuse:

not from concentrate with
raw or
freshly squeezed that day

Those are different ideas.

NFC can still be industrially handled

This is the nuance shoppers often miss. NFC means the juice skipped concentration. It does not necessarily mean a short supply chain, no standardization, or near-farm freshness.

Commercial NFC juice can still be handled on an industrial scale before sale. Even when the process is simpler than concentrate, it is still a manufactured food product.

NFC often has a shorter commercial life than concentrate-based juice

Several sources, including Modern Milkman, Frobishers, and GoodRx, describe from-concentrate juice as easier to store and longer-lived because much of the water has been removed first. By comparison, NFC is often sold refrigerated and often has a shorter shelf life.

Exact durations vary by product, so the defensible takeaway is broad rather than numeric:

NFC keeps the water in
FC removes much of it for logistics

For logging, the key takeaway is simple: NFC usually follows fruit → extraction → optional filtration → pasteurization → bottle, without becoming concentrate first.

Juice From Concentrate: The Contrasting Process

To understand NFC clearly, it helps to compare it with the alternative.

Juice from concentrate also starts as real fruit juice. The difference is what happens after extraction.

Across GoodRx, Healthline, Frobishers, Pomona, and University of Maine Cooperative Extension, the standard description looks like this:

Fruit is washed and juiced.
Water is removed from the juice by evaporation, filtration, or similar methods.
The result becomes a thicker, concentrated product, often described as syrup-like.
That concentrate is stored, frozen, or transported more efficiently.
Water is added back later to restore drinking strength.
The finished juice is packaged for sale.

Different sources place pasteurization at slightly different points in the sequence. Some describe it before concentration, some after reconstitution, and some describe preservation at more than one stage. The exact order can vary by manufacturer. But the defining feature does not change:

From-concentrate juice had water removed and later re-added.

Why remove the water?

Because juice is mostly water. GoodRx notes that water makes up about 90% of juice, and uses orange juice as an example.

Removing much of that water creates clear logistics advantages:

less volume to ship
less weight devoted to water
easier storage
cheaper transport
often longer shelf life

That is why concentrate exists. The process was adopted for distribution efficiency, not because concentration inherently improves nutrition.

Does “from concentrate” mean fake juice?

No.

This is an important correction because shoppers often hear “from concentrate” and translate it to “artificial.” That is not accurate.

University of Maine Cooperative Extension distinguishes 100% fruit juice from fruit drinks and fruit-flavored drinks, and Pomona’s label explainer notes that “100% juice” can still be from concentrate. In other words:

a product can be 100% juice from concentrate
and a product can be 100% juice not from concentrate

Those are both real juice categories.

What changes the nutrition profile more dramatically is usually not the concentration step itself, but the exact product category and ingredient list. Healthline and GoodRx both note that concentrate-based products include several types, such as:

100% juice
cocktails or punches
blends
powdered concentrates

Those products are not nutritionally interchangeable, which is why “from concentrate” alone is not enough information for logging.

What calorie trackers should take from the contrast

The useful contrast is process-based, not moral:

NFC: juice stayed in drinkable form
FC: juice was concentrated, then reconstituted

That difference matters for shelf life, price, and logistics. It often matters much less for calories than shoppers expect.

Key Differences: Shelf Life, Cost, Taste, and Logistics

Once you get past the label definitions, the real differences between NFC and from concentrate are mostly practical.

Factor	Not from concentrate	From concentrate
Processing	Pressed/squeezed, pasteurized, packaged without water removal	Juice is concentrated, stored or shipped, then reconstituted
Water during shipping	Original water stays in product	Much of the water is removed before shipping
Shelf life	Often shorter	Often longer
Storage	Often refrigerated	Often easier to store and distribute
Cost	Often higher	Often lower
Flavor consistency	May vary more by batch or harvest	Often easier to standardize
Additives	May be just juice, or may include additions depending on product	May be just juice, or may include additions depending on product

Shelf life and refrigeration

Modern Milkman, Frobishers, and GoodRx all describe concentrate as better suited to storage and transport. That is consistent with the underlying process: shipping concentrated product is easier than shipping ready-to-drink liquid juice.

So the broad pattern is:

NFC is often refrigerated
FC is often better suited to shelf-stable distribution

That does not make one automatically healthier. It just reflects the mechanics of moving either full-strength liquid juice or a more compact concentrate through the supply chain.

Cost

From-concentrate juice is usually the cheaper system to produce and distribute because it reduces shipping and storage costs. GoodRx and Frobishers both frame concentrate as the more efficient transport option.

That efficiency often reaches the shelf price. So if you care most about cost, convenience, and longer storage, from concentrate may be the practical choice.

Taste

This is where the evidence gets softer.

Commercial sellers often describe NFC as tasting closer to fresh-squeezed. Rabenhorst, by contrast, adds a more useful nuance: direct juice may reflect natural harvest variation, while concentrate makes it easier to standardize flavor from batch to batch.

That leads to a careful, supportable summary:

NFC is often marketed as more fresh-tasting
concentrate often allows more consistent flavor
which one tastes better depends on the fruit, the process, storage, and your own preference

Eager gives a helpful real-world example here. It says it uses NFC for orange, apple, pineapple, pink grapefruit, and tomato juices, but uses concentrate for cranberry and pomegranate in part for taste reasons. That is a good reminder that NFC is not automatically the preferred method for every fruit.

Additives and ingredient lists

This is where the article needs to be very precise.

It is not well supported to say that from-concentrate juice generally predicts added sugars, preservatives, or flavors. Healthline and GoodRx both show that concentrate appears in multiple product types, some plain and some highly sweetened. University of Maine Cooperative Extension also separates 100% juice from fruit drinks and similar beverages.

The most defensible rule is:

Either NFC or FC can be plain juice
Either NFC or FC can include extra ingredients
You have to check the exact product

So “not from concentrate” is not a substitute for reading the ingredient list, and “from concentrate” is not proof that something has been sweetened.

The big-picture tradeoff

If you strip away the marketing, the difference is mostly this:

NFC favors a shorter processing chain in liquid form
FC favors cheaper transport, easier storage, and often lower cost

Both can be reasonable purchases. For calorie tracking, what matters is not which front-label phrase sounds cleaner. It is what the Nutrition Facts panel and ingredient list say about the bottle in your hand.

Nutrition and Calorie Comparison: NFC vs From Concentrate

For macro tracking, this is the section that matters most.

Calories and sugars are usually similar in comparable products

University of Maine Cooperative Extension says there is no nutritional difference between NFC and from-concentrate juice as long as additional ingredients like sugar are not added. Lose It makes the same point, and Frobishers goes even further, saying the calorie content will be the same when the concentrate is correctly rehydrated and no added sugars or sweeteners are included.

So if you are comparing:

100% orange juice, not from concentrate
versus
100% orange juice from concentrate

you should not assume the from-concentrate version is inherently higher in calories.

There can still be small label differences. GoodRx gives one example in which 1 cup of fresh/not-from-concentrate orange juice is listed at 112 calories, while 1 cup of orange juice from concentrate is listed at 122 calories. That is a real published comparison, but it is not a dramatic gap, and it should not be treated as proof that concentration automatically adds 10 calories per cup. Brand variation, fruit variation, calculation methods, and label rounding can all contribute.

For practical logging, the safe summary is:

Comparable unsweetened 100% juices are usually in the same calorie and sugar range, whether NFC or FC.

Micronutrients may differ, but not always by a lot

This is where the evidence is more mixed, but still directionally useful.

GoodRx reports that concentrate processing can reduce some nutrients, especially when heat evaporation is used. In its orange-juice comparison, fresh/not-from-concentrate orange juice had higher values for vitamin C, potassium, and folate than the from-concentrate version.

That supports a cautious conclusion:

Some micronutrients can be lower in from-concentrate juice
the size of the difference depends on the fruit, processing method, and storage
from-concentrate 100% juice can still provide useful nutrients

What the evidence does not support is turning that into a universal claim that NFC is categorically healthier in every case.

Fiber is not where juice shines

For trackers, this point is more important than small micronutrient differences: juice is low in fiber either way.

Even when a source makes stronger claims about fiber changes during concentration, the practical reality for most store-bought juice is simpler. Once you are drinking juice instead of eating whole fruit, you are usually getting far less fiber and less satiety than you would from the fruit itself.

That matters a lot for appetite control.

Juice is still a meaningful calorie source

Whether it is NFC or FC, juice is not a free beverage.

Helpful reference points from the evidence pack:

GoodRx’s orange-juice comparison: about 112 to 122 calories per cup
Lose It example cited in its label guidance: apple juice about 60 calories and 11 g sugar per 1/2 cup
Lose It example for tomato juice: about 20 calories and 3 g sugar per 1/2 cup

Those examples highlight two useful tracking truths:

Fruit juice calories add up quickly
Product type matters as much as process

A tomato juice and an apple juice can both be not from concentrate and still look very different in your log.

How much trust to place in the label

This is where CaloriePages’ own approach is helpful. As explained elsewhere on the site, calorie labels are standardized estimates, not exact measurements of your specific carton, and they can be off by about 20%.

The useful interpretation is not “labels are useless.” It is this:

labels are good enough for logging
labels are good enough for comparing products
labels are not precise enough to make tiny NFC-versus-FC differences worth obsessing over

In other words, if one orange juice says 110 calories per cup and another says 115, the practical question is usually not “Which process is healthier?” It is more likely:

Are both actually 100% juice?
Is one serving size different?
Did one product add anything?
Is the difference just normal estimate-level variation?

What matters most nutritionally

For tracking, the hierarchy is straightforward:

Is it 100% juice or a juice drink?
What does the ingredient list say?
What serving size are you using?
Then, secondarily, is it NFC or FC?

That order will improve your log more than treating the front-label process claim as the whole story.

How to Read Juice Labels for Accurate Calorie Logging

If your goal is accurate logging, this is the most useful framework in the article.

1. Check whether it is actually 100% juice

University of Maine Cooperative Extension is clear that 100% fruit juice, fruit drink, and fruit-flavored drink are not the same thing.

A product can be:

100% juice, not from concentrate
100% juice from concentrate
fruit drink
fruit-flavored drink
cocktail
blend

That first distinction matters more than NFC versus FC. If you only notice “not from concentrate” and ignore the overall product category, you can still mislog the bottle.

2. Treat “not from concentrate” as a process clue, not a nutrition shortcut

If the carton says not from concentrate, all that tells you for sure is that the juice did not go through the water-removal and water-readdition cycle.

It does not automatically tell you:

calories are lower
sugar is lower
the product is raw
the product is more filling
no other ingredients were used

That is why the front label is just your starting point.

3. Read the ingredient list next

This is where most logging errors get corrected.

For a simple juice, the ingredient list may be very short:

orange juice
apple juice
tomato juice

But Lose It’s label guide warns shoppers to watch for added ingredients such as:

high-fructose corn syrup
corn syrup
dextrose
malt
added flavorings
preservatives

If you see those, you are looking at a different nutrition picture than plain juice.

A shorter ingredient list is usually easier to log accurately.

4. Use the Nutrition Facts panel, not assumptions

Helpful examples from Lose It:

Apple juice: about 60 calories and 11 g sugar per 1/2 cup
Tomato juice: about 20 calories and 3 g sugar per 1/2 cup

Those numbers show why reading the panel matters. A vegetable juice can be much lower in calories and sugar than a fruit juice, even if both carry the same NFC label.

For orange juice, GoodRx’s published comparison puts a typical cup in the roughly 110-to-120-calorie range.

5. Watch the serving size carefully

This is where many people underlog juice.

A label may list values for:

1/2 cup
8 ounces
a serving smaller than the bottle

If you pour 12 ounces from a carton that lists nutrition per 8 ounces, you need to log 1.5 servings. If the bottle contains 2 servings and you drink the whole thing, log 2 servings.

That sounds obvious, but it is one of the most common tracking misses.

6. Use a small reference serving if juice is a regular habit

Lose It cites the American Heart Association using 1/2 cup as a practical serving reference for juice. For trackers, that is useful because it forces an honest pause before a “small glass” becomes 150 to 200 calories.

A workable logging rule is:

1/2 cup if juice is a small side beverage
1 cup if you truly poured a full glass
more than 1 cup only when you actually drank more than 1 cup

The point is not to moralize juice. It is to stop calling two servings “one glass” because it feels better in the app.

Quick juice-label checklist

Before logging a juice, check:

100% juice or not?
NFC or FC?
Any added sugars or sweeteners?
Any added flavors or preservatives?
Serving size on the panel?
How much did you actually drink?

That is the whole game.

Health Context for Calorie Trackers: Beyond NFC vs FC

The healthiest way to think about this topic is also the least glamorous:

For weight tracking, NFC versus FC usually matters less than total calories, total sugar, and whether whole fruit would serve you better.

If both are unsweetened, the process difference is secondary

University of Maine Cooperative Extension, Lose It, and Frobishers all support the same basic conclusion: if two juices are comparable, unsweetened, and otherwise plain, NFC and FC are usually close enough nutritionally that the bigger issue is amount consumed.

So the better tracking question is not:

“Is NFC healthier?”

It is:

“How many calories and grams of sugar am I drinking, and how filling is it?”

That question is much more useful.

Juice is easy to overconsume

Lose It emphasizes that juice is high in calories and sugar relative to how little fullness it creates. That is consistent with the broader nutrition point: liquid calories are easy to drink quickly.

Whole fruit comes with chewing, bulk, and fiber. Juice mostly does not.

So for someone trying to control appetite or maintain a calorie deficit, the risk is not mainly the NFC label. It is the fact that juice is easy to drink fast and easy to undercount.

Whole fruit is usually the better satiety play

The evidence pack supports a simple conclusion here: whole fruit generally offers more fiber and satiety than juice.

For hunger control, whole fruit usually wins because it gives you:

more fiber
more chewing
slower eating
better fullness per calorie

That does not mean juice has no place. It can be convenient, easy to digest, or simply enjoyable. But if your goal is fullness, neither NFC nor FC beats eating the fruit.

Labels are useful, but not perfect

CaloriePages’ own editorial stance is clear: numbers matter, but they are still estimates.

So the practical approach is:

use the label
log the actual serving
do not overreact to tiny number differences
look for patterns, not perfection

If your intake is drifting upward, the likely culprit is not whether your orange juice was NFC. It is much more likely to be portion size, repeated pours, or uncounted calories elsewhere.

Health conditions can change the stakes

CaloriePages’ terms also make an important boundary explicit: the site is for general information, not individualized medical advice.

So if you have a condition that makes sugar intake, carbohydrate timing, potassium, or fluid balance more important, use the label carefully and speak with a registered dietitian or physician before making changes.

For everyone else, the practical takeaway is straightforward:

Do not give NFC a health halo
Do not demonize concentrate
Track the actual product and portion
Use whole fruit more often when fiber and fullness matter

NFC in Common Juices: Orange, Apple, and Beyond

The NFC-versus-FC split looks a little different depending on the juice category, but the same rule still applies: read the exact product.

Orange juice

Orange juice is probably where shoppers notice the label most.

Frobishers and Eager both present orange juice as a common NFC example, and in stores NFC orange juice is often sold refrigerated and marketed as closer to fresh-squeezed. From-concentrate orange juice is also common and often appeals on cost and storage.

For logging, though, orange juice is still orange juice first. If both versions are 100% juice without added sugars, their calories are usually in the same general range.

Apple juice

Apple juice is sold in both forms, which is exactly why assumptions are risky.

Modern Milkman and Eager both use NFC apple juice as brand examples. But from-concentrate apple juice is also a standard product type in the market. So the right lesson from apple juice is not “one form dominates,” but rather:

apple juice can be NFC
apple juice can be FC
the label and ingredient list still decide what you are logging

Cranberry, pomegranate, and tart juices

Eager gives a useful example here: it says it uses concentrate for cranberry and pomegranate, even while offering NFC orange, apple, pineapple, pink grapefruit, and tomato juices.

That is a practical reminder that NFC is not automatically the best or preferred approach for every fruit. Some juices are more often sold in blends or in forms where concentrate is practical for flavor or formulation.

This is also where label reading matters most, because tart juices are often sold not just as plain juice but as:

cocktails
blends
sweetened drinks

Those categories can change the calorie story far more than NFC versus FC does.

Tomato and vegetable juices

Tomato juice deserves separate attention because it can look very different in a food log than fruit juice.

Lose It gives a simple example: tomato juice at about 20 calories and 3 g sugar per 1/2 cup, versus apple juice at about 60 calories and 11 g sugar per 1/2 cup.

So if your main concern is liquid calories, the fruit-versus-vegetable distinction may matter more than the concentrate distinction.

The practical rule across all juice types

Do not assume based on fruit name alone. Check the exact carton.

A product might be:

orange juice, not from concentrate
orange juice from concentrate
apple juice, not from concentrate
cranberry juice cocktail
vegetable juice blend

Those are very different beverages from a tracking standpoint, even if they all sit in the juice aisle.

Is not from concentrate juice always healthier than from concentrate?

No.

“Not from concentrate” tells you how the juice was processed, not that it is automatically healthier. University of Maine Cooperative Extension and Lose It both say that if you are comparing plain juice without added sugars or similar extras, NFC and FC are not meaningfully different in the way many shoppers assume.

Some NFC juices may retain more of certain heat-sensitive nutrients, depending on fruit and processing. But that is not enough to make NFC categorically healthier in every case.

For most shoppers, the bigger questions are:

Is it 100% juice or a juice drink?
What does the ingredient list say?
How much are you drinking?

Do NFC and FC juices have the same calories per serving?

Usually they are very close if you are comparing like with like.

Frobishers says the calories are the same when a from-concentrate juice is properly rehydrated and has no added sugars or sweeteners. University of Maine Cooperative Extension and Lose It make the same point in less absolute language.

A GoodRx comparison found 112 calories per cup for fresh/not-from-concentrate orange juice versus 122 calories per cup for orange juice from concentrate. That shows small differences can appear, but it does not overturn the broader rule: comparable unsweetened 100% juices are usually in the same calorie range.

What does ‘100% juice’ mean for NFC or FC?

In practical shopping terms, “100% juice” tells you you’re buying juice rather than a fruit drink or cocktail.

It can apply to either:

100% juice, not from concentrate
100% juice from concentrate

University of Maine Cooperative Extension separates 100% juice from fruit drinks and fruit-flavored drinks, and Pomona’s label explainer notes that 100% juice can still be from concentrate.

So “100% juice” does not automatically mean NFC, and “from concentrate” does not mean fake juice.

Why choose FC over NFC for tracking?

Because from-concentrate juice can be the more practical option without changing your log much.

GoodRx and Frobishers both describe FC juice as cheaper to transport, easier to store, and often longer-lasting. If the product is properly reconstituted and does not include added sugars or sweeteners, the calorie difference versus NFC is usually small or negligible.

So there is nothing inherently “bad for logging” about choosing FC. It may simply be:

cheaper
easier to keep at home
easier to find
close enough nutritionally for the purpose of tracking

How many calories in a typical glass of NFC orange juice?

A typical 8-ounce glass, or 1 cup, of NFC orange juice is usually in the roughly 110-to-120-calorie range.

That range comes from the published examples in the evidence pack, including GoodRx’s 112-calorie figure for 1 cup of fresh/not-from-concentrate orange juice.

If you pour more than 8 ounces, scale it up:

8 oz: about 110–120 calories
12 oz: about 165–180 calories

A comparable 100% orange juice from concentrate often lands in a very similar range too.

If you remember only one thing, remember this: “not from concentrate” means no water-removal step, not no calories. For tracking, the most reliable approach is to treat NFC as a processing detail, then log the actual serving, sugar, and ingredient list on the package. If the juice is unsweetened, NFC and from concentrate are often closer nutritionally than the front label suggests. And if fullness matters more than convenience, whole fruit usually beats both.