Orange Juice

Opened refrigerated orange juice keeps about 7–10 days. Freshly squeezed juice keeps only 2–3 days.

Store it in the coldest part of the fridge, not the door, and keep the carton closed. Juice absorbs odors and loses vitamin C to oxygen every time it is opened.

Shelf-stable cartons and cans keep in the pantry until their date, then follow the same 7–10 day rule once opened and refrigerated.

Do not pour unused juice back into the carton after it has been sitting in a glass.

Orange juice freezes well for 8–12 months and frozen concentrate is a genuinely good product. Leave headspace in any container, since juice expands.

Orange juice is acidic — around pH 3.5–4.0 — which puts it below the threshold where foodborne pathogens can grow, and is why juice is one of the safer things in a refrigerator.

That acidity does not stop yeasts and molds, which tolerate acid conditions easily. They are what spoil juice, fermenting the abundant sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide. This produces the classic signals: a fizzy or carbonated texture in a juice that should be still, a bulging carton, and a smell that has turned winey or alcoholic. Any of these means discard.

Pasteurization is what separates the categories. Nearly all commercial juice is pasteurized, which is why it keeps for weeks unopened. Unpasteurized juice and fresh-pressed cider are a genuine risk — the 1996 Odwalla outbreak, in which unpasteurized apple juice carrying E. coli O157:H7 caused severe illness in dozens of people and the death of a child, led directly to the FDA's warning-label requirement for untreated juice.

The FDA advises that children, pregnant people, the elderly, and immunocompromised people avoid unpasteurized juice entirely.

Separation and settling in orange juice is normal — shake it. Discard on fizzing, mold at the spout, or any alcoholic smell.