Why does orange juice need to be refrigerated but oranges don’t?

Question

A breakfast musing

In: 161

Answer 1

The air is full of airborne microbes and spores of decomposers such as yeast and mold. Unless the orange juice was made in a lab-grade clean room guaranteed to be free of any and all spores, dust, and microbes, it almost certainly got contaminated with microbes that will begin to ferment the juice unless it is kept at temperatures inhospitable to microbial reproduction.