Ginger Folk medicine

The traditional medical form of ginger historically was called Jamaica ginger; it was classified as a stimulant and carminative and used frequently for dyspepsia, gastroparesis, slow motility symptoms, constipation, and colic. It was also frequently employed to disguise the taste of medicines.

Tea brewed from ginger is a common folk remedy for colds. Ginger ale and ginger beer are also drunk as stomach settlers in countries where the beverages are made.

* In Burma, ginger and a local sweetener made from palm tree juice (htan nyat) are boiled together and taken to prevent the flu.
* In China, ginger is included in several traditional preparations. A drink made with sliced ginger cooked in water with brown sugar or a cola is used as a folk medicine for the common cold. "Ginger eggs" (scrambled eggs with finely diced ginger root) is a common home remedy for coughing.[citation needed] The Chinese also make a kind of dried ginger candy that is fermented in plum juice and sugared, which is also commonly consumed to suppress coughing. Ginger has also been historically used to treat inflammation, which several scientific studies support, though one arthritis trial showed ginger to be no better than a placebo or ibuprofen for treatment of osteoarthritis.
* In Congo, ginger is crushed and mixed with mango tree sap to make tangawisi juice, which is considered a panacea.
* In India, ginger is applied as a paste to the temples to relieve headache, and consumed when suffering from the common cold. Ginger with lemon and black salt is also used for nausea.
* In Indonesia, ginger (jahe in Indonesian) is used as a herbal preparation to reduce fatigue, reducing "winds" in the blood, prevent and cure rheumatism and control poor dietary habits.
* In Nepal, ginger is called aduwa, अदुवा and is widely grown and used throughout the country as a spice for vegetables, used medically to treat cold and also sometimes used to flavor tea.
* In the Philippines, ginger is known as luya and is used as a throat lozenge in traditional medicine to relieve sore throat. It is also brewed into a tea known as salabat.
* In the United States, ginger is used to prevent motion and morning sickness. It is recognized as safe by the Food and Drug Administration and is sold as an unregulated dietary supplement. Ginger water was also used to avoid heat cramps in the United States.
* In Peru, ginger is sliced in hot water as an infusion for stomach aches as infusión de Kión.

Ginger Medical properties and research

 

Ginger have been claimed to decrease the pain from arthritis, though studies have been inconsistent. It may also have blood thinning and cholesterol lowering properties that may make it useful for treating heart disease.

Preliminary research also indicates that nine compounds found in ginger may bind to human serotonin receptors, possibly helping to affect anxiety.

Advanced glycation end-products are possibly associated in the development of several pathophysiologies, including diabetic cataract for which ginger was effective in preliminary studies, apparently by acting through antiglycating mechanisms.

Ginger compounds are active against a form of diarrhea which is the leading cause of infant death in developing countries. Zingerone is likely to be the active constituent against enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli heat-labile enterotoxin-induced diarrhea.

Ginger has been found effective in multiple studies for treating nausea caused by seasickness, morning sickness and chemotherapy though ginger was not found superior over a placebo for pre-emptively treating post-operative nausea. Ginger is a safe remedy for nausea relief during pregnancy. Ginger as a remedy for motion sickness is still a debated issue. The television program Mythbusters performed an experiment using one of their staff who suffered from severe motion sickness. The staff member was placed in a moving device which, without treatment, produced severe nausea. Multiple treatments were administered. None, with the exception of the ginger and the two most common drugs, were successful. The staff member preferred the ginger due to lack of side effects. Several studies over the last 20 years were inconclusive with some studies in favor of the herb and some not. A common thread in these studies is the lack of sufficient participants to yield statistical significance. Another issue is the lack of a known chemical pathway for the supposed relief.

Ginger

For other uses, see Ginger (disambiguation).

"Gingers" redirects here. For the Australian punk rock group, see The Gingers.

Ginger

Color plate from Köhler's Medicinal Plants

Scientific classification e

Kingdom: Plantae

clade: Angiosperms

clade: Monocots

clade: Commelinids

Order: Zingiberales

Family: Zingiberaceae

Genus: Zingiber

Species: Z. officinale

Binomial name

Zingiber officinale

Roscoe 1807

Ginger is the rhizome of the plant Zingiber officinale, consumed as a delicacy, medicine, or spice. It lends its name to its genus and family (Zingiberaceae). Other notable members of this plant family are turmeric, cardamom, and galangal.

Ginger cultivation began in South Asia and has since spread to East Africa and the Caribbean. It is sometimes called root ginger to distinguish it from other things that share the name ginger.

Horticulture

 

Ginger produces clusters of white and pink flower buds that bloom into yellow flowers. Because of its aesthetic appeal and the adaptation of the plant to warm climates, ginger is often used as landscaping around subtropical homes. It is a perennial reed-like plant with annual leafy stems, about a meter (3 to 4 feet) tall.

Traditionally, the root is gathered when the stalk withers; it is immediately scalded, or washed and scraped, to kill it and prevent sprouting.

Culinary use

Ginger produces a hot, fragrant kitchen spice.

Young ginger rhizomes are juicy and fleshy with a very mild taste. They are often pickled in vinegar or sherry as a snack or just cooked as an ingredient in many dishes. They can also be steeped in boiling water to make ginger tea, to which honey is often added; sliced orange or lemon fruit may also be added. Ginger can also be made into candy.

Mature ginger roots are fibrous and nearly dry. The juice from old ginger roots is extremely potent and is often used as a spice in Indian recipes, and is a quintessential ingredient of Chinese, Japanese and many South Asian cuisines for flavoring dishes such as seafood or goat meat and vegetarian cuisine.
Ginger acts as a useful food preservative.

Fresh ginger can be substituted for ground ginger at a ratio of 6 to 1, although the flavors of fresh and dried ginger are somewhat different. Powdered dry ginger root is typically used as a flavoring for recipes such as gingerbread, cookies, crackers and cakes, ginger ale, and ginger beer.

Candied ginger is the root cooked in sugar until soft, and is a type of confectionery.

Fresh ginger may be peeled before eating. For longer-term storage, the ginger can be placed in a plastic bag and refrigerated or frozen.

Regional use

In Western cuisine, ginger is traditionally used mainly in sweet foods such as ginger ale, gingerbread, ginger snaps, parkin, ginger biscuits and speculaas. A ginger-flavored liqueur called Canton is produced in Jarnac, France. Green ginger wine is a ginger-flavored wine produced in the United Kingdom, traditionally sold in a green glass bottle. Ginger is also used as a spice added to hot coffee and tea.
India and Pakistan, ginger is called adrak in Hindi, Punjabi and Urdu, aad in Maithili, aadi in Bhojpuri, aada in Bengali, Adu in Gujarati, hashi shunti (ಹಸಿ ಶುಂಟಿ) in the Kannada, allam (అల్లం) in Telugu, inji (இஞ்சி) in Tamil and Malayalam, inguru (ඉඟුරු) in Sinhalese, alay in Marathi, and aduwa(अदुवा ) in Nepali. Fresh ginger is one of the main spices used for making pulse and lentil curries and other vegetable preparations. Fresh, as well as dried, ginger is used to spice tea and coffee, especially in winter. Ginger powder is also used in certain food preparations, particularly for pregnant or nursing women, the most popular one being katlu which is a mixture of gum resin, ghee, nuts, and sugar. Ginger is also consumed in candied and pickled form. In Bangladesh, ginger is finely chopped or ground into a paste to use as a base for chicken and meat dishes alongside shallot and garlic.

In Burma, ginger is called gyin. It is widely used in cooking and as a main ingredient in traditional medicines. It is also consumed as a salad dish called gyin-thot, which consists of shredded ginger preserved in oil, and a variety of nuts and seeds. In Indonesia, a beverage called wedang jahe is made from ginger and palm sugar. Indonesians also use ground ginger root, called jahe, as a common ingredient in local recipes. In Malaysia, ginger is call halia use in many kind of dishes especially a soup. In the Philippines it is brewed into a tea called salabat. In Vietnam, the fresh leaves, finely chopped, can also be added to shrimp-and-yam soup (canh khoai mỡ) as a top garnish and spice to add a much subtler flavor of ginger than the chopped root.
In China, sliced or whole ginger root is often paired with savory dishes such as fish, and chopped ginger root is commonly paired with meat, when it is cooked. However, candied ginger is sometimes a component of Chinese candy boxes, and a herbal tea can also be prepared from ginger.

In Japan, ginger is pickled to make beni shoga and gari or grated and used raw on tofu or noodles. It is also made into a candy called shoga no satozuke. In the traditional Korean kimchi, ginger is finely minced and added to the ingredients of the spicy paste just before the fermenting process.

In the Caribbean, ginger is a popular spice for cooking, and making drinks such as sorrel, a seasonal drink made during the Christmas season. Jamaicans make ginger beer both as a carbonated beverage and also fresh in their homes. Ginger tea is often made from fresh ginger, as well as the famous regional specialty Jamaican ginger cake.
On the island of Corfu, Greece, a traditional drink called τσιτσιμπύρα (tsitsibira), a type of ginger beer, is made. The people of Corfu and the rest of the Ionian islands adopted the drink from the British, during the period of the United States of the Ionian Islands.

In Arabic, ginger is called zanjabil, and in some parts of the Middle East, ginger powder is used as a spice for coffee and for milk, as well. In Somaliland, ginger is called sinjibil, and is served in coffee shops in Egypt. In the Ivory Coast, ginger is ground and mixed with orange, pineapple and lemon to produce a juice called nyamanku. Ginger powder is used in hawaij, a spice mixture used mostly by Yemenite Jews for soups and coffee.

Is Whole Foods Wholesome?

The dark secrets of the organic-food movement

It's hard to find fault with Whole Foods, the haute-crunchy supermarket chain that has made a fortune by transforming grocery shopping into a bright and shiny, progressive experience. Indeed, the road to wild profits and cultural cachet has been surprisingly smooth for the supermarket chain. It gets mostly sympathetic coverage in the local and national media and red-carpet treatment from the communities it enters. But does Whole Foods have an Achilles' heel? And more important, does the organic movement itself, whose coattails Whole Foods has ridden to such success, have dark secrets of its own?

Granted, there's plenty that's praiseworthy about Whole Foods. John Mackey, the company's chairman, likes to say, "There's no inherent reason why business cannot be ethical, socially responsible, and profitable." And under the umbrella creed of "sustainability," Whole Foods pays its workers a solid living wage—its lowest earners average $13.15 an hour—with excellent benefits and health care. No executive makes more than 14 times the employee average. (Mackey's salary last year was $342,000.) In January, Whole Foods announced that it had committed to buy a year's supply of power from a wind-power utility in Wyoming.

 

But even if Whole Foods has a happy staff and nice windmills, is it really as virtuous as it appears to be? Take the produce section, usually located in the geographic center of the shopping floor and the spiritual heart of a Whole Foods outlet. (Every media profile of the company invariably contains a paragraph of fawning produce porn, near-sonnets about "gleaming melons" and "glistening kumquats.") In the produce section of Whole Foods' flagship New York City store at the Time Warner Center, shoppers browse under a big banner that lists "Reasons To Buy Organic." On the banner, the first heading is "Save Energy." The accompanying text explains how organic farmers, who use natural fertilizers like manure and compost, avoid the energy waste involved in the manufacture of synthetic fertilizers. It's a technical point that probably barely registers with most shoppers but contributes to a vague sense of virtue.

Fair enough. But here's another technical point that Whole Foods fails to mention and that highlights what has gone wrong with the organic-food movement in the last couple of decades. Let's say you live in New York City and want to buy a pound of tomatoes in season. Say you can choose between conventionally grown New Jersey tomatoes or organic ones grown in Chile. Of course, the New Jersey tomatoes will be cheaper. They will also almost certainly be fresher, having traveled a fraction of the distance. But which is the more eco-conscious choice? In terms of energy savings, there's no contest: Just think of the fossil fuels expended getting those organic tomatoes from Chile. Which brings us to the question: Setting aside freshness, price, and energy conservation, should a New Yorker just instinctively choose organic, even if the produce comes from Chile? A tough decision, but you can make a self-interested case for the social and economic benefit of going Jersey, especially if you prefer passing fields of tomatoes to fields of condominiums when you tour the Garden State.

Another heading on the Whole Foods banner says "Help the Small Farmer." "Buying organic," it states, "supports the small, family farmers that make up a large percentage of organic food producers." This is semantic sleight of hand. As one small family farmer in Connecticut told me recently, "Almost all the organic food in this country comes out of California. And five or six big California farms dominate the whole industry." There's a widespread misperception in this country—one that organic growers, no matter how giant, happily encourage—that "organic" means "small family farmer." That hasn't been the case for years, certainly not since 1990, when the Department of Agriculture drew up its official guidelines for organic food. Whole Foods knows this well, and so the line about the "small family farmers that make up a large percentage of organic food producers" is sneaky. There are a lot of small, family-run organic farmers, but their share of the organic crop in this country, and of the produce sold at Whole Foods, is minuscule.

A nearby banner at the Time Warner Center Whole Foods proclaims "Our Commitment to the Local Farmer," but this also doesn't hold up to scrutiny. More likely, the burgeoning local-food movement is making Whole Foods uneasy. After all, a multinational chain can't promote a "buy local" philosophy without being self-defeating. When I visited the Time Warner Whole Foods last fall—high season for native fruits and vegetables on the East Coast—only a token amount of local produce was on display. What Whole Foods does do for local farmers is hang glossy pinups throughout the store, what they call "grower profiles," which depict tousled, friendly looking organic farmers standing in front of their crops. This winter, when I dropped by the store, the only local produce for sale was a shelf of upstate apples, but the grower profiles were still up. There was a picture of a sandy-haired organic leek farmer named Dave, from Whately, Mass., above a shelf of conventionally grown yellow onions from Oregon. Another profile showed a guy named Ray Rex munching on an ear of sweet corn he grew on his generations-old, picturesque organic acres. The photograph was pinned above a display of conventionally grown white onions from Mexico.

These profiles may be heartwarming, but they also artfully mislead customers about what they're paying premium prices for. If Whole Foods marketing didn't revolve so much around explicit (as well as subtly suggestive) appeals to food ethics, it'd be easier to forgive some exaggerations and distortions.

Of course, above and beyond social and environmental ethics, and even taste, people buy organic food because they believe that it's better for them. All things being equal, food grown without pesticides is healthier for you. But American populism chafes against the notion of good health for those who can afford it. Charges of elitism—media wags, in otherwise flattering profiles, have called Whole Foods "Whole Paycheck" and "wholesome, healthy for the wholesome, wealthy"—are the only criticism of Whole Foods that seems to have stuck. Which brings us to the newest kid in the organic-food sandbox: Wal-Mart, the world's biggest grocery retailer, has just begun a major program to expand into organic foods. If buying food grown without chemical pesticides and synthetic fertilizers has been elevated to a status-conscious lifestyle choice, it could also be transformed into a bare-bones commodity purchase.

When the Department of Agriculture established the guidelines for organic food in 1990, it blew a huge opportunity. The USDA—under heavy agribusiness lobbying—adopted an abstract set of restrictions for organic agriculture and left "local" out of the formula. What passes for organic farming today has strayed far from what the shaggy utopians who got the movement going back in the '60s and '70s had in mind. But if these pioneers dreamed of revolutionizing the nation's food supply, they surely didn't intend for organic to become a luxury item, a high-end lifestyle choice.

It's likely that neither Wal-Mart nor Whole Foods will do much to encourage local agriculture or small farming, but in an odd twist, Wal-Mart, with its simple "More for Less" credo, might do far more to democratize the nation's food supply than Whole Foods. The organic-food movement is in danger of exacerbating the growing gap between rich and poor in this country by contributing to a two-tiered national food supply, with healthy food for the rich. Could Wal-Mart's populist strategy prove to be more "sustainable" than Whole Foods? Stranger things have happened.

Recipe and Directions apple juice

Step 1 - Selecting the apples

The most important step! You need apples that are sweet - that will eliminate the need to add any sugar. Most apple juice doesn't have as much natural sweetness or flavor because they use underripe or off-spec apples. You can choose the best apples you can get and make far better apple juice. Don't get me wrong, it is fine to use "seconds", as long as you cut out the bruised spots!

If you can, choose apples that are naturally sweet, like Red Delicious, Gala, Fuji, Rome and always use a mixture - never just one type. This year I used 4 bushels of red delicious and one each of Fuji, Yellow Delicious, Gala and Rome. This meant it was so sweet I did not need to add any sugar at all. And the flavor is great! The Fuji's and Gala's give it an aromatic flavor! Honeycrisp and Pink Lady are also excellent, sweet, flavorful apples.

Step 2 - How many apples and where to get them

You can pick your own, or buy them at the grocery store. But for large quantities, you'll find that real* farmer's markets, like the Farmer's Market in Forest Park, Georgia have them at the best prices. In 2004, they were available from late September at $11 to $16 per bushel. 2005 prices have been in the $14 to $20 range at the real farmer's markets, like the Atlanta-Forest park Georgia State Farmer's Market and orchards in the southeast of the U.S.

You'll get about 12 to 20 quarts of apple juice per bushel of apples. Count on 15 or 16 quarts per bushel.

* - not the cutesy, fake farmer's markets that are just warehouse grocery stores that call themselves farmer's markets.

Step 3 - Wash the jars and lids

Now's a good time to get the jars ready, so you won't be rushed later. The dishwasher is fine for the jars; especially if it has a "sanitize" cycle, the water bath processing will sanitize them as well as the contents! If you don't have a dishwasher with a sanitize cycle, you can wash the containers in hot, soapy water and rinse, then sanitize the jars by boiling them 10 minutes, and keep the jars in hot water until they are used. Leave the jars in the dishwasher on "heated dry" until you are ready to use them. Keeping them hot will prevent the jars from breaking when you fill them with the hot apple juice.

Put the lids into a pan of hot, but not quite boiling water (that's what the manufacturer's recommend) for 5 minutes, and use the magnetic "lid lifter wand" to pull them out.
Apples being chopped upStep 4 -Wash and chop the apples!

I'm sure you can figure out how to wash the apples in plain cold water.

Chopping them is much faster if you use one of those apple corer/segmenters - you just push it down on an apple and it cuts it into segments. Note: You do not peel the apples! You will put the entire apple into the pot to cook.

Step 5 - Cook the Apples

Pretty simple put about 4 inches of water (I used filtered tap water) on the bottom of a huge, thick-bottomed pot. Put the lid on, and the heat on high. When it gets really going, turn it to medium high until the apples are soft through and through.

Hardware stores sell a fruit steamer. I haven't used one yet, but I hear they work well.

NOTE: If you have a electric juicer, you can simply juice the chopped apples, then skip to step 7 to heat the juice to boiling.
Step 6 - Sieve the cooked apples

Now you want to separate the liquid from the pulp, skins, seeds, stems, etc. There are quite a variety of ways to filter the apples.

Unfiltered juice:

* I like a natural apple juice, with the natural cloudiness of the fruit particles in it, so I just plop the cooked apples into a large metal or plastic sieve or colander.
* You can also refrigerate the juice for 24 to 48 hours and then Decant it (without mixing, carefully pour off clear liquid and discard sediment).

Filtered juice:

* A better way if you want filtered apple juice is just to line your sieve or colander with several layers of cheese cloth and let the juice drip through. It could take an hour..
* If you want really clear apple juice (but most people prefer "natural" style with some solids) you can strain the juice through a paper coffee filter place inside a sieve or colander.
* If you want more filtered apple juice, use a jelly bag. Just pour hot prepared fruit pulp into a jelly bag and let it drip. . Do not squeeze the bag.! In my experience this method takes forever.

Note: One of the easiest ways to extract juice is by using a steam juicer available at many hardware and variety stores. If you plan on making a lot of juice or doing this every year, it may be worth buying one. This unique piece of equipment allows you to conveniently extract juice by steaming the fruit which is held in a retaining basket. The juice drops into a reservoir which has a tube outlet for removal. Follow manufacturer’s instructions for using steam juicer.

If your goal is to make apple juice, you will still have a lot of apple pulp left, so I'd recommend you make apple sauce from it (see this page)
Step 7 - Heat the apple juice

Put the apple juice into a large pot. If you want, add cinnamon to taste. You should not need to add any sugar.

The apple juice does not need any further cooking; just get it heated to a low simmering boil and keep it hot until you get enough made to fill the jars you will put into the canner (Canners hold seven jars at once, whether they are quart or pint size)
Step 8 - Fill the jars and process them in the water bath

Fill them to within ¼-inch of the top, wipe any spilled apple juice of the top, seat the lid and tighten the ring around them. Put them in the canner and keep them cover with at least 1 or 2 inches of water and boiling. if you are at sea level (up to 1,000 ft) boil pint or quart jars for 5 minutes and half gallon jars for 10 min. This assumes you kept the juice hit until you filled the jars. If you are at an altitude of 1,000 feet or more, see the chart below

Recommended process time for Apple Juice in a boiling-water canner.
Process Time at Altitudes of
Style of Pack Jar Size 0 - 1,000 ft 1,001 - 6,000 ft Above 6,000 ft
Hot Pints or Quarts 5 min 10 15
Half-Gallons 10 min 15 20
Step 9 - Remove and cool the jars - Done

Lift the jars out of the water and let them cool without touching or bumping them in a draft-free place (usually takes overnight) You can then remove the rings if you like. Once the jars are cool, you can check that they are sealed verifying that the lid has been sucked down. Just press in the center, gently, with your finger. If it pops up and down (often making a popping sound), it is not sealed. If you put the jar in the refrigerator right away, you can still use it. Some people replace the lid and reprocess the jar, then that's a bit iffy. If you heat the contents back up, re-jar them (with a new lid) and the full time in the canner, it's usually ok.

How to Make Homemade Apple Juice

Making and canning your own apple juice is easy. In fact, if you are making applesauce, you will probably have extra juice from cooking the apples! Here's how to make your own home canned apple juice (some call it apple cider, but it isn't fermented, so I don't think that really applies), complete instructions in easy steps and completely illustrated. The apple juice will taste MUCH better than anything you've ever had from a store, and by selecting the right apples, it will be so naturally-sweet that you won't need to add any sugar at all.

Prepared this way, the jars have a shelf life of 18 months to 2 years, and require no special attention.

Directions for Making Apple Juice
Ingredients and Equipment

* Apples (see step 1)
* Jar grabber (to pick up the hot jars)
* Lid lifter (has a magnet to pick the lids out of the boiling water where you sanitize them. ($2 at mall kitchen stores and local "big box" stores, but it's usually cheaper online from our affiliates)t)
* Jar funnel ($2 at mall kitchen stores and local "big box" stores, but it's usually cheaper online from our affiliates)t)
* At least 1 large pot (at least 8-quart size or larger)
* Large spoons and ladles
* Ball jars (Publix, Kroger, other grocery stores and some "big box" stores carry them - about $8 per dozen quart jars including the lids and rings)
* Sieve:
o a simple metal or plastic sieve.
o colander

* Filters - if you want filtered juice
o jelly bag
o cheesecloth
o coffee filters
* 1 Water Bath Canner (a huge pot with a lifting rack to sanitize the jars of apple juice after filling (about $30 to $35 at mall kitchen stores and local "big box" stores, but it's usually cheaper online from our affiliates) You CAN use a large pot instead, but the canners are deeper, and have a rack top make lifting the jars out easier. If you plan on canning every year, they're worth the investment.

Apple Juice Showdown

 

 In less than 24 hours, apple juice has gone from a subject few had opinions about to a source of controversy because of Dr. Mehmet Oz's comments about arsenic in the juice on "The Dr. Oz Show" Wednesday.

"I want everyone out there who's already purchased apple juice to keep drinking it," Oz said tonight on "World News with Diane Sawyer," where he discussed the issue with ABC News health and medical editor Dr. Richard Besser.

"I don't have any concerns about it in the short run," Oz said. "And the levels that we have detected in the samples that we have looked at are not high enough to make me concerned about short-term issues. My bigger concern is over the next decade or next generation, especially as children grow. Is it possible that because of the changes in where we're getting our food, specifically getting our apples from overseas, we may be exposing our kids to needlessly high levels of arsenic?"

Besser said he had fewer concerns.

"You know, in listening to what Mehmet said there, I think he raises really important issues," said Besser. "I think we have to be concerned about our food supply coming from other countries. And we need to monitor it. But when I look at the evidence of what was in those samples of apple and how the study was done, it doesn't raise concerns to me ... about apple juice right now. ... The disagreement I had was in pointing to apple juice, which plays to the heartstrings of a lot of parents, and saying that this is the demon food. And that was my read on it, and that's why I was upset."

Arsenic can be found in lots of places, Besser said, and the important thing is to continue to test and monitor food so people are consuming acceptable levels of it.

"It's in the air we breathe, it's in the soil we walk on, it's in the water we drink," Besser said. "The issue, and it's an issue that Mehmet raises, is how much and over what period of time" people consume arsenic.

In a spirited showdown hours earlier on "Good Morning America," Besser confronted Oz on what he called "extremely irresponsible" statements.

"Mehmet, I'm very upset about this. I think that this was extremely irresponsible," Besser said. "It reminds me of yelling fire in a movie theater."

"I'm not fear-mongering," Oz fired back. "We did our homework on this risk."

Oz later added on "World News with Diane Sawyer" that the purpose of the show was not to alarm parents, but rather to begin a dialogue on the topic.

"I don't want parents panicking over this," he said. "What I want to have is a conversation so we can bring clarity to this and make it safer."

Oz certainly sparked a debate. Juice manufacturers, government regulators and scientists all weighed in, calling the results of what the show described as an "extensive national investigation" misleading and needlessly frightening to consumers.

In a statement Friday, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said, "There is no evidence of any public health risk from drinking these juices."

"The FDA reached out about five days ago and said they disagreed with our findings. They called them irresponsible, which I respect," said Oz. "Their job is to go out there and to try to make the world safer for us, and if they think that we're doing a disservice, they should call that to our attention."

According to the "Dr. Oz Show's" website, a laboratory tested "three dozen samples from five different brands of apple juice across three American cities" and compared the levels of arsenic to the limits of arsenic for drinking water set by the Environmental Protection Agency. It found 10 samples of juice with arsenic levels higher than the limits for water.

The show's experiment tested samples of apple juice made by Minute Maid, Apple and Eve, Mott's, Gerber and Juicy Juice.

The show's test results did not a surprise Don Zink, the senior science advisor for the FDA Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition. He said the FDA has known for many years that certain foods contain very small amounts of arsenic.

"Arsenic in apple juice is nothing new to us," Zink said. "We have 20 years of data from testing apple juice for arsenic, and all the data say there's simply not a health concern."

Scientists say arsenic is a naturally occurring substance, and is so abundant in the Earth's soil that it often ends up in many of the foods we eat. However, experts make a distinction between this abundant organic arsenic, which is harmless, and inorganic arsenic, which can be found in some pesticides and other chemicals.

"It is the inorganic form of arsenic in the environment that is toxic, and measuring total arsenic is not informative," said Aaron Barchowsky, a professor of environmental health at the University of Pittsburgh who has studied the toxicity of arsenic in drinking water for 15 years.

Oz disagreed that the difference between organic arsenic and inorganic arsenic has been substantiated.

"We don't know enough about organic arsenic to say whether it is safe or not. The FDA has forced companies to pull organic arsenic off the market for fear there might be problems arising from it," he said.

A producer for the "Dr. Oz Show" said its apple juice tests measured total arsenic levels and did not distinguish between organic and inorganic arsenic.

The FDA conducted its own tests of the apple juice investigated by the "Dr. Oz Show." In some of the very same lots of juice tested for the show, the FDA reported finding very low levels of inorganic arsenic -- 6 parts per billion at most, even lower than the 10 parts per billion recommended by the EPA as a safe level for drinking water.