Live data from Hacker News

Freshly Squeezed: The Truth About Orange Juice in Boxes

civileats.com

61–70 of 162 posts

Re: Freshly Squeezed: The Truth About Orange Juice in Boxes

#61
post #29

Being a east central Florida native, I grew up picking Valencia's off neighborhood trees, before the terrible canker in the 90's forced the state agriculture office to basically bulldoze and burn every non-commercial orange tree in the state. IMO, the real treat is fresh squeezed grapefruit juice, not orange. Fresh grapefruit juice tastes nothing whatsoever like the stuff they sell in markets, and has a sublime flavo…

>before the terrible canker in the 90's forced the state agriculture office to basically bulldoze and burn every non-commercial orange tree in the state.

Could you elaborate more on this, or link me to a place where I can read more about it?

Re: Freshly Squeezed: The Truth About Orange Juice in Boxes

#62
post #35
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is the sugar load. No amount of nutritional value can justify it. You can get those nutrients elsewhere without the insulin response.

Exactly - If you eat an apple, you get a modest amount of sugar with some fiber to go with it. The fiber helps slow down the absorption of the sugar and lessens the insulin response. If you drink a big glass of apple juice, you get the sugar load of eating multiple apples and get none of the fiber. It's basically like drinking soda.

Except that soda has other things in it that are bad and aren't called sugar. And juice still has many vitamins and minerals retained.

I get what you're saying, and I'm not claiming juice is healthy. But it's certainly heathier than soda. Whole fruit is, of course, far healthier than juice

Re: Freshly Squeezed: The Truth About Orange Juice in Boxes

#63
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not “just sugar.” It’s mostly fructose , the worst sugar, known to stress the liver like alcohol. And unlike most other calories it does a poor job of triggering satiation. Fruit juice is evil.

So, even eating spoonfuls of sugar is better than drinking OJ?

Probably about the same but at least the spoonfuls of pure table sugar (sucrose) don’t come with pretensions of healthfulness.

And without the huge quantities of citric acid, the table sugar is less hyper-palatable. The associated acids make fruit juices almost perfectly engineered to maximize consumption. (The recipe is so perfect that Coca-cola uses surprisingly similar ratios.)

Re: Freshly Squeezed: The Truth About Orange Juice in Boxes

#64
post #61
post #29

Being a east central Florida native, I grew up picking Valencia's off neighborhood trees, before the terrible canker in the 90's forced the state agriculture office to basically bulldoze and burn every non-commercial orange tree in the state. IMO, the real treat is fresh squeezed grapefruit juice, not orange. Fresh grapefruit juice tastes nothing whatsoever like the stuff they sell in markets, and has a sublime flavo…

>before the terrible canker in the 90's forced the state agriculture office to basically bulldoze and burn every non-commercial orange tree in the state. Could you elaborate more on this, or link me to a place where I can read more about it?

Was curious about this too. A minute after some quick googling: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/article76614477.html

Re: Freshly Squeezed: The Truth About Orange Juice in Boxes

#65
post #64
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>before the terrible canker in the 90's forced the state agriculture office to basically bulldoze and burn every non-commercial orange tree in the state. Could you elaborate more on this, or link me to a place where I can read more about it?

Was curious about this too. A minute after some quick googling: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/article76614477.html

"Citrus canker was first found in the United States in 1910 not far from the Georgia – Florida border. Subsequently, canker was discovered in 1912 in Dade County, more than 400 mi (600 km) away. Beyond Florida, the disease was discovered in the Gulf states and reached as far north as South Carolina. It took more than 20 years to eradicate that outbreak of citrus canker, from 1913 through 1931, $2.5 million in state and private funds were spent to control it—a sum equivalent to $28 million in 2000 dollars.[11] In 26 counties, some 257,745 grove trees and 3,093,110 nursery trees were destroyed by burning. Citrus canker was detected again on the Gulf Coast of Florida in 1986 and declared eradicated in 1994.

The most recent outbreak of citrus canker was discovered in Miami, Dade County, Florida, on Sept. 28, 1995, by Louis Willio Francillon, a Florida Department of Agriculture agronomist. Despite eradication attempts, by late 2005, the disease had been detected in many places distant from the original discovery, for example, in Orange Park, 315 miles (500 km) away. In January 2000, the Florida Department of Agriculture adopted a policy of removing all infected trees and all citrus trees within a 1900-ft radius of an infected tree in both residential areas and commercial groves. Previous to this eradication policy, the department eradicated all citrus trees within 125 ft of an infected one. The program ended in January 2006 following a statement from the USDA that eradication was not feasible"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citrus_canker

Re: Freshly Squeezed: The Truth About Orange Juice in Boxes

#66
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a feeling that that is because refined sugar is absorbed in a different manner than the sugar in juice. Just speculation though.

You can "prove" this by looking at the glycemic index. Glycemic index is not a napkin math thing, its done by making people eat or drink something and watching what their blood sugar does. A raw orange is 31-40. Orange juice is 46-54. Coca-cola is 63. I think juice may be a _LITTLE_ better than soda. I still choose to drink neither, and think I am better off for it.

It's stupid honestly, fruit juice are healthy in normal quantity. Like everything don't abuse it.

Re: Freshly Squeezed: The Truth About Orange Juice in Boxes

#67
post #43

It's interesting the degree to which people will defend their fruit juice drinking in this thread. I wonder if it's a mild form of addiction. I used to drink a lot of OJ when I was still under the illusion it was healthy to do so. Simply stopping that I lost about 15 pounds without changing anything else. It was tough at first, I really craved it and it was a daily habit. It's turned out to be the biggest health impr…

After I hadn't had routine bloodwork for a long time, my HbA1c check shown 6.8 which is diabetic, I hard stopped juices, potatoes, white rice, while flour, sugar and decreased my portions. I discovered an entire universe of various flours and I am still totally unsure which sweetener or not-sugar-sweet-plant is safe to eat but I figure tiny amounts is OK. Dropped to 5.2 in four months so I figure I am on the right track. I still crave desserts hard but you can get desserts sweetened by something other than processed sugars and you can cut them really small and eat just a tiny bite which I found is enough to sate that craving. I am surprised how little all the diabetic advice doesn't emphasize the smaller portions trick both for meals and for desserts.

Re: Freshly Squeezed: The Truth About Orange Juice in Boxes

#68
post #43

It's interesting the degree to which people will defend their fruit juice drinking in this thread. I wonder if it's a mild form of addiction. I used to drink a lot of OJ when I was still under the illusion it was healthy to do so. Simply stopping that I lost about 15 pounds without changing anything else. It was tough at first, I really craved it and it was a daily habit. It's turned out to be the biggest health impr…

It’s crazy the number of really smart people who are steadfast in their belief that fruit is good. It’s non-stop propangda starting at birth, direct from the mothers mouth.

I wonder where this meme started and why? I cant imagine ‘big fruit’ is that big or sinister.

Re: Freshly Squeezed: The Truth About Orange Juice in Boxes

#69
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is the sugar load. No amount of nutritional value can justify it. You can get those nutrients elsewhere without the insulin response.

I hear that a lot in the US (never elsewhere), but the only people in bad shape are those who abuse fat food and sodas. I’ve never seen anyone obese from drinking too much fruit juice alone.

> I’ve never seen anyone obese from drinking too much fruit juice alone.

You have whether you realized it or not. Fruit juice has just as much sugar as soda and none of the fiber from fruit that decreases your absorption. There are millions of people going to the gym and trying not to eat onion rings when the orange juice (or cranberry, or coconut water, etc.) they drink is what is actually keeping them fat.

Re: Freshly Squeezed: The Truth About Orange Juice in Boxes

#70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not “just sugar.” It’s mostly fructose , the worst sugar, known to stress the liver like alcohol. And unlike most other calories it does a poor job of triggering satiation. Fruit juice is evil.

To expand on my post, I should add: Fruit is evil. The fruits we buy in the supermarket (or hipster organic farmers market) bare little resemblance to the less sweet and less palatable fruits that humans would have eaten prior to cultivation. Through an ongoing process (over multiple millennia) of artificially selecting for higher sugar content, we have turned nature’s fruits into the equivalent of candy bars. If you…

Awareness that fruit is not a pure health food is good. "Equivalent of candy bars" may be overstating the case. Raw fruit at least delivers its sugars in a matrix of fibers which change the absorption profile, induce satiety, and even provides a natural limit on how much you can consume, among other benefits.

There are sometimes better choices than an apple, but an apple is definitely better than a candy bar (or most breakfast cereals, granola bars, etc).

Post reply on HN