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What killed the Florida orange?

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Re: What killed the Florida orange?

#51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are all the same plant. Hybrids of Citrus. A monoculture.

In the past, "monoculture" was used to describe things like "one particular variety of banana"[0] - e.g. the Gros Michel banana fell to fungus and was replaced by the Cavendish banana, which was not susceptible to the same fungus but is now also falling to a similar fungus, and will be replaced by another banana variety. In fact, they're not just the same species but closely related cultivars - both part of the AAA b…

Monoculture can also mean just one species.

Re: What killed the Florida orange?

#52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always found it pretty scary how some mass-market foods have diverged almost completely from the thing they are actually representing. The weird milky vaguely-citrus flavor of chemical that comes in the box labeled "Orange Juice" is just one of many examples. For another example, go taste a grape and then taste some so-called "grape juice." It's actually mostly apple juice, and doesn't even remotely taste like g…

Dark grape juice is made of concord grapes which are the primary variety which is made into jelly, jam, juice, and in general grape flavored things. They don't taste like grocery store eating grapes, they're a different variety. THEY ARE DELICIOUS when you can find them, one of the things I miss about living in California was the brief season you could get a concord grape on the vine to eat. I have never seen them ou…

I love concord grapes so much. Im eagerly awaiting their annual return to the farmers market (early September). I love them so much the vendors know to get me and tell me when they are here. I don't understand why the demand for them is small.

Re: What killed the Florida orange?

#53
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A local grocery store used to make their own fresh squeezed using a refrigerator sized stainless steel machine that might as well have been a Rube Goldberg machine with its winding metal wire chute full of oranges which led to the squeezing head. That thing was kept right in the aisle next to the refrigerator case they kept the juice in. It was the best orange juice though expensive as it was over 10 bucks a quart wh…

pretty much everywhere in the Netherlands has contraptions like this, small though, not fridge sized. Didn't see orange concentrate anywhere. Minute maid actually tastes better than Tropicana to me (can't stand that brand), been getting one from Spain lately at Costco (Don Simon) that's pretty good, less sweet.

Standard in France and Belgium as well.

I have never liked Tropicana or Minute Maid, but about... 30 years ago? We used to have a brand called Fruvita that actually tasted good but it got bought by Tropicana, the taste changed, and we just stopped buying orange juice.

Re: What killed the Florida orange?

#54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dark grape juice is made of concord grapes which are the primary variety which is made into jelly, jam, juice, and in general grape flavored things. They don't taste like grocery store eating grapes, they're a different variety. THEY ARE DELICIOUS when you can find them, one of the things I miss about living in California was the brief season you could get a concord grape on the vine to eat. I have never seen them ou…

I love concord grapes so much. Im eagerly awaiting their annual return to the farmers market (early September). I love them so much the vendors know to get me and tell me when they are here. I don't understand why the demand for them is small.

I also deeply miss the limes. The halfway-to-yellow actually ripened limes that didn't even show up some years.

If I knew for sure when they would be available I'd certainly make a trip across the country to eat those limes.

Re: What killed the Florida orange?

#55
post #11

It was a sad day for me when I realized that a glass of orange juice(or any juice in general) isn't much better for your health than a can of soda and probably even worse than diet/zero coke.

Most artificial sweeteners have metabolic side effects, and lead to weight gain. You’re probably better off drinking cane sugar soda because it is more filling than HFCS soda. Anyway orange juice is probably better still. At least it has some vitamin C and maybe trace fiber in it.

>Most artificial sweeteners have metabolic side effects, and lead to weight gain.

I have not seen a single double blind study show this in the many decades low calorie sweeteners have been consumed (in normal amounts).

What I have seen is study after study showing the harms of consuming too many carbohydrates (the amounts contained in normal consumption of juice due to quantity of sugar).

Re: What killed the Florida orange?

#56
post #7

The other thing that I can't help but think has seriously hurt the industry is that, between concentrate and flavor packs, almost all supermarket orange juice tastes like garbage . Fresh-squeezed orange juice is, of course, the benchmark. If you ever taste Minute Maid back-to-back with fresh-squeezed, well, you probably won't be buying Minute Maid again any time soon. It just doesn't even taste like oranges. There ar…

The process to make never concentrated orange juice logistically viable involves removing all the oxygen from the juice so it stores well. Now you can take a seasonal product like oranges and sell the juice the entire year around. Unfortunately removing the oxygen also removes most of the flavor. so what the bottlers do is add an engineered "flavor package" when they bottle the juice to add the flavor back. I am half…

Is it really non-seasonal any longer now that there are reliable international markets in southern hemisphere to support?

Re: What killed the Florida orange?

#57

Meta: giving oranges as gifts at Christmas was a bit of a thing in the past when they used to be much more rare during winter: from Valencia/Ivrea for Europeans, and California/Florida in the US. * https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/why-we-should-br... In the US the Interstate system helped reduce shipping and logistic costs across state lines, and so oranges became more prevalent and less 'special' post-WW2…

There are (were?) also dedicated "juice trains" running from Florida to various destinations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juice_Train

Also the passenger train immortalized by Johnny Cash's "Orange Blossom Special": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWz5NzY3Zck

Re: What killed the Florida orange?

#59
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What caused this in Hawaii?

IIRC for sugar it's because of cheaper cane sugar substitutes (corn syrup and sugar beets) out-competing the cane sugar grown in Hawaii.

So, market conditions then, and not some kind of blight or parasite? Wasn't sure.

Re: What killed the Florida orange?

#60
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most artificial sweeteners have metabolic side effects, and lead to weight gain. You’re probably better off drinking cane sugar soda because it is more filling than HFCS soda. Anyway orange juice is probably better still. At least it has some vitamin C and maybe trace fiber in it.

no metabolic effects from sweeteners, wish you lot would stop moving the goalposts on why sweeteners are unhealthy: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12098100/

This just in, licorice kills dogs. Once in a while it kills people too. (affects insulin production, and aldosterone causing blood pressure effects then downstream effects on blood potassium and kidneys)
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