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Orange juice is no better for you than soda pop. So say a growing number of health professionals, who are trying to undo more than half a century of consumer mindshare captured by the citrus industry. A fascinating article in the LA Times brings us the “juicy” details:

“It’s pretty much the same as sugar water,” said Dr. Charles Billington, an appetite researcher at the University of Minnesota. In the modern diet, “there’s no need for any juice at all.”

A glass of juice concentrates all the sugar from several pieces of fruit. Ounce per ounce, it contains more calories than soda, though it tends to be consumed in smaller servings. A cup of orange juice has 112 calories, apple juice has 114, and grape juice packs 152, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The same amount of Coke has 97 calories, and Pepsi has 100. read more…

According to these numbers, people should be drinking less juice and more soda. But that’s not the whole picture. Fruit juice has lots of benefits such as vitamins and minerals, doesn’t it?

The answer is not so simple. Vitamin C, for example is totally lost through the processing of oranges, but is then added again before packaging. But fiber, which can be found in abundance if you eat the actual fruit, is all but gone from the resulting juice. Also, many juices are fortified, for example with calcium.

The correct answer is that people should be drinking lots more water and a lot less of everything else. Most of a person’s calories should come from food, not liquids. It is very hard to get satiated from liquids, but very easy to gulp down three, four, even five hundred calories, mostly from the fructose in juice, all in a single sitting.

What to do at the supermarket:

Opting for juice instead of pop is a first and important step for parents. More than anything it is an acknowledgment that sugary soft drinks are unhealthy and an alternative is needed.

But the next step should be encouraging children to drink more water and eat real fruit. If your kids love juice and guzzle down more than a cup or two a day, consider watering it down in order to reduce both the calorie count and the sweetness. You can start with just a bit of water and then work your way to half n half.

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The UCLA Center for Health Policy Research has recently published a report entitled Bubbling Over: Soda Consumption and Its Link to Obesity in California [PDF]. In it are some real “gems” that the beverage industry likes to ignore or downplay. The data is based on research in the state of California, but it reflects on the entire country.
1. Over 10.7 million Californians over the age of one drink at least one soda a day (or other sugar-sweetened beverage).

2. 41% of children ages 2-11 drink at least one soda or other sugar-sweetened beverage every day.

3. That number goes up to 62% of adolescents ages 12-17.

4. Only 1 in 4 adults drinks pop though.

5. Adults who do drink one or more sodas or other sugar-sweetened beverages each day are 27% more likely to be overweight or obese.

6. The average American consumes 22 teaspoons of added sugar a day, vs the recommended 5-9. That 200-400% more than recommended.

7. If you think that’s a high number, just one 20 fl oz single use bottle of soda has 17 teaspoons of sugar.

8. Almost half of the additional calories growth in our diet since the 1970’s come from soda.

9. Each American consumes an average of 50 gallons of sugar sweetened soft drinks per year.

10. Soda is the #1 source of added sugar in the American Diet.

11. Two thirds of all High Fructose Corn Syrup goes into soft drinks.

12. The average size of a soda increased from 6.5 oz in the 1950’s to 16.2 oz today (149% increase!)

13. Milk consumption, on the other hand has decreased by 33% in the last 30 years.

14. Each additional daily serving of soda increases a child’s chance risk for obesity by 60%.

15. In the last 25 years, the obesity rate in California rose from 8.9%  to 24.3%. That’s one in four Californians!

16. The cost in medical and health expenses to the state is estimated at $41 billion.
Gives some perspective on what the CEO of Coca Cola wrote in the Wall Street Journal about Coke not causing Obesity, doesn’t it?

What to do at the supermarket:

OK. Soft drinks in and of themselves are not evil, and there is room for them here and there as a treat, just like ice cream and candy. They can hardly be considered a daily staple, although that is exactly what they have become thanks to the efforts of the beverage industry.

But you can easily fight back. Just skip the beverage aisle at the supermarket on your next grocery trip. And the one after that. And the one after. In one year, you’ll have saved $500 for a family of four, AND most likely lost a few pounds too.

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Orange juice is awesome. Nothing like the refreshing juice of 3 or 4 fresh squeezed oranges, tart and sweet at the same time, and chock full of nutrients.

If there’s one company that has turned orange juice into an art form, it’s got to be Tropicana (now a part of PepsiCo). They’ve got a gazillion different varieties, regular juice, light juice, fortified with this mineral, adding that vitamin, more pulp, less pulp, mixed with juice from other fruit, in plastic, carton, small, large, extra large…

It seems that just orange juice takes half up an aisle at the supermarket all by itself.

Therefore it was no surprise that earlier this week Tropicana announced a new line of orange juice under the brand name Trop50. From their PR department:

Breakthrough innovation with the goodness of orange juice and 50 percent less sugar and calories

What exactly is the breakthrough? Read more…