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Comment by cubano | Hacker News Reader

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 flavor that's both refreshing and delicious.

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Honestly.. anything more than lightly processed is nothing like the original thing. We're shrinking the "informational" content of food for the sake of production rates. It was an obvious choice in early 20th centure. Now not so much.

I agree about grapefruit but I think the best way to eat is is halved with a bit of honey on top. This way I get all the fiber, more of the vitamins, and still get a healthy dose of delectable juice as a reward.

I used to have halved grapefruit piled with sugar as a kid, as I was taught, I suppose. Later I discovered that the sugar just made it seem a lot more bitter, like a flavour that had to be combatted. They taste much better if you go with the taste instead of fighting it! Now it's my favourite fruit, eaten whole like oranges.

As a kid, I was a fruit maniac, my favourites were Granny Smith green apples, grapefruit, and really strong, sour oranges (we knew someone who sold them in huge bags from their house, I've never tasted anything like them since, my mother made incredible juice from them too). I never realized they're all on the not-so-sweet side until reading the "Fruit is evil"-type comments here. Also I loved grapes from the vine outside my window, passionfruit, mangoes, strawberries, (all home-grown), and peaches, pears, rockmelon, honeydew, nectarines...gee I'm making myself hungry.

Or try a little salt instead of the sugar... it counteracts the bitterness. Quite surprising!

>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

Funny, I was picture a terrible old crony in government as the "canker" that made everyone bulldoze their non-commercial trees.

Related: America's outlawing of Blackcurrant berries to protect the timber industry.

https://www.businessinsider.com/blackcurrant-america-vs-euro...

Xanthomonas axonopodis, a bacteria that defoliate orange trees.

Seconding a fresh Florida-grown grapefruit. I used to pick them a lot as a kid. It's rare to find someone with a residential grapefruit tree in FL now.

I agree about grapefruit juice. I stopped drinking orange juice years ago but do occasionally drink grapefruit juice.

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