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Comment by BoneShard | Hacker News Reader

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.

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This is what happened to me. I would guzzle orange juice. I couldn’t start a day unless I had a giant glass of it. Then I found out that it was just all sugar and not much else. I don’t think I’ve had a glass of the stuff in over a decade.

They advertise vitamin C, but that's in tons of other things. Even used as a preservative.

I love cutting grapefruit in half and digging out chunks because at the end you get to drink grapefruit juice the way it was intended, as a reward for eating grapefruit.

Do you eat the seeds and poop them out somewhere nice? I think that’s what the grapefruit intended.

You could make the argument that the grapefruit succeeded in its intention already, by being so good that humanity tends and manages whole groves of grapefruit trees

No that's silly. Everyone knows that when you eat a seed like that, the plant grows in your belly.

this made my day

as a kid I was thoroughly disappointed learning this not being real. probably more so than finding out about Santa.

fun fact: be careful if you're on any medications.

Especially any immune suppressant medications.

drinking grapefruit juice is a flex and signals you have a normally functioning brain

Orange juice is indeed pretty terrible stuff.

Critic acid is probably the most potent tooth eroding dietary acid you can put in your mouth. This means anything lemon based is out, even sparkling water with lemon flavor. Orange juice is also out simply because of the sheer quantity.

Sugar based soda is terrible because it leads to oral dysbiosis, which is the leading cause of caries (bacterial acids) and gum disease. If you have persistent bad breath or bitterness in your mouth, you will probably need a probiotic treatment.

But here is the kicker: Diet soda is even more acidic than regular soda! Worse, avoid anything with orange or lemon added to it.

Although drinking water is the best thing you can do for your teeth, this doesn't mean you have to give up on juice or soda. It just means you should never drink juice or soda on its own. Always drink it in combination with a meal to soak up the acids. No matter what you eat, you should always wash it down with plain water.

What if you make fresh squeezed OJ at home, eat the leftover pulp and skins first, and then drink the juice? I wonder if that has the same glycemic impact as eating an orange.

Why not just eat the orange. I can't be the only one who finds eating the pulp alone icky. Like chewing on a damp rag.

How do you put vodka into an orange?

Open the orange, remove the giraffe, put in the vodka.

(Variation on: <https://www.smart-words.org/jokes/giraffe-refrigerator-eleph...>.)

Alternatively, use an apple-corer to breach the peel, pour in a shot of vodka, and drink with a straw, much as with watermelon:

<https://www.thespruceeats.com/vodka-watermelon-recipe-417556...>.

The Irishman taught me how to put vodka into a watermelon.

The juice is still much less healthy. It’s the act of having your guts extract the nutrients that makes fruit healthy, because it reduces how quickly your body absorbs it. Once you make it into juice (or a smoothie) by mechanically digesting it prior to consumption, you’ve removed the need for that.

You forgot about chewing. Nobody swallows oranges in chunks. You chew and that presses out the juice. Drinking the juice and then eating the pulp is no different although it does sound silly. At that point just eat the damn orange like a normal person.

> Drinking the juice and then eating the pulp is no different although it does sound silly. At that point just eat the damn orange like a normal person.

It's less silly than taking a shot of vodka and eating an orange. Tastier too.

Drinking alcohol is silly.

No doubt. We all need some silliness in our lives.

This sounds like a good idea for a science experiment and a following paper!

Yes, the way I've heard it put is eating an orange is fine, but drinking a glass of juice is like eating an entire orchard.

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/

The abstract says the study is useless:

> However, given this study applied a heterogeneous ASB formula, it could not adequately consider the role of specific artificial sweeteners. Further research is needed to evaluate the potential effect of different artificial sweeteners and their doses on health.

it's also not the only study, just one example, besides that's standard boilerplate CE so as not to assume liability.

Similar to the reports that talk about health problems with sweeteners. Not enough good data to be informative and actionable.

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)

>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).

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

So does sugar. Everything ever credibly published on the effects of artificial sweeteners say four things:

1) everything else held equal, artificial sweeteners unequivocally reduce weight gain vs consuming equivalent sugar because sugar is 100% empty calories

2) some artificial sweeteners (e.g. sucralose) may increase appetite vs equivalent sugar, causing you to possibly eat more depending on which ones you consume

3) various artificial sweeteners may have non-weight-related negative effects on the body related to cardiovascular health, gut health, and so on

4) sugar definitely has a whole bunch of non-weight-related negative effects on the body related to cardiovascular health, gut health, and so on

Sugar is not just empty calories. Your muscles need glycogen, which is produced from carbohydrates—including sugar—to function.

Simple sugars are particularly effective at restoring glycogen stores after intense cardiovascular workouts.

It seems you may not know what the phrase "empty calories" means, so, let me help: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empty_calories

Lumping simple sugar in with complex carbohydrates as equally beneficial because they're both carbohydrate molecules is horrendous prevarication. And bringing up "intense workouts" at all, which I'm sure you very well know is demographically an extreme outlier scenario, in a conversation about weight gain, is the most hilarious kind of derailment.

There seems to be little to no evidence of any negative effects from just about any artificial sweeteners. I mean shoot, Aspartame immediately breaks down into some of the most common amino acids in the body. There's no biological mechanism for it to do anything negative.

Sugar, on the other hand, has very well known and studied health risks at the concentrations we see in a lot of modern 'staples' - soda and juice included.

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