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Food

Americans No Longer Want Any of Your Filthy Orange Juice

Oranges are like the mom jeans of the fruit world. If any fruit screams 1994, it is the orange.
Photo via Flickr user Sikachu!

Oranges are like the mom jeans of the fruit world. If any fruit screams 1994, it is the orange. And don't even get us started on orange juice. In the words of the inimitable Cher Horowitz, all we can say is this: "As if!"

That seems to be the message of a new US Food Commodity Consumption report which looked at the eating habits of different American demographic segments from the years 1994 to 2008. The information comes from dietary food intake surveys conducted by the USDA and the US Department of Health and Human Services. In a word: oranges and orange juice are done.

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The news is actually not good for fruits and vegetables in general.

Between 1994 to 1998 and 2007 to 2008, children's orange juice consumption dropped from 42.4 to 31.9 pounds, fresh weight equivalent, per person, per year. In the same period, adults' orange juice consumption dropped from 36.6 to 30.5 pounds. Given that orange juice consumption accounts for 26 percent of total fruit consumption, this means fruit consumption is down in America. Total consumption of whole oranges also fell over the same period.

Why aren't Americans showing the love to oranges and orange juice? The researchers don't speculate, but we can guess that media reports—including our own—that brought to light the ungodly amount of sugar found in bottled juice may be playing a role. Eight ounces of orange juice has 24 grams of sugar. That's six teaspoons of sugar.

But the study showed that the consumption of apple juice—another sugar bomb—has gone up during the period studied. So Americans seem to have singled out the citrus fruit for a special snub.

Further bad news is that the consumption of vegetables, despite the rise of Whole Foods and vegetarianism and veganism in America, has fallen. The report revealed that vegetable consumption has been declining among Americans of all ages and ethnicities since the mid-1990s.

So what are Americans eating these days? Chicken. According to the report, "Chicken consumption rose among all races and ethnicities." Cheese and yogurt consumption are up, too. Are you wondering why? The researchers don't hazard a guess. They do point out, however, that "Food away from home is now a routine part of Americans' diets, accounting for 41 percent of food expenditures and 32 percent of total caloric intake."

In any event, we can now say this with some certainty: orange is not, in fact, the new black.