What do orange juice and soda have in common? More than you think.

Orange juice – it looks like sunshine and vitamins in glass. 

However, it’s closer to soda in disguise. Coca Cola and PepsiCo produce the top selling orange juices Minute Maid and Tropicana, and those juices have more in common with soda than just the parent company. According to Dr. David Ludwig, a pediatric obesity expert at Children’s Hospital Boston, orange juice is only minimally better than soda – and that goes for most commercial fruit juice. They’re packed with sugar and there’s rarely anything fresh or pure about them, despite what the label might say. Most commercially produced orange juice is so heavily processed that it would be undrinkable if it were not infused with orange oils and essences. 

The best way to get nutritional benefits from fruit juices is to squeeze your own, or just eat the fruit as is. If you love commercial fruit juice, drink it in small doses or water it down to avoid loading up on sugar.