"Florida orange growers fight back against low carb diets"
 

Published Wednesday, January 21, 2004

Florida orange growers fight back against low carb diets

By MIKE SCHNEIDER, Associated Press Writer, LAKELAND, Fla.

link to article

Tired of losing orange juice drinkers to low-carb diets that prohibit the drink, Florida's citrus growers are fighting back.

The state Department of Citrus on Wednesday redirected its marketing strategy to convince consumers that orange juice can be compatible with the Atkins diet as well as the weight loss plan pushed by television talk show host Dr. Phil McGraw.

The department's lawyer also is reviewing some books - such as "The South Beach Diet," which discourages drinking orange juice while dieting - and other publications for possible violation of state disparagement statutes.

About $1.8 million will be spent on a marketing campaign to combat the bad image caused by the low-carb diets. The department is abandoning a marketing campaign that targeted moms and young professional woman who watch television shows like "Sex in the City."

"There are powerful, negative messages against us," said Bob Crawford, executive director of the Florida Department of Citrus. "We're not going to stand and take it."

Florida's $9 billion citrus industry has reason to be concerned.

Orange juice consumption has gone from a high of 888 million gallons during the 2000-2001 growing season to an expected 844 million gallons for the current season. Citrus officials blame part of that drop to unsuccessful marketing, but they said a noticeable drop occurred last March when low-carb diets began to reach a critical mass.

"People are dropping out of the market," Dan Gunter, a consultant for the Department of Citrus, told members of the Citrus Commission, which oversees the agency.

Crawford said he thinks orange juice could be compatible with the Atkins diet and Dr. Phil's diet because those diets leave room for orange juice consumption.

Under Florida law, growers may sue anyone who publicly says fruits, vegetables and other perishable food products are unsafe for consumption but can't back up their claims with scientific evidence.

"I think if people write things that aren't true about our product, we'll first talk about it with them and hopefully avoid litigation," Crawford said. "We're not going to stand back and be slandered."

In "The South Beach Diet," Dr. Arthur Agatston urges readers to eat fruits rather than drink fruit juice.

"Again, fruit juices are a big source of trouble, in part because we've come to associate them with healthy habits," Agatston writes in the best-selling book. "But they also bring with them high levels of fructose, which can be the undoing of any effort to lose weight."

The publisher of "The South Beach Diet," Rodale Inc., said it stands by the book's "sound nutritional advice."

Most of Florida's oranges are processed into juice. Florida is the nation's largest producer of oranges and second in the world to Brazil. Florida growers are expected to have their largest crop ever - 250 million 80-pound boxes.

Some members of Florida's citrus industry have adopted to the low-carb phenomenon. PepsiCo Inc.'s Tropicana earlier this month introduced Light 'n Healthy, a line that has a third less sugar and calories than regular orange juice.

An 8-ounce serving of Light 'n Healthy has about 70 calories and 14 grams of sugar, about a third less than regular Tropicana orange juice, which has 110 calories and 22 grams of sugar.

Citrus commission members received some optimistic news Wednesday about diet and citrus.

A study commissioned by the Department of Citrus and conducted by Scripps Clinic in San Diego showed that people who consumed half a white grapefruit or drank a serving of grapefruit juice three times a day without changing any other part of their diet or exercise lost more than three pounds. The study also showed declines in insulin and glucose levels.

The study examined 79 people over a three month period.

The Department of Citrus is planning a marketing campaign around the study's results.

"All of those diets tell you to eat fresh fruit," said Andy LaVigne, the state's largest citrus growers association. "So how about some grapefruit?"

I don't think that any of the low carb authors has said that drinking fruit juice is "unsafe". Only that they concentrate the fructose and allow you to consume the same amount of fructose found in about 4 oranges in one quick glass (minus most of the fiber, of course) and that for the amount of carbs you get in that one small glass of juice, there are far more nutritious choices that are far more beneficial to weight loss.
It's also sound advice to choose the whole fruit over the juice of that same fruit, but that would mean the sale of much less oranges, wouldn't it? :rolleyes:

Everyone blames us Atkins followers for raising the price of beef, do you think they will thank us for driving down orange juice prices?

Oh, wait, they are gonna keep the price the same and badmouth us. Never mind.

--nw

>>"...marketing strategy to convince consumers that orange juice can be compatible with the Atkins diet..."

Now I've heard everything! :rolleyes:

>>"We're not going to stand back and be slandered."

Okay, *now* I've heard everything! :rolleyes: Unless Dr Agatson created some whopper lies about orange juice, it's hardly slander. What a joke.

The free orange juice my company provides has more sugar than the free Coca-Cola they USED TO provide.

Go ahead and sue me, Florida, if you can quit arguing over the chads long enough to file a suit.

Well... they should grow grapefruit then.

1 medium Grapefruit -- 17.86
1 medium Orange -- 12.25
1 medium Tangelo -- 8.88
1 medium Tangerine -- 7.47

4 oz. Tangelo -- 8.60
4 oz. Orange -- 7.85
4 oz. Tangerine -- 7.11
4 oz. Grapefruit -- 3.90

Prune Juice -- 42.11
Grape Juice -- 37.60
Papaya Juice -- 34.36
Passionfruit Juice -- 34.15
Pineapple Juice -- 33.95
Cranberry Juice -- 31.88
Apple Juice -- 28.72
Orange Juice -- 26.56
Tangerine Juice -- 24.46
Grapefruit Juice -- 21.88
Lime Juice -- 21.18
Lemon Juice -- 20.08
Blackberry Juice -- 19.25
Strawberry Juice -- 16.35
Watermelon Juice -- 15.90
Tomato Juice -- 9.31

Carrot Juice -- 20.03 (1.89 Fiber)
Celery Juice -- 5.68g (3.78 Fiber)

Fruit for Fruit, Tangerines and Tangelos would be the best choice. Ounce for Ounce, Grapefruit would be the best.

As for Juices, most are very high in Sugar...though Tomato Juice [typically considered a Vegetable, but really a Fruit] is pretty low as is Celery Juice [which is a Vegetable.] Lemon and Lime Juices are high, but can successfully be added in very small amounts [with a non-caloric sweetener] to water...to produce a drink that is low in carbs, yet has a Lemon and/or Lime taste.

It is possible to reduce or even eliminate most of the sugar in Fruit Juice. There are a number of Reduced Sugar Juices already out there. If the Orange industry is incapable of comprehending this, then they obviously don't have the sense to run a business properly.

BTW, all my numbers for Juices are based on the Juice itself. If you add extra sugar [as is often done,] the amount goes through the roof. Even back in my Low-Calorie [Low-Fat] days, I wouldn't touch Orange Juice because the stuff was so damn high in Calories [for a Drink.] For reference, Orange Juice has 1/3 more Calories than Soda. I would have been better off Calorically speaking, drinking a Coke.

Illegal to disparage????
 

----
Under Florida law, growers may sue anyone who publicly says fruits, vegetables and other perishable food products are unsafe for consumption but can't back up their claims with scientific evidence.

----

Gee. How come they don't have a law that protects beef producers, pork producers, dairy farmers, and the like?

You hear MDs, and RDs, and all sorts of crackpot nutritionists saying beef, butter, pork, cream, cheese will kill you. All without scientific evidence.

How come that's not illegal?

Good remark KWald...

For years those 'experts' have been scaring people away from healthy, natural foods, and towards nutrient-devoid processed foods, without scientific evidence!

I don't know about Florida, but Texas does, or at least used to...Remember when they sued Oprah for calling Ground Beef unsafe ??? As for the Beef...you missed the big one: PETA/PCRM. They've been claiming for years now [with no scientific evidence to back it up] that Meat causes Impotence. If anyone should be sued under such laws, it should definitely be PETA and especially PCRM since their name falsely portrays themselves as Doctors, thus giving their fallacious claims seeming credibility.

Sue you over dinner?
 

The Texas cattlemen sued Oprah, didn't they? That's when Dr. Phil came to prominence, he helped Oprah keep cool through the ordeal. And she did, and she won against the Texans' multimillion dollar anti-defamation suit!

Whatever happened to freedome of speech in the US?

Two Words: PATRIOT Act

>1 medium Grapefruit -- 17.86
>1 medium Orange -- 12.25
>1 medium Tangelo -- 8.88
>1 medium Tangerine -- 7.47

I thought Grapefruit has least carb/sugar of all these...
pl. clarify...

one med grapefruit is still huge compaired to any of the other fruits
if you looked at the other list you will notice it is the lowest
"4 oz. Tangelo -- 8.60
4 oz. Orange -- 7.85
4 oz. Tangerine -- 7.11
4 oz. Grapefruit -- 3.90"

I believe this might be a stretch for them, based on the following information:


Now, I know I haven't read the South Beach books yet, but after reading this quote here:


I'm wondering if that isn't because of this:



I would think fruit juices have a less balanced ratio of fructose to fiber, obviously containing more fructose than fiber, just as Lisa N posted.

The only juice I'll drink is "not from concentrate" like Tropicana's Pure Premium Original (not from concentrate), and even then I only drink it when I'm sick.


Now that they have released Light and Healthy I might give that a try, but I'm not sure if that's from concentrate or not.


Sorry, the grapefruit diet did nothing for me other than cause me to develop an intense dislike for grapefruits. ;)


Maybe Dr. Arthur Agatston needs to hook up with Oprah's lawyers. ;)

This article has given me a little more incentive to read the SBD book. I'm really curious as to what "lies" Dr. Agatson has to say that is malicious about fruit juice.

Exactly, a medium Grapefruit is bigger...

Grapefruit = 4.0π
Orange = 1.7π
Tangelo = 1.6π
Tangerine = 1.4π

That would be the area of the flat surface if you cut the fruit in half...If you cut them into slices of equal thickness, a Grapefruit would be more than twice the size of an Orange, Tangelo, or Tangerine.

Well I sure miss my orange juice. I lived in Florida 12 years and had a yard full of fruit trees. I had an orange tree, a grapefruit tree, 3 papayas and an avacado. I love fresh citus and miss it a LOT.

I used to have a Key Lime Tree...and my next door neighbor had an Orange Tree. But, that was when I was still living in Broward County...There's Orange Farms for miles in South Central Florida along the Railroad tracks. If you ever ride the train up through the state, they seem to go on forever. There's also a couple kids who throw Oranges at the train...But, that's another story.

Wouldn't it be smarter to spend that money talking about the Australian study that showed drinking orange juice cuts the risk of mouth, larynx, and stomach cancers by 50%? Why emphasize the idea that drinking OJ is the enemy of several wildly successful weightloss plans? Stupid, stupid, stupid!! :rolleyes:

I think oranges are fine to eat on any diet, even Atkins and SBD, as long as you don't over do it. Orange juice, is another matter. I think mothers who are feeding their kids tons of fruit juices are not doing them a service.

I wonder if Florida will start issuing tickets to people on diets. :p

Federal judge rules part of Patriot Act unconstitutional

Monday, January 26, 2004 Posted: 3:11 PM EST (2011 GMT)

http://www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/01/26/p...t.ap/index.html

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- A federal judge has declared unconstitutional a portion of the USA Patriot Act that bars giving expert advice or assistance to groups designated non-U.S. terrorist organizations.

The ruling marks the first court decision to declare a part of the post-September 11 anti-terrorism statute unconstitutional, said David Cole, a Georgetown University law professor who argued the case on behalf of the Humanitarian Law Project.

In a ruling handed down late Friday and made available Monday, U.S. District Judge Audrey Collins said the ban on providing "expert advice or assistance" is impermissibly vague, in violation of the First and Fifth Amendments.

John Tyler, the Justice Department attorney who argued the case, had no comment and referred calls to the department press office in Washington. A message left there was not immediately returned.

The case before the court involved five groups and two U.S. citizens seeking to provide support for lawful, nonviolent activities on behalf of Kurdish refugees in Turkey.

The Humanitarian Law Project, which brought the lawsuit, said the plaintiffs were threatened with 15 years in prison if they advised groups on seeking a peaceful resolution of the Kurds' campaign for self-determination in Turkey.

The judge's ruling said the law, as written, does not differentiate between impermissible advice on violence and encouraging the use of peaceful, nonviolent means to achieve goals.

"The USA Patriot Act places no limitation on the type of expert advice and assistance which is prohibited and instead bans the provision of all expert advice and assistance regardless of its nature," the judge said.

Cole declared the ruling "a victory for everyone who believes the war on terrorism ought to be fought consistent with constitutional principles."

Well I was talking about FRESH SQUEEZED orange juice--HEAVENLY!

Related article:

WFTV.com

Florida Considers Anti-Low-Carb Campaign To Increase OJ Sales

POSTED: 5:04 PM EST February 19, 2004


TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- The Florida Citrus Commission is considering trying a new ad campaign to battle a three-year decline in orange juice sales.

Most Florida oranges are made into juice. Sales have been going down, and experts blame it largely on the popularity of diets like Atkins and the South Beach Diet.

The Richards Group handles advertising for the Citrus Commission. It's proposing a new, six million dollar ad campaign to "poke fun at the logic" of the low-carb diets. For instance, someone would be shown frying bacon, then pouring the leftover grease in a juice glass and asking if it's more healthy than orange juice.

The Florida Department of Agriculture says something has to be done to get people drinking orange juice again.

But some members of the House and Senate Agriculture committees are concerned that going negative could result in a backlash against the citrus industry by those who follow the popular diets.

The head of the Florida Citrus Commission says the department will look closely at the proposed campaign before deciding whether to move forward. Copyright 2004 by The Associated Press.

Another related article:
DENMARK/USA: Danisco develops low-carb orange juice

February 18, 2004
Source: just-food.com

Danish food ingredients firm Danisco has developed a low-carbohydrate alternative to orange juice.

The company said low carbohydrate diets, increasingly popular in the US, have contributed to consistently declining orange juice sales the past three years.

In response, Danisco has created an orange juice alternative using the company's citrus flavours and ingredients. The product contains one-third less carbohydrates than regular orange juice but delivers the same nutrients and taste, Danisco said.