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1. What Are The General Health Benefits Of Citrus Fruits?

• Juicy-sweet oranges, zesty lemons and tangy grapefruits offer simple and flavorful ways to achieve a well-balanced diet.  Citrus fruits are high in Vitamin C, fiber and antioxidants, provide vital carbohydrates, and contain no fat.

2. Is It Healthier To Consume The Whole Fruit Than Just The Juice?

• The concentration of vitamin C in orange pulp is ten times more than that found in its juice.  Juice is known to lose nutrient content once it becomes subjected to heat and pasteurization.  In fact, orange juice begins to lose vitamin C (and other nutrients) from the moment it leaves the fruit.   Citrus flavonoids resident in the fruit’s juice, as well as in its tissue, pulp, and skin, help make the whole fruit much more healthful than just its juice.  Citrus flavonoids are powerful antioxidants and anti-inflammatory agents. They also serve as antimutagenic substances; that is, they help to mitigate the onslaught of cancer and other chronic diseases by frustrating unwanted cell mutation.

3. Do Citrus Fruits Have Benefits That Other Fruits do Not?

• Two citrus flavonoids -­ naringin in grapefruit and hesperidin in orange, occur only rarely in other plants and thus are essentially unique to citrus.

4. What Are The Names of the Citrus Fruits?

• Oranges, grapefruits, lemons and limes comprise citrus fruits.   The orange occurs in many forms including the navel, valencia, blood, mandarin, clementine, tangerine, minneola, uglis, and satsuma.  Grapefuits consist of white grapefuit, red grapefuit, pummelo and sweetie. Then there are lemons, rough-lemons, limes and leech-limes.

5. In relation to citrus, what are Glycemic Index Values?

• Glycemic Index Values characterize how fast, or slowly, digestion occurs.  Lower values apply to carbohydrates which require more time to digest.  Glycemic Index Values range from 0 to 100 and are categorized as:   Low Glycemic Index Foods (GI 54 or less); Intermediate Glycemic Index Foods (GI 55-69); and High Glycemic Index Foods (GI 70+).   Citrus fruits require more time to digest than other foods, respectively, and, hence, exhibit low glycemic index values.   This is due to their high acidity content, which helps slow gastric emptying. This affinity for protracting digestion is useful for dieting.  Listings of glycemic index values reveal that whole citrus fruits exhibit lower overall glycemic index values than their respective fruit juices.  The disparity appears to be greatest for grapefruits; meaning you get much more nutrition by consuming the entire grapefruit, as opposed to just drinking its juice.

6. How Can Consuming Citrus Fruits Help With Weight Loss And/Or Maintenance?

• Studies show that people who eat fruit such as lemons, tangerines, oranges and other whole foods, tend to eat less at subsequent meals, compared to people who eat “lighter, more calorie-dense foods” such as chips, snack crackers, desserts or candy.  Following a balanced diet that includes fruit, along with regular exercise will help bring weight down without jeopardizing your health.