Citrus Fruits Ranked By Nutrition & Sugar

Hello Health Champions. Today we're going  to talk about the healthiest citrus fruits,  

what to look for and what to avoid plus we will  debunk a few myths about citrus fruits and if  

you watch all the way through you will actually  understand why they are ranked the way they are.  

All the different types of citrus that we have  today actually originate from just four types  

of fruit one is called pomelo fruit second is  citron three is Mandarin and four is something  

called papeda Citrus the pomelo is the ancestor  of grapefruit it's very large and it has a very  

thick skin other than that it's quite similar  to the grapefruit today Citron is the ancestor  

of lemon and it looks like a very large bumpy  lemon Mandarin is a small Sweet Orange the Papeda  

Citrus comes in all kinds of different sizes and  anywhere from two centimeters which is like that  

big to about 10 which is about that big and it is  rarely eaten by itself because it's described as  

dry bitter and unpalatable sometimes they use  the skin for different essential oils it has  

very aromatic but nobody basically eats that and  today we have hundreds of different citrus fruits  

but I'm going to focus on the most common ones  that are all derived from these four ancestors  

so today we have lemons and there's dozens and  dozens types of lemons there's dozens of types  

of lime and from the Mandarin we have derived  all those small sweet candy-like fruits like  

tangerines Clementines satsumas and so forth  then we have the orange and that includes the  

blood orange the Seville orange the Jaffa the  cara cara and so forth and the grapefruit is the  

pink and the red and the white and so forth and  the pomelo is very similar to the grapefruit but  

like we said it's bigger another one is kumquat  which is pretty common in Asia and it's a little  

different than most other Citrus because it's very  small and it's high in fiber because you actually  

eat the skin and furthermore most of the sweetness  is in the skin and the inside is kind of tart so  

it's like opposite of a lot of other fruits when  we look at the benefits we need to stay clear of  

the tendency to sensationalize trivial amounts  of benefit so when they say that something is  

rich in protein then that's not really true most  Citrus is less than one gram the ones we're going  

to talk about is 0.721 and the only exception  is the kumquat because there you also eat the  

skin which has a little bit more so for 100 grams  of edible fruit which is like the edible portion  

of a medium orange or medium to large orange then  we're getting less than a gram for the most part  

we often hear that citrus fruit is very rich in  potassium and magnesium but for a typical serving  

of about a hundred grams you're going to get 0 to  5 percent of these minerals so we want to think of  

fruit As a treat especially if we're trying to  lose weight or reverse insulin resistance which  

most people have some issue with then we don't  want to think of these Foods as a way to get more  

nutrients and then start eating more it should  be more of a treat or an occasional thing citrus  

fruit however is pretty rich in vitamin C it's  about the only nutrient that there's a substantial  

amount of where we can get MO most of our  recommended intake from a moderate serving and the  

other thing it's rich in of course is sugar we're  going to get anywhere from 1.7 all the way up to  

11 grams of sugar in a hundred grams of edible  fruit and what about all the other nutrients  

well most citrus fruit has a little bit of a  lot of different nutrients so it's a good food  

source everything adds up but there's not enough  difference that we want to point to one over  

another and change the ranking base to that but I  want to straighten out a few more things we often  

hear that fruit is very rich in fiber and that's  not really true unless you also eat the skin and  

with Citrus the kumquat is the only one where  we usually eat the skin and therefore instead of  

maybe one or two percent fiber it has six percent  fiber but what about Palmer low someone claimed  

that a single serving of pomelo has six grams of  fiber per serving what they failed to mention that  

is that's a pomelo the size of a cantaloupe and  you probably need four people to eat that one  

serving so that's for six or seven hundred grams  of edible fruit which is way more than you want  

to eat in one sitting other things there are  claimed to be beneficial are antioxidants and  

yes fruit has antioxidants but that's not for your  benefit the fruit has them built in to protect the  

fruit from the environment from the oxygen from  prematurely oxidizing that's how fruit stays fresh  

while it's still on the tree in the human body  we do have some need for antioxidants and the  

ones in the orange aren't going to hurt us but we  have our own system primarily based on glutathione  

which we manufacture and another claimed benefit  was that citrus fruit is cholesterol free and  

it's low in fat and low in sodium and this is  so ridiculous to claim that something is good  

because it doesn't have something especially  when the items they're talking about are myths  

so cholesterol is not something you want to try  to avoid you want to try to avoid inflammation  

and I've done some videos on that that you can  understand that further but high cholesterol or  

ingesting cholesterol is not a problem and just  because something is low in fat or sodium doesn't  

make it a health food fat is extremely healthy if  it's healthy fats and sodium is something that the  

body can't manufacture we need to ingest it in  Fairly large amounts every day and the excess we  

can get rid of so all of those are myths and very  often people claim that this fruit or that fruit  

is great because it has medicinal properties  it will cure cancer or be anti-fungal and so  

forth and while they may contain some of these  compounds we don't really want to focus on that  

part because most of that is in the skin in the  essential oils and most of the time that they  

do those studies they extract the oils and they  apply it to a culture of some pathogen that's  

at a much much higher concentration that we could  ever get from the fruit so again those things are  

there they're not going to hurt us but they're not  going to provide any benefit that you'll probably  

notice and then let's talk about the sugar in  fruit because so many people say that the fruit  

in Sugar doesn't matter and there's so much  misinformation about the types and the amounts  

so lemon is one of the best ones it has 2.5  grams of total sugar per 100 grams of edible  

fruit which is probably a little more than you'll  eat in a typical day and then we have lime which  

has even less 1.7 grams per hundred on the Other  Extreme is Mandarin which has 11 grams and that's  

Mandarin Clementine tangerine and so forth and  the regular orange is pretty close at about nine  

and a half the kumquat at nine and a half is the  same as the orange whereas the grapefruit and the  

pomelo is a little bit less and I couldn't  find any reliable consistent information on  

the pomelo so I just put it at the same as the  grapefruit because they're very very similar but  

we don't know exactly where that one is so let's  understand what these numbers are so sugar the  

most common form of sugar that we talk about is  when we have table sugar called sucrose so it's  

a six carbon ring called glucose together with  a five carbon ring called fructose and when we  

link those together that is table sugar white  sugar and this also happens to be in Fruit then  

if we break this little Bond here and we have  these floating around by themselves then they  

go from being a disaccharide to a monosaccharide  and this single six carbon ring is the glucose  

that is the backbone of all of metabolism the  blood sugar that we have is glucose every cell  

in the body can use this glucose but the other  ring there with five carbons is called fructose  

and that is something that only the liver can  break down so if we have a lot of fructose  

that tends to overload the liver and lead to fatty  liver so if you eat a little fruit once in a while  

and you're healthy you're not going to get a fatty  liver but if you already have a fatty liver then  

you want to really watch that fructose because it  will prevent you from recovering so when we eat a  

fruit we need to understand that they all have  sucrose glucose and fructose they all occur in  

this form in the fruit and if we eat the sucrose  it'll take a few minutes for an enzyme to break  

that down once it gets into the small intestine  but fruit is digested very quickly so this is  

going to happen relatively soon and then that  sucrose breaks down into glucose and fructose so  

if we have one one one or two one one it doesn't  really matter but because once it breaks down  

all we have left is glucose and fructose and the  ratios are going to vary just a tiny little bit  

but overall we're looking at 50/50 regardless  of which fruit we eat some of them are going to  

be 55/45 or even 60/40 but pretty much we're  getting a 50/50 ratio combination of glucose  

and fructose no matter which citrus fruit we  eat and yes it's still sugar and yes it still  

matters and the next thing to understand is  the total carbs the net carbs and the fiber  

so if we have the total carbs being this much  then that encompasses both the edible the sugar  

and the fiber so this portion here would be net  carbs and this portion here would be the fiber  

so when you calculate what really matters it's  really the net carbs because the fiber you're  

not going to absorb it's not going to affect  your glucose you're not going to metabolize  

that and turn it into energy and when we eat a  carbohydrate whether it's a fruit or a grain or  

a potato then these net carbs in turn are going  to be made up of sugar and starch and starch is  

when we have a bunch of these glucose molecules  lined up together so if we have one and then we  

link it to another and another and another and  then these can go branching off and we can have  

hundreds and thousands that's called starch  but it's still made up entirely of glucose  

all of starch is still glucose so it breaks  down and becomes blood sugar and in fruit  

most of the time almost all of the net carbs are  sugar and in citrus fruit there is no starch at  

all there is zero starch so we would think that  all of the sugar is going to be net carbs but  

here's where it gets a little bit confusing and  honestly I couldn't find an answer to this so  

if you know then please help me out here but when  we look at the net carbs we'll see that for lemon  

and lime there is a huge difference between the  sugar and the net carbs so logically based on what  

we know and what I could find because I couldn't  find any explanation then the difference between  

the sugar and the net carbs should be starch but  again I don't know what that is however for the  

rest of the fruits for Mandarin and orange  and kumquat the difference is almost zero so  

this is what we would expect for fruits that all  the net carbs are sugar but then again for the  

grapefruit and the pomelo there is a little bit  of difference so there's some unaccounted net  

carbs and it could be that they contain something  called oligosaccharides which is when you link up  

not two but maybe five or seven or eight of these  saccharides of these glucose or fructose molecules  

and then it wouldn't be technically a a sugar or  it wouldn't be a starch but again I could not find  

any information so if you know let me know and  if you've read about grapefruit you might have  

come across something called ferrano coumarins but  it's not just grapefruit it also pomelos tangelos  

bitter orange and Seville oranges that contain  this compound and why does that matter because  

they tell you if you are on a Statin medication  then you should not eat these fruits because it  

can interfere with the breakdown of these Statin  medication with the body's metabolism of these  

statin drugs and therefore if you're on a Statin  and you eat citrus you could increase your risk  

of side effects so therefore should you stop the  Citrus or should you stop the Statin well I'm not  

your medical dog doctor officially so I can't  tell you what to do on that you need to have  

that discussion with the Doctor Who prescribed  it however I do believe that the vast majority  

of Statin medication is prescribed for the wrong  reasons so I want to explain a little bit about  

how this works your body manufactures the vast  majority of cholesterol in your body so if you  

start with a certain compound and we don't name  these because it just gets complicated then it  

body goes through a series of steps and eventually  it produces something that is going to be the  

precursor for CoQ10 and for cholesterol and this  CoQ10 is necessary for your body to turn food into  

energy so as much as 95 percent of all the energy  that you make with the oxygen you oxidize food is  

the result of CoQ10 being present and therefore  you make most of your energy through this pathway  

and this is the energy that's the most important  for the organs who use the most energy so we're  

talking about your heart we're talking about your  brain and your muscles and your liver these are  

very highly metabolically active organs so this  energy is absolutely necessary for them to do  

their work and if you don't have enough CoQ10 then  these are the first organs to suffer and if you  

take a Statin medication then its job is to go in  and block to reduce or shut down this part of the  

process and if it shuts down the first part of the  process then obviously it's going to reduce all  

the steps down line from that so it will reduce  your cholesterol which is the purpose of the  

Statin drug and it will absolutely do that it will  absolutely work but it will do it at the cost of  

also reducing CoQ10 and also reducing the energy  so now there'll be a little bit less or a lot less  

of energy for your heart brain muscle and liver  and that's where most of the side effect from  

statin drugs occur that's why you have side  effects primarily related to these organs but  

the problem goes even further because this  Statin medication is a foreign molecule in  

the body your body looks for things that it can  use that contribute to the function of the body  

like building blocks and Fuel and catalysts  like vitamins and minerals but this molecule  

that the Statin medication is made up of will  never become a building block or fuel and it's  

not a catalyst for something your body needs to  do so it's foreign and your body has to break  

it down and it needs enzymes in the liver to  do that so this Statin is going via an enzyme  

and it's a little bit different for different  Statin medications so this problem doesn't  

affect all of them but it affects the major ones  and if we have these enzymes then the liver can  

convert this foreign molecule to something that  is harmless we can neutralize it and then we can  

flush it out that's how most of the detox and the  bio transformation happens in the liver now where  

does it become a problem with Citrus it is if we  eat these citrus fruits that contain this ferrano  

coumarin then they will block the activity of  this enzyme and now we can't break down this  

Statin drug and now not only are we reducing  the energy supply to the liver but now this  

Statin medication this foreign molecule builds  up and starts to further damage the liver so now  

we have two different sources and mechanisms of  liver damage so again I can't tell you whether  

you want to stop the Citrus or the Statin but you  want to be aware of how this works and you want  

to start understanding enough about cholesterol  so that you can have an intelligent discussion  

with your medical doctor to see if a Statin is  appropriate because in my opinion most of the  

time it's not and we also need to talk about juice  because more than 80 percent of oranges are turned  

into juice so when we're talking about lemon  and lime then those are totally fine to juice  

because you're not going to drink it by the glass  you'll use a teaspoon here and there for cooking  

and flavoring which is awesome I use it for just  about everything but when it comes to Orange then  

understand that one Orange has about seven grams  of sugar and usually people say that the biggest  

difference between the juice and the fruit is the  fiber but it's not really that it's how much you  

consume so if you eat an orange you're probably  just going to eat an orange and be done and you  

get seven grams of sugar however if you have one  cup of orange juice like one regular glass of  

orange juice that's about the equivalent of three  oranges and you wouldn't typically sit down and  

eat three oranges back to back but you have no  problem drinking a glass or even two of orange  

juice which then gives you 21 grams of sugar so  it's deceptive how much you consume and that is  

the biggest problem but I also might add that  in terms of freshness and nutrition the fruit  

is far superior because the orange juice has been  processed it has been oftentimes concentrated and  

then diluted it and all of the time if it's  sold in stores in any scale it's going to be  

pasteurized so it's going to be totally changed  if you ever have the juice then I recommend that  

you squeeze it yourself and over the years in  the last 15 years or so orange juice sales have  

actually dropped they're down by something like  40 percent however with the COVID epidemic when  

that just took off and was announced and made  public and people were aware of it in March of  

2020 sales of orange juice went up by 70 percent  and that was temporary but what it tells us is  

people still believe that orange juice is the way  to get vitamin C so they went out and went crazy  

and stocked up on orange juice but all you're  really getting yes you're getting a little bit of  

vitamin C and yes it is beneficial for your health  and your immune system but what you you're getting  

most of all is just a bunch of sugar that's going  to more than offset any benefit of the vitamin  

C the Polo is the highest in vitamin C at 61  milligrams per 100 grams of edible fruit followed  

by the lemon and the orange at 53. kumquat has  44. grapefruit has 31 lime has 29 and Mandarin  

has 27. so like we've talked about citrus fruit  has all of these different compounds in it but  

I'm going to focus on the two that I think matters  that are worth ranking on that has any significant  

amount and we want to keep the sugar low and we  want to keep the vitamin C high so we're going  

to rank these from s for Superior and I'm going to  give them a grade of a b c and then we'll let you  

know if there was anything that failed and I want  to start in the C category that is like a pass but  

not really great and that would be the Mandarin  which was the highest in sugar but it doesn't  

have a whole lot of vitamin C in the B category  which is a little better we have the kumquat and  

the orange and they're about the same amount of  sugar but the orange has a little bit more vitamin  

C not a huge difference in the a category we have  the grapefruit and the pomelo and again I couldn't  

find any reliable data on the sugar for the pomelo  but because they're very similar I'm going to  

assume it's the same and the pomelo has a good bit  more of the vitamin C and in the superior category  

I'm going to put lime and lemon because they are  so much lower in sugar and they still have a very  

good amount of vitamin C so if you're watching  this and you're trying to reduce weight or reduce  

insulin resistance and you're trying to be in  ketosis or do a low carb diet then I would suggest  

that you only entertain the fruits in the superior  category that maybe you go into the A or B once in  

a while but that would be a rare exception and  now you're wondering why is the F category blank  

well originally I wasn't going to put anything  there because none of the fruits nothing that  

nature makes is really quite that bad but then  I realized we also talked about orange juice so  

the fail category is orange juice because it has  so much sugar that even though you are getting a  

good amount of vitamin C through that there is no  amount of vitamin C that can make up for how much  

sugar is in orange juice. If you enjoyed this  video you're going to love that one, and if you  

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