Terrified Americans are rushing out to buy orange juice after abandoning the drink for years

Kate Taylor

Feb 9, 2018, 19:42 IST

Terrified Americans are rushing out to buy orange juice after abandoning the drink for years

Shutterstock/DenRz

Orange juice sales increased for the first time in nearly five years in January.
The spike in sales can be attributed to an especially brutal flu season, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Orange juice has gone from being perceived as a "healthy" drink to being seen as a con by many Americans, due to its high sugar and carb content.

Orange juice just had its first sales spike in nearly five years, thanks to an especially brutal flu season.

Sales of the drink rose 0.9% to 38.66 million gallons in the four weeks ending on January 20, The Wall Street Journal reported. This is the first time in nearly five years that Nielsen data showed a year-over-year increase in orange juice sales.

The US orange juice market has decreased by a whopping 50% since 2001, according to Nielsen data. Sales have declined in recent years as health and diet trends have shifted away from the drink and juice more generally.

"In terms of its nutritional profile, juice isn't too much better for you than a glass of soda or any other sweetened beverage," Business Insider's Erin Brodwin reported in 2016.

A 12-ounce glass of orange juice contains 153 calories, 27 grams of sugar, and 34 grams of carbohydrates. That is the same amount of carbs as a bag of M&Ms, and only three fewer grams of sugar.

While Americans are eager to cut calories and sugar from their diet by ditching orange juice most of the year, flu season has many returning to old traditions in a frantic effort to avoid the illness. According to the CDC, this year's flu season has led to more hospitalizations than any year prior.

"Overall hospitalizations are now the highest we've seen," Acting CDC Director Anne Schuchat said on a call with reporters last week. "Unfortunately, our latest tracking data indicate that flu activity is still high and widespread across most of the nation, and increasing overall."

The Wall Street Journal reports that the National Institutes of Health says there is no evidence that drinking orange juice protects people from getting the flu. But with influenza sweeping the country, people seem to be willing to take whatever precautions they can think of - even if they aren't necessarily effective.