Sweet, brightly colored citrus fruits bring a burst of sunlight into the winter. However, citrus fruits are not only visually appealing and flavorful, but they are also beneficial for your health.
This category of fruits encompasses a wide variety of hybrids and varieties, including grapefruit, oranges, limes, and lemons.
They offer a variety of health benefits, including the ability to combat malignancy and enhance immunity.
Continue reading to discover seven compelling reasons to consume citrus fruits.
What are citrus fruits?
Flowering trees and shrubbery produce citrus fruits. They are distinguished by a leathery epidermis and a white pith that surrounds juicy segments.
They are indigenous to Australia, New Guinea, New Caledonia, and potentially Southeast Asia.
Currently, tropical and subtropical regions worldwide are home to their cultivation. Spain, Brazil, China, the United States, Mexico, and India are among the primary production centers.
Producing juice from nearly one-third of all citrus fruits is intriguing.
Citrus crops are available year-round. Oranges and grapefruits are at their most abundant in the Northern Hemisphere from mid-December to April.
The following are some of the most frequently encountered citrus fruit varieties:
- Sweet oranges: Valencia, navel, blood orange, and cara cara are all varieties of sweet oranges.
- Mandarins: Mandarins include satsumas, clementines, tangerines, and tangelos.
- Limes: Lime varieties include Persian, key lime, and kaffir.
- Grapefruit: Ruby red, oroblanco, and white
- Lemons: Meyer and Eureka lemons
- Other kinds: Additional varieties include pomelos, yuzu, citron, and sudachi.
1. Rich in Vitamins and Plant Compounds
Citrus fruits provide a significant amount of vitamin C, which boosts the immune system and helps keep the skin elastic and smooth.
In reality, a single medium orange provides the entire day’s worth of vitamin C.
Additionally, citrus fruits contain substantial quantities of other vitamins and minerals that are essential for the proper functioning of the body, such as potassium, phosphorus, magnesium, and copper.
Furthermore, they are abundant in plant compounds that possess a variety of health benefits, such as antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties.
These compounds, which encompass more than 60 varieties of flavonoids, carotenoids, and essential oils, are responsible for a significant number of the health benefits of citrus fruit.
2. Low in Calories
If you’re watching how many calories you eat, citrus foods are good for you.
Even though they are low in calories, the fiber and water in them make you feel full.
The following list shows how many calories the main types of citrus fruits contain:
35 for 1 small orange
- 62 for a larger orange
- 1/2 pink grapefruit: 52
- 1/2 white grapefruit: 39
- 12 ounces of lemon juice
Additionally, a 2015 study that examined people’s weight and eating habits over a 24-year period discovered a link between citrus foods and weight loss.
3. Good Source of Fiber
Citrus foods contain a lot of fiber. There are four grams of fiber in just one cup of orange pieces.
To give you an idea of how much that is, you should eat 14 grams of fiber for every 1,000 calories. Only 4% of men and 13% of women in the US are believed to earn that amount.
Fiber benefits your health in numerous ways, including enhancing the function of your digestive system and aiding in weight loss.
Oranges contain a significant amount of soluble fiber. This is the type of fiber that helps lower cholesterol.
Citrus fruits are different from other fruits and veggies because they have more soluble fiber than insoluble fiber.
4. Reduce Your Risk of Kidney Stones
Mineral crystals in the kidneys cause pain. These can occur if your urine is highly concentrated or contains more minerals that can form stones than usual.
Lack of citrate in the urine can lead to a certain type of kidney stone.
Citrate levels in your urine can go up if you eat a lot of fruits and vegetables, especially citrus fruits. This lowers your risk of getting kidney stones.
Instead of taking potassium citrate supplements, you can eat and drink citrus foods and juices.
Over the last 40 years, American eating habits have shown that people who don’t consume as many citrus foods are more likely to develop kidney stones.
5. Protect Against Cancer
Many studies have linked citrus fruits to a lower chance of some cancers.
In one study, people who ate one grapefruit or drank one glass of grapefruit juice every day had a lower chance of getting lung cancer.
Other research has shown that citrus foods may also help protect against stomach, esophageal, breast, and pancreatic cancers.
These foods contain many plant chemicals, such as flavonoids, that may help protect against cancer.
Some of these flavonoids are antioxidants, and they may also stop the expression of genes that cause some degenerative illnesses, like cancer.
Citrus foods may also help fight cancer by stopping cancer cells from growing, stopping new cancers from starting, and stopping carcinogens from doing their job.
6. Protect Your Brain
Neurodegenerative illnesses, like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, happen when nerve cells break down. The flavonoids in citrus fruits may help protect against these diseases.
Inflammation typically causes these diseases.
Citrus fruits’ flavonoids are believed to protect against the chain of events that weakens the nervous system by reducing inflammation.
Studies using mice and test tubes have demonstrated that certain flavonoids, such as hesperidin and apigenin, protect brain cells and improve brain function.
Several studies with older people have also found that citrus juices may help the brain work better.
7. Improve your heart health
Eating orange fruits may be good for your heart.
A study in Japan actually found that people who ate more of these veggies were less likely to get heart disease and stroke.
A 2017 review also found a link between grapefruits and lower blood pressure.
Citrus foods contain chemicals that can improve heart health indicators.
For instance, their flavonoids and soluble fiber may lower “bad” LDL cholesterol and raise “good” HDL cholesterol, which may help lower cholesterol numbers.
And a lot of the flavonoids in citrus foods, like naringin, are powerful antioxidants that are good for the heart in many ways.
Downside
Even though fruit has a lot of good points, there are a few things that could go wrong.
Cause of Cavities
If you eat or drink a lot of citrus foods or juices, you might be more likely to get cavities. That’s because the acid in citrus foods wears away tooth enamel.
This is a big risk if you drink lemon water all day, which is acidic for your teeth.
It’s intriguing that certain chemicals in citrus peels might be able to combat the bacteria that cause cavities, but further research is required to fully understand this.
Whole fruits offer greater health advantages than fruit juice.
Fruit juices like orange and grapefruit have a lot of vitamin C and other nutrients that you can find in whole citrus foods, but they aren’t quite as healthy.
That’s because a glass of juice has a lot more sugar and not nearly as much fiber as a glass of whole fruit.
For a variety of reasons, this presents a challenge.
To start, more sugar equals more calories per dose. Fruit juice and other drinks with a lot of calories can make you gain weight.
Also, when you eat or drink a lot of fructose (the type of sugar found in fruit juice), your body quickly absorbs it and sends it to your liver.
If your liver receives too much sugar, it converts some of it into fat. Over time, liver fat buildup can lead to fatty liver disease.
It’s fine to get sugar from whole fruit, as long as you only take a small amount at a time. It also takes longer for the fructose to enter your system because fruit has fiber that acts as a buffer.
Some medicines can’t work well with grapefruit.
If you take certain medications, eating grapefruit or drinking grapefruit juice may not be good for you.
Your gut contains an enzyme that prevents the absorption of some medicines. A chemical in grapefruit called furanocoumarin binds to this enzyme and stops it from working right.
Because of this, your body takes in more medicine than it should.
Tarangels and Seville oranges (the kind used for marmalade) also contain furanocoumarin.
Grapefruit has the ability to alter the effects of several prescription and over-the-counter medications, including:
- To treat high cholesterol, doctors use statins like Lipitor and Zocor.
- We use some calcium channel blockers, like Plendil and Procardia, to treat high blood pressure.
- Cyclosporine is an immune-suppressant drug.
- Valium, Halcion, and Versed are some benzodiazepines.
- Other medications include Buspar, Zoloft, and Allegra.
The bottom line
Citrus foods are good for you in many ways. They’re good for you and have chemicals in them that can help fight many illnesses, like cancer, heart disease, brain problems, and kidney stones.
But try to eat whole fruits instead of consuming a lot of fruit juice, which is high in sugar and can be detrimental to your health.
In general, citrus foods are good for you, don’t have many calories, and are easy to eat. Most people would be better off if they ate more fruit.
