• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

Addicted to Oranges

OneWingedBird

OneWingedBird

Beloved of Ra
Joined
Aug 3, 2003
Messages
15,431
Not one i've heard for a while, but I sure I recall this cropping up in the tabloids back in the 80s, or perhaps just The Sun, which was what was read where I lived then.

There were stories about kids getting addicted to oranges, eating upto 20 a day of them, and then their skin was supposed to start turning orange.

Anyone else remember this? Or hear a later varient?
 
I've heard of at least one case where someone's skin turned orange as a result of drinking too much carrot juice...
 
I do recall that a friend of mine in University got off his head on some drugs and lay in a field all day, exposing his horrid pale skin to the sun.

I think it was a skin lotion that promised tanning without sun that went into overdrive and turned him the most magnificent orange I have ever seen!

Not tanned or Hollywood or weathered or healthy but simply orange. He took his Finals like that so he could not hide. :)
 
Eat that many oranges and you're going to have bigger problems than the colour of your skin.
 
The version I've heard concerns carrots rather than oranges. In fact I've read it in several places, including the FT.
 
The first time I remember hearing about it was this
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/578945.stm
There are a disturbing number of orange people around these days it seems to me .... admittedly I only ever see Brits who are out here for a 'winter sun' holiday, so they are not a representative sample and are probably more into tanning than most, but those who aren't already naturally tanned (often to the point of looking rather like jerky) or very, very white (and next day vivid lobster red) seem to have been painted bright orange.
 
I have heard that eating too many oranges can destroy the enamel on your teeth. it involves a similar enzyme to the one in pineapples that makes your teeth fall out, probably.
 
I think it's just good old fashioned extrinsic non-bacterial acid erosion. Nothing with a PH lower than about 5 is any good for tooth enamel.

The enzyme in pineapple digests protein and is therefore worse for your gums than your teeth, and it is periodontal damage that generally makes your teeth fall out, so yeah .... try keeping a piece of fresh pineapple between your lip and gum, ouch. Of course it is acidic also.

/edit/ did you know that Marilyn Monroe had 'trench mouth' (aka acute necrotizing ulcerative gingivitis aka really REALLY rotten gums) at the time of her death, which was incredibly rare in the modern first world (although it made a bit of a come-back with AIDS). Something for the conspiracy theorists to chew on, ho ho.
 
I've been told that my teeth are OK but my gums need to come out. :mrgreen:
 
There was a story line in District Nurse, with Nerys Hughes on a bicycle, where some children were thought to have jaundice but it turned out they were just addicted to carrots.
It must have made a real impact as that is the only storyline that anyone can remember.
 
According to legend, Idi Amin ate hundreds of oranges a day. When asked why (by a foreign dignitary), he said he preferred the taste to that of human flesh.
 
I did the carrot juice thing myself, I absolutely love the stuff and had a couple of big glasses a day. Then I noticed the palms of my hands and the soles of my feet had gone orange and oddly, an orange ring around my waist. :D Doctor told me to lay off the stuff, not because the beta carotene was harmful in itself but too much of it might elbow other vitamins out of the way, so to speak.
 
Beak, that orange ring around your waist, did it move up to your armpits when you got into the pool?
 
Peter Andre took a banana overdose, but didn't turn yellow. He was already orange, of course.
 
escargot1 said:
Beak, that orange ring around your waist, did it move up to your armpits when you got into the pool?
Click to expand...

Cheeky! :)
 
According to my mother, when I was a baby I loved the sweet potato baby food and ate so much of it my nose turned orange.

I can believe most things with a little effort, but have never quite believed this.
 
My child was rushed to hospital when he was about 8 months because my GP thought he had liver problems. Health visitor laughed when she heard - yep, it was carrots. Looking back at his baby photos, his nose was always orange once he'd started on solids.

Also, I've heard it's common in anorexics because of the amount of carrots they eat.
 
A bedside pile of FT coincidentally turned up Mat Coward's Mythconceptions 93 in FT.206 (February 2006)

UPDATE
In FT115-26, we searched for the man who turned orange and died from his exclusive carrot juice diet. The Daily Telegraph (16 Nov 2005) provides a celebrity sidebar to this odd business. According to her daughter, in 1939 Marlene Dietrich put her family on an all-carrot regime. After two weeks, "We turned yellow". Dietrich's lover, the writer Erich Maria Remarque, "said we looked Chinese and at that point we stopped." :)

I don't think I have FT115. :(
 
My girlfriend's sister really liked carrot and orange baby food (as a baby), and apparently turned a bit orange.

I always knew it as a joke as a child, little did I know it might turn out to have some basis in truth.
 
James_H2 said:
According to legend, Idi Amin ate hundreds of oranges a day. When asked why (by a foreign dignitary), he said he preferred the taste to that of human flesh.
Click to expand...

What I heard was that he believed that oranges help him perform his overnight duties as a husband :shock:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top