the best way to eat an orange (by request)
December 18, 2008 at 11:32 pm | In favorite things, food, most viewed | 20 CommentsYesterday a friend suggested that I do a blog post about the best way to eat an orange. At first I laughed, but then it occurred to me that I have actually shown people how I eat an orange, and maybe people don’t always eat them because they think it’s messy and a pain. I have a finely-honed orange eating method, so why not?
I wax poetic about oranges because I think they’re a beautiful, delicious, perfect food, though the same could be said of many fruits. I really think fruit is the most perfect food we have. We all know vegetables are insanely good for us and we should be eating them all day long, but most of us don’t because we generally don’t find them that delicious. We might like some veggies, but we don’t usually bite into them and taste bliss. But fruit is perfect…totally packed with free radical fighting nutrients and so delicious we actually love to eat it. I particularly gush about oranges because I LOVE one in the morning for breakfast every day (and I like them for dessert), they’re tasty pretty much year round (though cheapest and slightly more local in the winter), they’re super healthy, and they’re really easy to eat according to my expert method.
Some people think oranges are only good if the rind is super bright orange, but this isn’t really true. The rind might be more yellowish or even have a couple greenish or brownish spots, but the fruit on the inside is just as awesome as the super orange ones. I actually prefer mine with thinner skin instead of really thick rind because they have more fruit in them. As long as it’s firm and a little heavy, it’s ripe and full of awesome juice.
I never peel an orange and eat it by the slice. It’s too messy and takes too long to bother doing that every day and you get that weirdo white stuff all over your hands. I always quarter my oranges. I think people sometimes end up making a big mess with their orange quarters, but it’s definitely the easiest way to eat an orange if you do it right.
You have to cut it this way: First slice lengthwise–aim for the little stemmy thing.
Next slice your halves the opposite way…what’s the opposite of lengthwise? Widthwise? (If you slice it the wrong way, it will be a pain to eat.)
The orange juice is contained in these tiny little beautiful juice pods…nature’s helpful way of containing the juice so you don’t make a mess.
If you start gnawing randomly at your orange quarter, you’re going to start busting these juice pods open and dripping all over the place. But, helpfully, nature also split the orange into convenient sections.
The trick is to use your front teeth to loosen and eat each of these bite-sized sections. I won’t demonstrate that because it would look stupid, but when you’re done the rind should look nice and clean like this:
If there’s messy orange all over the rind and juice dripping everywhere, you iz doin it wrong. This is the cleanest, quickest way to eat your orange. The only downfall is that it can look a little silly, so I don’t eat oranges this way when I’m at work.
And while I’m on the subject, oranges are awesome because they contain your full daily value of vitamin C (which besides supposedly fighting colds is also a cancer fighter), a good amount of fiber, and folate, potassium, vitamin A, and calcium, and lots of other antioxidant properties that you can’t get from just taking vitamin C. They don’t exactly know why, but they know for sure that eating the whole food is lots better than taking an isolated nutrient. Also, side note: you know all that white stuff you encounter when you peel your orange that you probably peel off because it’s kind of stringy and weird? It’s actually really good for you and you should eat it!
To quote Robert Louis Stevenson:
Every night my prayers I say, And get my dinner every day;
And every day that I’ve been good, I get an orange after food.
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This begs the question, what do you think of tangerines?
(I don’t mean to start a huge controversy, but I think they don’t get the respect they deserve relative to their larger citrus cousins.)
P.S. The Robert Louis Stevenson quote was magnificient.
Comment by Yellow Top — December 19, 2008 #
love you!
Comment by dp — December 19, 2008 #
And along the same note, how about delicious clementines?
That was really helpful by the way, I rarely eat oranges despite their deliciousness because it’s such a mess to peel them.
Comment by Dan — December 19, 2008 #
LOVE the pictures.
I agree, what are your thoughts on the insanely good clementines? LB eats about three a day….
Comment by cms — December 19, 2008 #
Yay!!! I got my first comment from cms.
I admit I don’t eat many clementines since I’m so busy eating oranges, which I personally prefer…but clementines are super easy to peel and eat by the slice compared to oranges.
Comment by mediumcrazy — December 19, 2008 #
Clementines are by far my favorite citrus (I call them nature’s candy), but I really enjoyed your orange tutorial!
Comment by Katherine — December 19, 2008 #
oh my god. that is THE best thing I have ever seen…I didn’t realize until I saw that that while I know how you cut an orange, the rest of the world really needed to know too. The pic of the juice pod on your finger made me laugh out loud. Credit…given.
in Him,
abh
Comment by Anastasia Beaverhausen — December 22, 2008 #
seven (eight now) comments has to be some kind of record, no?
Comment by dp — December 22, 2008 #
[...] still prefer my method which doesn’t require peeling at all, but if you’re in the mood for peeled slices, I [...]
Pingback by orange eating method #2 « medium crazy — March 6, 2009 #
[...] oranges, again. March 25, 2009 A while back, kind of as a joke, I wrote a post about my preferred way to eat oranges. Hilariously, it’s by far the most viewed post on my little, barely-read blog. A few people [...]
Pingback by oranges, again. « medium crazy — March 25, 2009 #
I’m going to give it a go, the mess is a big factor in making my orange eating seldom.
Comment by seldom orange eater — April 13, 2009 #
it worked, and i’m sure it’ll instigate an increase in my orange intake, but none of the segments are as perfectly formed as in the photographs. Is that a real orange?
Comment by seldom orange eater — April 13, 2009 #
i was right, 4 oranges since that first post!
Comment by seldom orange eater — April 16, 2009 #
Hi Seldom,
Glad this post inspired you to partake of more fabulous oranges
Comment by mediumcrazy — April 17, 2009 #
Hey there,
Thanks a lot for writing this post. I always quarter my orange and eat it as if eating a tiny slice of melon but your method looks far superior and a lot less messy.
The next time I partake of this glorious fruit I’ll be sure to try it out.
- tldw
Comment by The Long Distance Writer — October 1, 2009 #
[...] Except that these are sliced wrong; see previous post for the right way. [...]
Pingback by unintentional blog hiatus comes to a close with the longest post ever. « medium crazy — November 22, 2009 #
I just had the best orange-eating experience of my life! I will definitely partake of these beauties much more often now that I have the mess-free way to do it.
Thanks,
Lara
Comment by Lara — January 12, 2010 #
Yay! Happy to help
Comment by mediumcrazy — January 12, 2010 #
I googled ways to eat an orange and your site came back 1st on the list! Great post, I shall go try it now!!
Comment by Tiffanie — January 14, 2010 #
Woo hoo! Glad to hear I’m #1 at something.
Enjoy your oranges…they are particularly delicious right now!
Comment by mediumcrazy — January 14, 2010 #