Sunny Delight, long called Sunny D, which is how it is known today, is an orange-flavored beverage that is not without controversy throughout its long history. One of the biggest scandals was that it supposedly turned a little girl’s skin orange after she habitually consumed large quantities of the drink. Did this really happen or is it just an urban legend. And if it did turn someone’s skin orange, why?
Sunny Delight Controversy
Founded in 1963 by Doric Foods out of Mount Dora, Florida, and originally marketed as a down-market drink, more properly called a soft drink, the brand has changed hands many times. After being introduced into the UK by Proctor and Gamble, who acquired the brand in 1989, it was banned from UK shelves after the government found it was misleadingly marketed in the refrigerated section even though it did not need to be chilled.
The company countered that the UK formulation did need to be chilled but this was just the beginning of the brand’s troubles. Incidentally, the US version of the drink was also sold from refrigerated shelves.
While Sunny Delight was marketed to appeal to children, it was also marketed in a way as to suggest to parents that it was at least something like real orange juice and that they could be assured that they were giving their children a healthful drink.
Truth be told, Sunny Delight contained about 5% citrus ingredients and the rest was water, sugar, vegetable oil, thickeners, flavorings, and colors, all meant to make it resemble orange juice in both look and mouthfeel.
How Did Sunny Delight Turn A Girl’s Skin Orange?
One of the coloring ingredients was beta carotene, a carotenoid pigment with an orange color found in carrots and other fruits and vegetables. This vitamin-A precursor is healthy and not harmful, even in large amounts.
However, it was the beta carotene that reportedly turned a little girl’s skin orange. From Wales, England, she drank 1.5 liters of Sunny D a day. Excessive consumption, to say the least. This case was reported in medical journals and was even given a name: Sunny Delight syndrome.
Sunny Delight was at its heyday in the 1990s and fears that it would turn your skin orange caused a bit of a stir. The Christmas commercial that the company had just launched didn’t help: It depicted a snowman drinking Sunny Delight and, gulp, turning orange. Someone at the company didn’t get the memo about yellow snow. It is doubtful
While the report about Sunny D turning a girl’s skin orange does appear to be true, there was never any cause for alarm. And while Sunny Delight was certainly no orange juice the beverage wasn’t exactly orange poison, either. According to a Dr. Dr. Duncan Cameron, who spoke to the The Daily Telegraph in 1999, his 4-year-old patient had been drinking 4.5 liters of Sunny D per day. That is over four times the recommended amount of beta-carotene for a child of that age.
Excessive amounts of any beta carotene-containing food, especially copious consumption of carrot juice, can and will turn your skin orange, as the pigment is distributed and stored in tissues like the skin. However, this condition is entirely temporary and will subside once you stop drinking so much of the offending beverage or eating the offending food.
Note that it is much harder to eat enough carrots to turn your skin orange than it is to drink carrot juice.
I personally have experienced this, as I got really into carrot juice for a while, years ago, and developed a bit of an orange tint in my skin. It was nothing too disturbing and it went away quickly once I kicked the carrot juice habit.
Moving into the 2000s this controversy may have been the nail in the coffin for Sunny Delight. P&G sold off the brand, which was rebranded to Sunny D by a new company with a whole new formula.
This new formula contains two percent or less of citrus ingredients from concentrate, sugar, water, canola oil, flavorings, vitamins, non-nutritive sweeteners, and preservatives. It no longer contains beta carotene, using artificial colors instead. Here are the full ingredients:
Water, High Fructose Corn Syrup and 2% or Less of: Concentrated Orange Juice, Concentrated Tangerine Juice, Concentrated Apple Juice, Concentrated Lime Juice, Concentrated Grapefruit Juice, Concentrated Pear Juice, Citric Acid, Ascorbic Acid (Vitamin C), Thiamin Hydrochloride (Vitamin B1), Natural Flavor, Modified Cornstarch, Canola Oil, Sodium Citrate, Cellulose Gum, Sucralose, Acesulfame Potassium, Neotame, Sodium Hexametaphosphate, Potassium Sorbate to Protect Flavor, Yellow 5, Yellow 6.