Is Sunny D Orange Juice? And If Not, What the Heck Is It?

Sunny D is in fact an orange-hued liquid that isn’t water, soda or milk…But is it orange juice in the sense that a bottle of Tropicana or Simply is orange juice? That will require some, if you don’t mind me saying, D-tective work. Let’s see what we can round up! 

Is Sunny D orange juice? 

Well, if we go by the classic commercial, wherein a sweaty group of beach volleyballers swarm a refrigerator looking to cool off after a day of sandy sports, we know that the list of stuff they rattle off before getting stoked on the big unopened bottle of Sunny D, is “soda, OJ, and purple stuff.” And unless OJ somehow stood for “olive jelly” back then, we’re led to believe that SunnyD is theoretically not classified as “orange juice.” They are two separate entities that just so happen to look exactly alike—just like how identical twins can be into different hobbies. 

Technically, Sunny D contains only around 2% real fruit juice, which means, unequivocally, the stuff just simply isn’t juice. In fact, theoretically, though it is highly recommended, Sunny D doesn’t necessarily even require refrigeration. Kinda wild, right? Tht commercial could have taken place inside a cupboard!

What is Sunny D?

Sunny D is a tropical fruit flavored non-carbonated soft drink that has been around since 1963. Prior to a rebrand around the year 2000, it was known as Sunny Delight, and originally only came flavored in orange. Now, SunnyD comes in such distinct tastes as Orange Strawberry, Orange Mango, Orange Peach, Watermelon, Fruit Punch, Peach, Mango, Blue Raspberry, Cherry Limeade, Lemonade, and Orange Pineapple. And, hey, there’s probably even more being cooked up by the hard working technicians down in Research and D-velopment. FOLKS! (Sorry, I swear, I’ll cease and D-sist…C’MON!) There’s even hard Sunny D now! (And, yes, the taste testers at Sporked tried it.)

Each of the flavors has an extremely sweet, juice-like taste, although with a bit more viscous consistency. It comes in a distinct two-tiered bottle, where the top is decidedly skinnier than the bottom, making it easy to clutch by the neck and toss into your shopping cart without your parents seeing first. 

Does Sunny D have vitamin C?

You’d think, judging by the name, Sunny D would be chock full of good ol’ vitamin D. However, it’s not a significantly high source of the stuff, and, it should be noted, they’ve never claimed it is. When it comes to Vitamin C, though, it’s got 100% of the daily recommended amount! Good news, right? Well, unfortunately, doctors say that the high sugar content of the drink tends to offset whatever nutritiousness we may get from a glass of it. Those darn doctors! Always ruining everyone’s good time with their sensible advice…c’mon, doc, I was just out playing volleyball all day! I gotta have my Sunny D! 

It may not be orange juice proper, but we can all agree, it certainly is delicious. Yes, probably even more delicious than “purple stuff” although, man, I’d like to try some of that. It’s just so dang purple.


About the Author

Joe Rumrill

Joe Rumrill is a fictional one-eyed spinach-loving sailor created in 1929 by E.C Se- Wait, no, that's not right... Joe Rumrill is a stand up comedian and writer currently based in Los Angeles. His favorite thing about food is a close tie between the taste and the nutrients one gets from it. His least favorite thing about it is the "gritty, dirt-like quality some food has", but he's most likely referring to the time in third grade he was dared to eat playground sand.