Sunny Delight

[howthemighty]

I've been enjoying this podcast series called Toast, about the rise and fall of big name companies such as Toys R Us, Jamie's Italian, Club 18-30, and the Commodore 64. This episode is about Sunny Delight: https://open.spotify.com/episode/0JeMKDnFayh1wu4GCzbwsK
(Also available on BBC Sounds if you don't use Spotify).

I was a teenager when Sunny Delight was launched, and my mum bought it once, so we could try it, but we weren't hooked in - my mum was pretty good at reading ingredients lists, even back then. But it's quite fascinating to hear the background about the marketing, and how it almost out-sold Coca-Cola for a while (before everyone realised it was full of sugar and might turn the kids yellow if they drank too much). 😁

I loved Sunny Delight, used to drink loads until my mum heard about the kids turning yellow or orange. My parents also gave me Lucazade Original when sick. We also had the Lucozade “sweets” when sick.

My DC remember that they were only allowed it for birthdays or Christmas! I wouldn't buy it any other time as I knew how dreadful it was.

They'd have had it daily if I'd allowed it.

It was vile. You can still get it in the us with all the shit in it.

Sunny delight and mountain dew, those were the days.

I used to give my dd that stuff with her after school snack, until she got a filling and the dentist asked if she drank it. Felt so guilty 😔 she never touched another drop.

I loved sunny delight! I always thought it was so addictive! My mom and dad would buy it from shopping and I would have a glass and then want another one and another one!!

op thanks for the link to the podcast, seems interesting and am going to have a listen to them all!

I loved the strawberry one 🤤 though I imagine I'd probably puke if I drank it now🤣

I love Toast, and this was a good episode.

It's funny that the kid who turned orange was such a deal breaker for so many people, because the beta carotene that turned her that colour was the only actual healthy thing in Sunny D. Eating vast quantities of oranges or carrots would have the same effect, but do you no harm.

The scary thing is that the amount that a three year old would have to drink to have that effect would come with a catastrophic quantity of sugar.

Yes, it did! Luckily my mum read the ingredients after we finished a bottle so we never bought it again. Ludicrous!

She'd been tango'ed 😃

They also used to give me Lucazade as ‘medicine’ when I was ill.

Well yes, it serves fairly well for hydration and the original lucozade wasn't madly sweet iirc.

We were talking about Sunny D the other day! I wasn't a fan as it made my teeth sticky

I still drink lucozade when I don't feel well, the conditioning runs deep with that one. Only original though that's the only one that 'works'

I remember it. It came out when I was in my 20s, and seemed to be everywhere suddenly. I never tried it though.

Do any of you Sunny Delight lovers remember Apeel? Or at least that's what I thought it was called. A yellow drink in powder form that you added to water.

Now that was amazing! And similar to SD.

Ah I remember being so excited to try it. I'll eat or drink anything pretty much and even I struggled with Sunny D.

I did like the bottle I seem to remember!

We had Rise and Shine, which iirc was basically dried orange juice, not sure if it had added sugar or not.

Lucozade original is good when you ill, makes you feel better! However, the bottle even says not to be used to replace fluids lost through diarrhoea 😁

It was so popular at my school pretty much everyone drank it on the playground, I can’t remember what my favourite flavour was though, possibly California.

My grandma always had a bottle of lucozade in its plastic wrapper on her kitchen table. I never saw it unwrapped or anyone drink any.

It did have oil in it. I remember showing DS1 the ingredients list, as he was so keen to have some!

And the advertising strapline for Lucozade used to be 'Lucozade aids recovery'

I remember buying it from the chiller cabinet as a mixer for a party-it was cheaper than orange juice and had been all over the adverts. We got it home and found it undrinkable. I think late 20 somethings weren’t the target audience. That’s when we looked at the ingredient list and I seem to remember it had oil in it. It makes me think of cod liver oil and orange juice.

The girl who "turned orange from drinking too much sunny d" admitted on a podcast that she actually had accidentally used fake tan and was too embarrassed to come clean once she realised as her parents had taken her to the drs!

According to the podcast, she was 4 years old! A bit young for fake tan, and it was a paediatrician who verified the beta carotene levels.

But perhaps there were multiple. 🙂

I remember being scared to drink too much Sunny D in case I got addicted. This was when I used to smoke and go to the pub most days.

I’m still mourning the original proper non-sweetener containing Lucozade though.