If you celebrate Chinese New Year, you’d probably be stocking up on mandarin oranges by now. Even if you don’t, it’s still pretty hard to miss boxes of them in supermarket aisles, such as FairPrice’s, and sitting in pairs next to the cash register in Chinese shops and restaurants.
Other than sounding auspicious (“gum” in Cantonese sounds like gold, while “ju” in Mandarin is a homophone for togetherness), mandarin oranges are also a sweet, healthy treat – or at least make you feel more virtuous after binging on bak kwa and pineapple tarts.
Just how healthy are mandarin oranges? Every 100g of the citrus fruit has about 53 calories, 13g carbohydrates and 1.8g fibre, according to Jaclyn Reutens, a clinical and sports dietitian with Aptima Nutrition and Sports Consultants.
But if you’re banking on mandarin oranges to up your Vitamin C intake, you’ll do better with the other oranges such as the valencia and navel varieties instead.
“To get your recommended Vitamin C intake, you will need to eat about three mandarin oranges,” said Reutens. That’s because the mandarin variety only has 27mg compared to valencia orange’s 48mg and navel orange’s 59mg for every 100g of fruit.
