Tangelo

Food · Fruit · Food, Typed Supps

Peels like a mandarin, tastes like a tart orange, and carries a bit of grapefruit in its family tree.

Stage by stage

Intake (Peels like a mandarin): The loose skin is inherited from the mandarin parent; chewing releases juice from the segments.
Digestion (Pulp and fibre separate): Segment walls and pith carry the fibre — the part removed entirely by juicing.
Absorption (Vitamin C uptake): Ascorbate is absorbed efficiently at food doses and improves absorption of plant iron eaten alongside it.
Large intestine (Pectin fermented): Pectin and segment membranes reach the colon intact and are fermented by gut bacteria.

Time to effect

Hours: Plasma vitamin C rises within one to two hours of eating the fruit.

Allergens

None of the fourteen major allergens. Derived from what this food is, not from a product label.

Eating patterns

Fits: Vegan, Vegetarian, Pescatarian, Halal, Kosher, Gluten-free. Depends on the product: Keto, Low-FODMAP.

Satiety

The satiety index is measured on 240 kcal servings. At 41 kcal per 100 g that is 585 g of this, which is not a serving anyone eats — so the index has nothing to say about it.

Environmental footprint

1.1 kg CO2e and 199 litres of freshwater per kg, matched to "Other fruit" in Poore & Nemecek (2018), Science 360.

Cost band

Cheap — roughly £3 per kg, as a band midpoint rather than a price.

Key nutrients

Vitamin C
Beta-carotene
Fibre
Folate

Nutrition per 100g

Calories: 41
Protein: 0.6g
Carbohydrate: 7.8g
of which sugars: 7.8g
Fat: 0.1g
of which saturated: 0g
Fibre: 2g
Sodium: 4mg

Food vs. supplement

Vitamin C absorption is saturable, so a high-dose tablet mostly ends up in urine. The fruit delivers the vitamin at a dose the body uses efficiently, with fibre, flavanones and carotenoids attached.

Kitchen tip

Eat the segments rather than juicing. If the fruit is going into a salad with lentils or leafy greens, the vitamin C is doing useful work on the iron in those foods.

Common myth

"A tangelo is just a variety of orange, so grapefruit warnings do not apply." In reality: Tangelos are hybrids with a grapefruit or pomelo parent. The furanocoumarins responsible for grapefruit's drug interactions come from that side of the family, and their level in tangelo varies by cultivar and is not well documented. Worth a question to a pharmacist rather than an assumption.