the orange juice effect

when i was in elementary school, i had sleepovers with some of my bffs in the neighborhood. we would party hard all night, play games, go hot tubbing, and then sleep in late the next morning. breakfast was always different, but for some reason i remember having a lot of orange juice. this was kind of unusual because as i was growing up, i was never big on oj. for whatever reason, i just wasn't a huge fan and that's just how it was.

one day, all us crazy girls woke up, brushed our teeth and then started fixing breakfast. as we drank our orange juice, it tasted SO BAD. i was like, "dude what is the deal with your orange juice?" and one of my friends replied matter-of-factly, "oh. that's the orange juice effect."

apparently the orange juice effect occurs when you have some minty taste in your mouth and then you drink orange juice, making it taste terrible in comparison. i didn't really understand it, but figured that's just how it was.

today, i had orange juice (i am an oj fiend now...after being sick for a few weeks solid, i now drink the kids oj with tons of extra vitamins and stuff like my life depends on it. it's SO GOOD) for breakfast. and it tasted really bad and i was wondering why. and then i realized that i had only just recently brushed my teeth...making the orange juice effect the culprit of my poorly tasting breakfast beverage. suddenly, i had a flashback to my elementary school years and ran upstairs to google "orange juice effect." it was time to figure out the science behind it.

the only problem is that...it's not real. it never occurred to me that this so-called "effect" would not really exist at all. and it's kind of sad in a way. i mean, maybe there have been studies about eating and drinking things after brushing your teeth and how it messes with your perception of how it tastes, but still. the "orange juice effect" is a fraud.

sad.