Sunkist - Lemon and Water: Rich in lemons and water!

The ad reads "For Health - AVOID HARSH LAXATIVES!" One excellent way to avoid harsh laxatives is to drink lemon water, believing it is a laxative.

Since when is lemon a laxative? Since never. Drinking hot water with lemon in it is still promoted by magical-thinking celebrity health idiots like Gwyneth Paltrow, who, it must be said, also believes that steam-cleaning her vagina makes her magically more healthy. Maybe she's got a terrible wine spill she's trying to clean out?

Doing a Google search looking for actual evidence about lemon water brings a lot of hits from sites with names like "natural organic nature" and "treehumper health network". Very suspect.

Lifehack's article doesn't cite any sources or evidence at all, relying only on our steadfast faith in the wisdom of its author, Krissy Brady, who admittedly is a fully qualified "women's health + lifestyle writer". Nope.

ABC News' article cites as it's only source Michele Promaulayko ,the editor in chief of Yahoo! Health, which routinely promotes non-evidence-based, unscientific hand-waving woo as fact. Nope.

This Telegraph article references an actual nutritionist, along side Gwyneth and other celebrity geniuses. Fiona Smith, nutritionist, points out that lemons have vitamins, but there's no scientific evidence that drinking lemon water is better for you than tap water first thing in the morning.

Livestrong insists that drinking lemon water as soon as you get up increases your water intake. So, lemon water does contain water. Well spotted. Other than that, the article mentions vitamins and citric acid, which are nutrients. Their article has some actual sciencey sources, which is nice.

What's WebMD say? Citric acid helps prevent kidney stones. Lemon water helps reduce symptoms of Meniere's disease, if you have that. Lemon water will treat scurvy, if you're a pirate. Lemon water decreases swelling, if you're swollen. Lastly, lemon water increases your urine, because, once again, drinking water is drinking something.

Nobody ever found that lemon water helps you have a dump. However, that doesn't mean that Gwyneth won't put it in her next lifestyle book with her picture on the cover. How brave of her. Rest assured, though, that her vagina is steaming mad at dirt.

But hey, you can't blame Sunkist for trying to sell fruit on false pretenses, can you? I dunno. A lie is a lie. Also, good clip art is good clip art. Who wants some good clip art? I promise you that looking at this jpeg is every bit an effective laxative as drinking lemon water. Maybe if we tell her it will cure pelvic rabies and other imaginary problems, we can get Gwyneth to stick this file up her hoo-ha?