Squirt soda is not a healthy drink. A single 12-ounce can contains 140 calories and 38 grams of sugar, nearly all of it from high fructose corn syrup. That’s roughly 9.5 teaspoons of added sugar in one serving, which puts you close to the American Heart Association’s recommended daily limit (6 teaspoons for women, 9 for men) before you eat or drink anything else.
What’s Actually in a Can of Squirt
Squirt markets itself as a grapefruit-flavored soda, which might give the impression it has some fruit-based nutritional value. The reality is less appealing. The ingredient list reads: carbonated water, high fructose corn syrup, and then “contains less than 2%” of grapefruit juice concentrate, natural flavors, citric acid, modified corn starch, ester gum, sodium benzoate (a preservative), and calcium disodium EDTA.
That “less than 2%” grapefruit juice is essentially a trace amount. It contributes flavor but no meaningful vitamins, fiber, or antioxidants. Of the 37 to 38 grams of sugar per can, 36 grams are added sugar. Only about 1 gram comes from the juice itself. You’d get far more nutritional benefit from eating a few segments of actual grapefruit.
The Sugar Problem
The biggest health concern with Squirt is straightforward: it’s a sugar delivery system. Drinking 38 grams of added sugar in liquid form hits your body differently than eating sugar in whole foods. Liquids don’t trigger the same fullness signals, so the calories tend to stack on top of whatever else you’re eating rather than replacing other food. Regular consumption of sugary drinks is consistently linked to weight gain, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and tooth decay.
One can occasionally won’t cause lasting harm for most people. But if Squirt is a daily habit, you’re adding roughly 980 calories and 266 grams of sugar to your weekly intake from that single drink alone. Over time, those numbers matter.
Preservatives Worth Knowing About
Squirt contains sodium benzoate, a widely used preservative in carbonated drinks. On its own, sodium benzoate is generally recognized as safe at low levels. The concern arises when it interacts with ascorbic acid (vitamin C), which can produce benzene, a compound classified as a Group 1 carcinogen. Squirt’s ingredient list doesn’t include ascorbic acid, which lowers this particular risk, but citric acid is present, and vitamin C can enter the picture through other foods or drinks consumed alongside it.
Research has also flagged sodium benzoate for potential effects beyond benzene formation. Some studies have linked it to hyperactivity in children, and it’s been associated with allergic reactions and skin irritation in sensitive individuals. These effects tend to be dose-dependent, meaning the more you consume across all your food and drinks, the more relevant the risk becomes. For the average person drinking an occasional soda, the preservative alone isn’t a major concern. For heavy soda drinkers, cumulative exposure adds up.
How Squirt Compares to Other Sodas
Squirt isn’t meaningfully better or worse than most regular sodas. A 12-ounce Coca-Cola has 140 calories and 39 grams of sugar. A Mountain Dew has 170 calories and 46 grams. Sprite lands at 140 calories and 38 grams. Squirt sits right in the middle of the pack. The grapefruit branding doesn’t translate into any nutritional advantage over these other options.
Diet Squirt exists as a zero-calorie alternative, swapping sugar for artificial sweeteners. That eliminates the sugar and calorie concerns but introduces a different set of debates about long-term sweetener consumption that researchers are still sorting out.
Better Alternatives for Grapefruit Flavor
If you enjoy the citrus taste of Squirt, several options deliver that flavor without the sugar load. Sparkling water with a squeeze of fresh grapefruit gives you carbonation and real fruit flavor with virtually no sugar. Grapefruit-flavored sparkling waters from brands like LaCroix or Spindrift offer convenience, with Spindrift containing a small amount of real juice and only 5 to 15 calories per can.
Half a fresh grapefruit contains about 52 calories, 8 grams of natural sugar, and comes packaged with fiber, vitamin C, and potassium. That’s a meaningful nutritional difference compared to a can of Squirt, where the sugar is isolated from any beneficial nutrients. If the carbonation is what you crave, mixing sparkling water with a splash of 100% grapefruit juice gives you something closer to soda without the high fructose corn syrup.