Americans' consumption of orange juice has been plunging in recent years, as awareness grows over the scant nutritional value of the drink.

Nutritionally, orange juice isn't much better for you than a glass of soda or any other sweetened beverage, as Business Insider's Erin Brodwin wrote earlier this month in a post calling it the "biggest con of your life." 

A 12-ounce glass of orange juice contains 153 calories, 34 grams of carbohydrates, 27 grams of sugar, and 2.4 grams of protein. That's the same amount of carbohydrates and almost as much sugar as a bag of M&M's, as Brodwin points out.

That's why nutrition experts and health bloggers have been railing against orange juice in recent years. When you Google "orange juice good for you," the top results include posts titled "Why orange juice is slowly killing you," and "The #1 reason to avoid orange juice."

Perhaps that's why sales of the juice are down 13% in the past four years, according to data from Nielsen.

Frozen orange juice has experienced the biggest drop in sales, falling 39% to $98 million since 2012, compared to a 10% drop to $3.1 billion for refrigerated orange juice in the same period.

Florida, which is the top producer of oranges used for juice in the US, is on track for the fifth straight season of declines in orange output — representing the worst decline in more than a century, according to Bloomberg.

On top of falling demand, orange producers have also been battling a bacterial disease that has been wiping out their groves.

As growers leave the business, orange-processing plants have also been shutting down.

Florida once had more than four dozen processing plants but now has only seven, according to The Wall Street Journal.