Orange you glad it’s tasty?

Don’t let the name fool you. Blood oranges are anything but gross.

Just ask the Costa Mesa high schoolers who devoured the sweet, blood-colored insides by the handful Tuesday.

Alongside traditional navel oranges, students from the school’s Student Nutrition Advocacy Club passed out the delectable snacks as an alternative to pizza and a bag of greasy chips.

“It’s basically just a club where we promote healthier food for kids and healthier food for the cafeteria. What they have is really gross. It’s very fatty, oily stuff. It was really not good,” said club Vice President Catry Guevara, a senior. “We see all the health problems with kids. It’s important to me because of the high rates of obesity. We just want to try to help out.”

Tuesday marked the first of monthly health-food samples that will be available for students during lunch. Next month may be a tougher sell: broccoli.

Regardless of the food, students seemed to understand the benefits of healthy eating.

“High school teenagers at this age are trying to watch their waist,” said 16-year-old junior Jordan Briand, orange in hand. “It would be nice to have more [eating] choices at school.”

The club is supported by Newport-Mesa school district’s nutrition services department.

“It’s not necessarily that the other foods aren’t good for you. It’s that we have too much of some and not enough of the other,” said district nutritionist Pamela Williams. “Consuming enough fruits and veggies and physical activity can prevent obesity, diabetes and reduce the chances of getting cancer.”

Since 2001, Newport-Mesa’s nutrition services department has been hosting “harvest of the month” food samplers at elementary schools. This is the first time they’ve had one at a high school, Williams said. Williams prioritizes the education toward disadvantaged schools. People from lower-income families statistically suffer more diet-related health problems, she said.

“This program helps with that education gap,” Williams said.

JOSEPH SERNA may be reached at (714) 966-4619 or at joseph.serna@latimes.com.