HEALTH NOTES

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 46, 1 September 1928, Page 20

HEALTH NOTES

FRESH FRUITS DIETARY VALUE (Contributed by the Department of •'••■. Health.) . ' There is often a very sound foundation for popular phrases and epigrams, and among such we can ineludo tho well-known . jingle "An apple a day keeps the doctor way." . Tho date on ' which tliis; saying ; originated is. unknown, but' it-certainly , has been in. common.use.for some generations, and. indicates that" like many other popular beliefs; experience and observation taught our forefathers facts which science has since confirmed. As both scientific observation and daily. experience'agree in giving the apple a high place both as a food and as a preventive of ill-health, we can accept: this as a fact and confine ourselves to inquiring as to the factors which gavo gave this fruit its virtues. COMPOSITION OF THE APPLE. Wo may begin by going to the chemist and asking him as to the composition of tRe 1 apple, and here' wo -receive rather a "shock at first, for,he will re-, ply that a'-ripe:'apple, contains/a3 much' as 82 per cent." of water and only very small proportions of. those essentials in a diet/ Wmely) carbon compounds (ivhich include starch and sugar), proteins (the nitrogen, carriers so prominent in meat), and fatty substances. Whore then can be the virtue in a food substance so meagre in essentials?-Wo hasten from the chemist to the doctor, who according to the rhyme has had his nose 'put;out of Joint r by the apple;' and therefore might be" expected to talec an uncharitable' view of its virtues, i Hoy being an honest man let us hope, will say, "Ah, but my rival as a health giver does not owe its virtues simply to the chemical food substances contained, ,but : .to many salts and ac- • cessory factors';'' and when we demahd; further enlightenment he will proceed to givo us quite a list of things by ■which the apple, by its composition and nature, can claim freedom from any charge of quackery. These virtues are shared by other fruits arid vegetables,, in some respects in higher degree thaii': by the. apple, but the latter has this great advantage—that it is among the cheapest and most easily handled of v the health'givirig fruits; and ..apparently it ,has - been in use by man for countless generations,-since traces of a primitive type of apple haire been found; among the 'remains left by the Swiss' Lake dwellers of prehistoric times;. Returning to the chemist's report" •wo find that despite its high proportion of water it compares favourably even in this respect with most of the vegetables. Cabbage, for example, has 89 per cent, of water, which rises to 97 per cent, when cooked; the vegetable i marrow contains 84 per cent.,, and the cauliflower 90 pet, cent. These stances cannot bq.^aten raw, wtiweas • the apple is at its : best raw, ; but-re-tains ;--many of its advantages" even', when cooked. Vegetable foods generally contain a good proportion of a Bubstance called cellulose, which, though not digested, has a. vvery important function, that of mechanically stimulating the coatings of the bowel, and thus inducing activity in the muscles forming part of the .-structure; of tho towel wall. The movement thjus stimulated prevents the 4 food from lying dormant and fermenting, ari3; tjhus the disagreeable consequences ofr constipation, are prevented. As the apple ripens • good deal of the cellulose is changed

to starches and then to sugars, both tho laevulose sugar common to most fruits and tho cane sugar which is the type commonly in use in the household. These sugars are readily digestible, which gives the fruit its nutritive value, while the lessoned amount of collulose makes it less irritating to the bowel. The well-known loss of acidity which occurs as' "fr,uit ripens' also makes tho ripe-.apple-less irritating to :tho delicate nlembrauos coating the stomach and 'bowels. Thus, whereas the unripe apple may :causo diarrhoea' and colic, the ripe fruit will bo both nourishing and . a mild laxative. Besides these useful sugars and carbon compounds, wo find in the ripe fruit a number of organic salts, which, though small in quantity when wo sco them listed by the analyst, are nevertheless sufficient to : supply- the body with the -required amount of these'very necessary substances. These salts not only con.tain body-building elements such as phosphorus, lime, iron, and potash, but also act in two ways as a help towards good health; that is, they act as a gentle simtulus to kidney action, and because they appear in the blood as alkaline carbonates they benefit all the body cells —for the ability of the blood to carry oxygen depends on the degree of alkalinity of the serum. If this alkalinity is reduced below a fixed point a very unpleasant and dangerous condition called "acidosis". results.; We begin to sco then how. tho apple can take the place of the doctor; but wo are by no means yet at an end of its virtues. PREVENTS DENTAL DISEASE.; : .Leaving the;physician to attend those who have failed to stick to the apple a day rule, we. hurry to the dentist and ask him What he thinks of I;lfis' fruit. He will tell us firstly-of flic mechanical advantages to the teeth which are enjoyed by those who make a habit of biting into fruits-, which have the firm consistency of the apple. >Many people rarely „uso those .nice'chis-el.-liko incisor teeth.: which form the front rank in our mouths, and the teeth follow the rule found all through Nature —that disuse means decay. Among primitive peoples who know: not . the toothbrush and the dentrince good teeth are the rule, and this is because they make the use of their teeth \ to bite and chew for which Nature design-" ed them. The apple offers for children a simple and attractive method of • Cleaning the teeth and stimulating them by use to development and repair. RESULT OF SCIENTIFIC v RESEARCH. JS> The dentist will then go on to talk like the doctor of "accessory factors" in nutrition, but as he is too busy repairing the defects of those who have not used the .daily apple ho will refer us on to the scientific researcher to learn about these, .accessories. This latter .'gentleman will.,take us to, his laboratory to show us cages full'; of- rats, or cats, or guinea pigs, some looking well fed and happy, and others looking stunted, misshapen and miserable. The former he will tell us have a well balanced diet, but the latter a diet lack' ing the "accessory factors" which are also known as ."vitamins." And he will proceed to show by actual experiment that all the other virtues .of fruit in our diet.pale into insignificance beside the. value/ of .-those,' mysterious. / '-'accessories, H.;>' Mysterious ; they '-areY. for they are so minute in amount that tho chemist is unable to give us much -information as to their composition, yet they are so potent that in their ab:, senee even tho richest and most copious diet cannot ensure continued health and development, VITAMINS. Their existence had been vaguely known for.'h very long-time, or at least tho-evil effects of -their absence, since such diseases as scurvy, rickets and beriberi which result were recognised as being due to a deficiency of some factor. The discovery of the

vitamin was first made by researchers who were investigating the disease called beribori which affects the nervous system. It was found to arise ' among peoples whose main diet is rice, and then only when the rice grain is so treated in manufacture that the inner husk is wholly removed. Thus it became, evident that thero existed in tho rice husk some necessary clement which was beyond the power or. chemical analysis.to reveal. On the sumo theory other deficiency diseases : were investigated, find so far a series of five vitamins, labelled A, B, 0, I>, and B have been found. Each is essential to complete health and dcvclop'menty but no one foodstuff contains them all in sufficient amount to serve the full needs ,of growth from infancy to adult life. Tho one which we supply through tho addition of fresh fruit and vegetables to the diet is known as vitamin C, and if it be deficient tho result in its grossest form is the disease called scurvy, which used to be the enemy of the seafarer. But apart from this effect vitamin C is essential to the growth and development of the young, and if it be lacking we find irritability, lack of stamina and retarded growth, while •if the body be deprived of this accessory for long periods the result is an • increased susceptibility to infectious disease. Here then, indeed is an important reason why tho apple can keep the doctor away —for we find this useful vitamin C is present in sufficient amount in this fruit for the needs of the body. PREVENTION OF SCURVJfc r.; So'lfar back ■ as.the year 1747 wo ileariCthat a surgeon on a ship repoi^ed on various diets which' he tried out in Ijkho cure of scurvy. One group of sufferers rapidly improved when oranges •iwore added to tho diet, and the only other group which showed marked .benefits from his treatment were those "wljo" were given eider! The British Navy so early as 1804 lrnido the use of lemon juice compulsory on long voyages-^ an order which later waa changed in error to lime juice—a fruit wliich is less effective than the lemon as, a carrier of vitamin C. .In the orange this vitamin is most :abimdant, and for this reason the juice is psed to supplement milk in feeding babies —for milk which is most nearly ■the'(.perfect food is not too well supplied with this particular vitamin. Tho 'apple, though the amount of this substjxnce is less,: has this advantage over the orange, that it has more nutritive properties and is more valuable as ia laxative. In this country also the cost of the orange is so high that the ' apple must take precedence as being the more available fruit to most householders. Vitamin C is present in green vegetables in satisfactory amount, but most vegetables require to be cooked, and cooking destroys the vitamin to a considerable extent. Even if tho fruit is cooked before eating, the cooking process is less destructive to vitamins than in the case of vegetables. The great advantage which fruits have is that they can be eaten- in their natural state with the vitamin undamaged, :;lnd there is no loss of potency in keeping .-.'oycu for many months. VALUE OF THE APPLE. .In- the. apple we have a mass of living active' tissues —for it does not die •when.picked, but goes on living and storing up vitamins during the process of ripaning. Besides this all-powerful vitamin it has a nutritive value, a laxative value, and a value in keeping up the alkalinity of the blood. We have seen that when eaten in its natural state it is a potent cleanser of tho teeth. It has also another virtue which we have not so far mentioned, and:.that is the delicate ethers which : give it: its attractive taste. These to be properly enjoyed require that the apple;, should be eaten skin and all, as ther'ttest- flavour is just below the ; skin, and moreover the skin is of value in giving that stimulus to the bowel

which we spoke of earlier. A pleasant flavour in our food has a. real advantage in that all things agreeable to the palate tend to stimulate digestion. We may regard the apple as a pill containing valuable medical substances, and it is a pill which is very readily taken by tho children. No wonder then it so easily takes the place of the doctor.