FRUIT VALUES.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 11 July 1925, Page 17

FRUIT VALUES.

Six ounces of apples or currants, pears, cherries, grapes or raspberries contain one ounce of carbohydrates: so do twenty ounces of grape fruit; and ten ounces of strawberries or oranges, pineapple, gooseberries, (or peaches; and five ounces of plums, bananas, or prunes contain one ounce of crabohydrates or 120 calories, but only bananas, orange juice, orange peel and pineapple contain vitamine A.

Most of them contain vitamine B. and nearly all of them are good, some of them rich sources of vitamine O.

Fruits contain a great deal of water, then more carbohydrates than anything else, about half or quarter as much sellulose, and about equal amounts of protein, fat, and mineral matters (very small quantities). To list them properly they must each be considered separately or grouped, but the amounts stated above may be inserted as a beginning in the table any one is making of food values. Fruits are distinctly a carbohydrate group as far as nourishment is concerned, and a s a general rule about half to three-quarters of the total carbohydrates in a fruit consist of sugar—fruit sugar; s ome, such as apples, apricots and pineapples contain a considerable amount of pure cane sugar as well. The remainder of the carbohydrates is made up of vegetable, gums, which, when subjected to boiling, often yield l a jelly. Fruit s are more or less rich in mineral constituents and potash united with various vegetable acids, such as tartaric, citric, and malic. The earthy salts are poorly represented; whole meal bread and cereals will supply these. Most fruits are rendered more digestible by cooking to soften the cellulose, but in the proces s change their constituents a great deal.