HEALTH VALUE OF FRUIT

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21562, 5 August 1933, Page 7 (Supplement)

HEALTH VALUE OF FRUIT

VITAMINS IN GREENS Fruits and green vegetables will not 1 help you much to keep up muscular effort over long periods of time,- for jJatiire built them largely of water; and except for a few, such as dried prunes,'peaches, apricots and figs, and the' meatier types of fresh fruit, such as the banana and the pineapple, they are not rich in calories. But they make up for this lack in a multitude of ways, and in particular they are splendid insurance against the deficiency diseases, for they abound in vitamins and minerals. Herd are some of tho specific contributions made by these foods: 1. Especially important ' sources of vitamin C, the factor that keeps us from getting scurvy, thus keeping us from degenerative changes in our arteries, our teeth and our bones. 2. One of the most important food mines of iron and copper, with which we build in our blood corpuscles that red pigment which carries oxygen to the muscles. Nutritional anaemia is rare in the habitual consumer of fruits and gteen vegetables. ,'3. Increasingly recognised as being important factors in the regulation of our digestive organs, the machines that handle our food and make it utilisable. Fruits and vegetables contribute to this work an abundance of three' kinds of vitamins: the antiinfective vitamin A; the appetite-con-trol factor, vitamin B; and the vitajnin G, which has been only lately recognised, but is already known to bo an essential. ' They also supply natural laxative material and prevent tendency to constipation and clogged intestinal tracts. They are becoming recognised' as exerting a definite influence on tho bacteria of the digestive tract'and for keeping them in order. Your digestive machinery needs fruits and vegetables. 4. Important as correctives of the blood acidity that might develop if we ate cereals and meats exclusively; that' is, in technical terms, preventives of acidosis. •'). Practically indispensable as a means of imparting flavour to diets without danger of eating too many caiories or too much sugar. Let tho ladies also remember that they furnish a means of satisfying the taste and supplying bulk without danger of putting on excess fat. MpRE SPECIFIC FUNCTIONS Recent research has disclosed even more valuable properties in certain fruits and vegetables. It is known", for example, that one of jfehc important' functions of our kidneys is to manufacture and eliminate from the body a waste called urea. Iteceht studies of .the effect of canned pineapple on this function has shown that it is stimulatory. Whether this stimulatory effect of .pineapple 'is confined, to that fruit or is shared by other fruits is not yet known, but it is a new piece of evidence as to how a simple fruit may exert a definite influence for good in the behaviour of our internal machinery. Dr. Lloyd Arnold, of the University of Illinois Medical College, has recently shown in a striking manner that the pulp of the banana actually exerts a destructive effect on tho typo of germ that causes food poisoning. It acts as a sort of intestinal policeman and clubs those bacterial racketeers into harmlessness. These two findings, turned up in the exploration of effect of individual fruits on the consumer, arc in all probability only a sample of what will be brought to our knowledge in the Hext few years.