Apples to the Rescue.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXIX, Issue I, 5 July 1902, Page 61

Apples to the Rescue.

A set of good white teeth can be kept in beauty long by the eating of raw apples, not too sour. The presence of the malic acid will combat the acid of the tartar which attacks teeth and decays them. Of course, if a very sour apple be eaten, the strong malic acid will do the work of the tartaric acid upon the enamel, especially if excess in the specific be employed. In the cider-making countries, where very astringent apples are used for making the beverage, the teeth of the people are deplorable, owing to much cider-drink-ing and over-much acidity. Over sourness is bad in apples; the remedy then becomes harmful if used in excess and against appetite, because the eater, while making wry mouths ove sourness, forces the acid thing down because of a belief that it is so good for his system. The test of o-oodness lies, by Nature’s wisdom, in palatability. If the apple food is enjoyed for juicy sweetness, then it is a remedy and will do all that this article claims for it; if by tartness it is disliked, the remedy is nullified. The apple is sweet because it holds in its compact bulk very nearly seven parts per hundred of pure grape sugar—the sugar of fruit, that is so readily assimilated by the tissues of the body. When cooking very acid apples, it may be mentioned that a pinch of carbonate of soda added to them will lessen the amount of cane sugar needed to sweeten the fruit, and will add to its blandness by counteracting the acridity. Also, by use of this alkali, a certain change comes over the cane sugar used, and it partakes more of the nature of grape sugar, the natural sugar of fruits and for fruit.

Nervous people benefit by appleeating because of its good proportion of phosphorus, a nerve food. For this reason neuralgic patients are recommended to eat apples plentifully. Besides phosphorus, there is much 'other saline matter, one salt being iron, in which the apple is especially rich. The red corpuscles of the blood need this salt of iron, which is fruit-prepared for absorption by them, and they renew their vitality by means of it. So the apple-eater is sure of one means of blood-enrichment, and need not fly to expensive patent blood medicine when apples will do all that is needed for him, if he finds his blood is poor so that it does not do its office of nourishing the body properly.