ch_pic4FRUITS AND THEIRDIETETIC VALUE
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byGEORGE A. THOMASON, M.D., L.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.
No other class of foods more delightfully or deliciously contribute to the needs of the body than fruit. Fresh from the lap of Nature, lavishly supplied, and delightful to the eye, fruit makes most satisfying appeal to the appetite of every one, from the quite indifferent to the most discriminating epicure. Most easy of digestion, in fact, practically predigested, fruit is most appropriate for all people both in sickness and in health, and at all periods of life, from babyhood to extreme age.
Fruit is made up of water, sugar, acids, some proteid, and organic salts. Water is by far the largest constituent of fruit, being seventy-five to eighty-five per cent. The water of fruit is of the greatest possible purity, being doubly distilled, first as rain, then as sap, drawn and filtered through the tree.
The sugar of fruit is one of the most easily digested forms, that of levulose. The starch of the unripe fruitis converted into sugar in the ripening process, or in the cooking of partially ripened fruit. Sugar is present in varying amounts in fruits, averaging from five to ten per cent. A well ripened banana contains twenty-one per cent of sugar, dates about fifty per cent, while grapes contain from fourteen to twenty per cent.
The outward appearance of the fruit is often a fairly reliable indication of the amount of sugar. Trielle has observed that fruits with yellow skins contain much sugar, and have a very penetrating odor. Fruits with red skins contain a medium amount of sugar, and have a pleasant, delicate perfume. Fruits with a reddish brown skin usually contain much sugar, and have very little perfume.
As showing its perfectly digested state, demonstrations have proved that fruit sugar may be injected directly into the blood, from which it will be utilized in nourishing the body. This is in marked contrast with ordinary cane sugar, which, if injected directly into the blood, is expelled through the kidneys, the body being unable to appropriate it as such from the blood.
Fruit sugar may be eaten in practically unlimited quantities. It supplies the body with heat and energy in the most available form. For this reason, fruit when eaten will quickly relieve the sense of exhaustion.
Fruit Acids
The acids of fruits give to them their delightful and appetizing flavors. Fruits in the unripe state contain tannic acid, a marked astringent. The gastric and peristaltic woes of the small boy the night following the green apple episode are due to the tannic acid the unripe fruit contains. The three chief acids of fruit are citric acid, found in oranges, lemons, and grapefruit; malic acid, as found in apples, pears, peaches, and similar fruits; andtartaric acid, as found in grapes. These are organic acids, recognized and readily digested by the body.
The acids of fruits are remarkable peptogens; that is, they stimulate the appetite and promote the flow of the digestive juices. Fruit acids are most efficient disinfectants. Some years ago, an eminent medical authority of this country, in a representative medical gathering, said, "We are as yet without a satisfactory medicinal intestinal disinfectant." In fruit acids, we possess such an agent in a most desirable form. No germ, disease-producing or otherwise, can live in the presence of fruit acid. Fruit acids can be taken practicallyad libitum. Fruit acids taken freely by mouth or diluted and injected into the bowel, most efficiently asepticize the intestinal canal. Three or four pints of water to which the juice of one lemon has been added, injected into the bowel following a cleansing enema, will thoroughly destroy disease-producing bacteria in the colon. Flushing the bowel frequently with such a solution is one of the most efficient known means of successfully combating the fetid summer diarrheas of children.
The proteid or nitrogenous element of fruits, as well as their fatty element, may be passed over with little consideration. Fruit contains little proteid; and aside from the olive, there is almost no fat in fruit. The fat of the ripe olive, however, is one of the most delicious and digestible forms of fat. Ripe olives contain about fifty per cent fat. Olive oil can be mixed with water; therefore it readily mixes with the intestinal juices, and is most easily digested.
Fruit Salts
The salts of fruit are most desirable, being so essential in tissue building. Some of the most important of these salts are potash, lime, phosphoric acid, and iron.Deficiency of the lime salts in the bones of children produces conditions of bone softening, or rickets. This can be largely prevented by adding fruit to the diet of these afflicted children, using especially grapes, oranges, lemons, and grapefruit, which contain high percentages of lime salts.
The condition of anæmia is a lack of iron in the blood. This cannot be replaced by medicinal or metallic iron, as the body is unable to appropriate these inorganic substances; but the iron in fruit is perfectly adapted to the body needs. Plums, cherries, and especially strawberries and currants contain considerable iron, and are most helpful in the treatment of anæmic conditions.
It is perfectly apparent that fruits possess qualities and constituents that make them of the greatest value as an essential part of the daily ration to nourish and energize the body, and to promote vital activities in the maintenance of strength and healthful vigor. Fruit is also an exceedingly important and efficient factor in restoring to normal function tissues and organs that have become vitiated and are functionating abnormally.
In spite of the widespread opinion to the contrary, it can be positively asserted that fruit is of great service in the prevention as well as in the treatment of rheumatism and gout. The prejudice against the use of fruit in rheumatism originated with the idea that the acids of fruit tend to acidify the body. Quite the reverse is true. The acids of fruit, when taken into the body, are promptly converted into the alkali carbonates, thus increasing the alkalinity of the blood, tending greatly to benefit and cure the rheumatic condition, as well as to lessen the general tendency to the formation of various calculi, or stones, in the kidneys, the urinary bladder, and the gall bladder.
Fruit and Obesity
A fruit diet is of great value in obesity. An exclusive fruit diet may be taken to the greatest possible advantage by the too corpulent who wish to reduce in weight. For this purpose, fruit has the advantage of satisfying the appetite while at the same time contributing very little nutrition to the body. The free use of fruit is the method par excellence for overcoming constipation. The eating of a half dozen raw prunes before breakfast, or the taking of the juice of one or two oranges, will in the majority of cases be all that is necessary to maintain regular bowel activity.
For an overworked liver, the so-called "bilious" state, fruit is the best of all means of relief. Auto-intoxication due to an excess of poisons circulating in the blood, is treated most naturally and efficiently by a fruit diet.
The natural diuretic properties of fruit are very well known. Nearly all fruits stimulate the kidneys to greater activity, but watermelon is of particular service in this respect.
Fruit and fruit juices greatly aid in successfully combating alcoholism. The acid of the fruit juices help materially in quenching the abnormal thirst.
There are but few individuals who would not be benefited by an occasional exclusive fruit meal; and in many cases, this can be maintained with greatest benefit for even several days. This is a very popular method of treatment in Europe, particularly in Switzerland, where the "grape cure" is utilized. Patients are placed upon a diet of grapes alone for several weeks, consuming from seven to ten pounds of grapes a day. Wonderful results are recorded at these resorts in the treatment of rheumatism, gout, obesity, constipation, intestinal catarrh, liver and kidney disorders, high blood pressure, arterialsclerosis, or hardening of the arteries, and many more physical disabilities.
Certain fruits, especially tart apples, are of great value in the treatment of diabetes, lessening the toxæmia of this condition, as well as mitigating the abnormal thirst that is so frequent and often distressing an accompaniment of this condition.
In the eating of fruit, some care must be exercised not to swallow large seeds or fruit pits. While the danger of appendicitis from fruit seeds' becoming lodged in the appendix has been greatly exaggerated, yet fruit seeds have occasionally been found in the appendix, and proved the exciting cause of the inflammation which followed. Cases are on record of children who have swallowed considerable quantities of grape seeds, suffering for months of colic, and being only relieved by discharging quantities of these seeds during energetic purgation.
It has been said that fruit is "gold in the morning, silver at noon, and lead at night." But fruit is golden all the time. This wonderful gift, one of the greatest and best physical gifts of an all-wise Providence, cannot be prized to highly; for it is considered sufficiently valuable to endure for both time and eternity. Of the first man and woman, it was said that they might eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden; and it is said of the inhabitants of the renewed earth, during eternity, that "they shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them."
Toomuch good food makes one auto-toxic. Too muck fun makes one asinine. But keep sunny. A cheerful disposition, a happy temperament, is the master key that unlocks more secrets, more riches, more success, than anything else. A sunny temper is an "aroma whose fragrance fills the air with an odor of Paradise." Bury everything that makes you unhappy and discordant, everything that cramps your freedom and worries you. Bury it before it buries you. Adopt the sundial's motto, "I record none but hours of sunshine."—Thomason.
Toomuch good food makes one auto-toxic. Too muck fun makes one asinine. But keep sunny. A cheerful disposition, a happy temperament, is the master key that unlocks more secrets, more riches, more success, than anything else. A sunny temper is an "aroma whose fragrance fills the air with an odor of Paradise." Bury everything that makes you unhappy and discordant, everything that cramps your freedom and worries you. Bury it before it buries you. Adopt the sundial's motto, "I record none but hours of sunshine."—Thomason.