Fruit Sugar. Fruit Acid

The form of carbohydrate which as food places the least tax upon the digestive organs is dextrose, this, as we have seen, requiring no digestion. This is found in fruit as fruit sugar.* So in fruit we have a naturally predigested food together with cellulose which by reason of its bulk is a natural laxative. The exquisitely flavored acid of fruit which adds so much to its desirability is not only an appetizer and a delight to the palate, but has a definite disinfectant action in the digestive canal. It lessens bacterial activity in the mouth, sweetens the stomach, helps to check intestinal fermentation and putrefaction and thus markedly lessens the formation of poisons resulting from germ activity in the alimentary tract. It is well known that the acid fruits such as the lemon, orange, and grape fruit help to clear up a coated tongue, sweeten the breath and are good for a "torpid liver" and "biliousness." The bitter principle in grape fruit is said to act particularly on the liver.

The fruit acid is a direct stimulant to the gastric and intestinal glands, increasing the flow of digestive juices. It also stimulates the muscular wall of the stomach and bowel, thus in every way increasing digestive activity. For those who can not take much cellulose the fruit juices are a great help by reason of their natural laxative action.

♦Fruit sugar is made up principally of glucose or dextrose and a closely related sugar of practically the same chemical composition called laevulose.

The good influence of this delightful food does not, however, stop here but is felt in an effective way after it is taken into the blood. The food value of the fruit fills a definite place as fuel in the body oxidation processes, but it is in the effect of the acid upon the blood that the most beneficial action is obtained.

A Cure For Rheumatism

The acid of the fruit is in the form of acid salts. These in the normal chemical processes of digestion are changed into the alkaline carbonates which render the blood more alkaline. This is a very desirable and necessary result, for, in counteracting the acidity resulting from protein wastes, it helps to maintain the normal alkaline reaction of the blood and thus tends to neutralize the conditions associated with lessened alkalinity as found in rheumatism, gout, etc. (See chapter IV (Results More Remote), page 27).

Nature's Medicine

It was thought for years that fruit increased a tendency toward rheumatism, but we know now that this is not the case but that most fruits lessen this tendency and so are among the best rheumatic cures.* Fresh fruits are also full of vitamines which adds greatly to their healthfulness, and for all these reasons fruit might well be considered nature's medicine.

Some with catarrhal stomachs find that they do not take fruit well because of an irritated condition of the mucous membrane brought on by some other cause. In this condition the stomach lining cannot bear even the normal stimulation of the fruit acid and its cellulose. The trouble is not with the fruit but with the primary state of gastric irritation.

♦The exceptions to this are the grape, the prune, the plum and the cranberry. They do not affect the alkalinity of the blood as do the other fruits, e. g. the apple, the orange, the lemon, grapefruit, etc.

In some others, due to abnormal nervous excitation or naturally irritable mucous lining, an excessive amount of the normal acid of the stomach is secreted, and the already irritated mucous membrane does not seem to bear well the addition of any more acid even though it be the normal acid prepared by nature for us as food. However, even in these abnormal states, there is usually some way by which fruits or fruit juices can be taken and many of these persons do well if they eat fruits alone, not trying to combine them with other foods.

Fresh fruits are more easily digested when eaten without cane sugar. When sugar is added to stewed fruits it should be cooked with the fruit. In this way the heat and fruit acid tend to change the cane sugar into the simple predigested dextrose which results in a more natural and more easily digested combination.

In spite of the abundance of the natural predigested sugar it is in the form of cane sugar extracted from its various sources and served often in its concentrated form that a large part of sugar is ingested. Cane sugar requires digestion. This does not take place until late in the digestive process when the food has traversed a large part of the digestive canal. This delay often results in fermentation, especially when the sugar is combined with food requiring some length of time in stomach digestion.

An Artificial Food

In its concentrated form cane sugar is very irritating to mucous membranes, very marked inflammatory effects being produced when solutions stronger than from 6 to 10% are taken. Yet it is in this form that millions of pounds per year are consumed by the American people, and to this excess may be ascribed another cause for various digestive troubles, to say nothing of an excessive fuel supply in its effect on metabolism. In nature cane sugar is given us in a diluted form, even honey consisting largely of fruit sugar. This should suggest to us that concentrated cane sugar is an artificial rather than a natural food.

The Sweet Tooth

Children are educated from babyhood to like sugar and the "sweet tooth" so universal among them is more often a result of wrong training than a natural instinct. The susceptibility of the child to colds, catarrh, adenoids, enlarged tonsils, croup, bronchitis is often greatly increased by this error in diet together with an excess of fat and greasy foods (See chapter VII (A Balanced Ration - Fat)) ; and wise is the mother who, knowing this, feeds her child in such a way that the foundation for chronic catarrh and digestive troubles is not laid.

A Highly Energized Food

We quote from Dr. Kerley in Archives of Pediatrics, Oct. 1914: "Cane sugar was not cultivated until 300 years ago and as late as the 16th century it was used largely as a condiment as honey is used at the present time. Countless millions existed and lived their span without it. Now we require 40 pounds a year per capita. It requires no great strain on the imagination to believe that the introduction of so large an amount of highly energized food in excess of demands might produce ailments of a very definite character. It is noteworthy that, as the refined product came into common use, it was first employed only in medicine 'to render unpleasant and nauseating drugs grateful to the sick.' Gradually sugar was found of value in preserving fruits and then added to tea, wine and various beverages until its acceptability as a food for the sick and its value as a source of energy in sustaining artificially fed infants came to be appreciated. Then only (about 1600) was the substance commonly recognized as a food. What the result has been can not be better summarized than in the words of Mosely, written in 1800.

'Two centuries have elapsed since it can properly be said that sugar has become an ingredient in the popular diet of Europe. Such is the influence of sugar that once touching the nerves of taste no person was ever known to have the power of relinquishing desire for it.' "

Sugar In Infant's Milk

Sugar is present in mother's milk in just the right proportion for the babe and the only reason that sugar of any kind is added to the formula used in artificial feeding of infants is to adjust the cow's milk so that it will contain the food elements in the same proportion as in mother's milk. As the children grow older much harm is done them by adding sugar to their cereals, by feeding them cakes and desserts in which sugar is served in a concentrated form. (See Chapter XIX (The Feeding Of Children. A Foundation)).

The Banana

The banana is a food of great value. Too often it is eaten unripe and in this form is indigestible because of its high content of raw starch. In the process of ripening this starch is changed to sugar and the ripe banana with its yellow brown-speckled peel is a food of exquisite flavor and easy of digestion It should, however, be properly masticated. Too often it is gulped down without sufficient mastication. The food value of the banana is similar to that of the potato. Its percentage of protein is somewhat lower, but its proportion of alkaline mineral salts is about the same. Baked in the skins or prepared as croquettes, bananas may be served as vegetables and may often be substituted for foods higher in price, but perhaps lower in actual food value. (See recipes 89 and 90).

"Singing apple, peach and grape Into roundest, plumpest shape".