304 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



DIETETIC VALUE OF FRUITS. 



MISS J. L. SHEPPARD, ST, ANTHONY PARK. 



AH people, and especially all girls and women, should avail them- 

 selves of the rare opportunities now offered for learning the com- 

 position, digestibility and comparative food and money value of dif- 

 ferent food materials. The public has never been more active in its 

 investigations on the subject of right lines of education for the young 

 than now. An effort is being made to find just how the public, 

 schools can best supplement home training. The desire is to have 

 pupils follow those lines which will, while forming right intellectual 

 habits, wholesome tastes and active interests, give the greatest possi- 

 ble amount of useful information. 



The United States has for a number of years been conducting in- 

 vestigations on the subject of the nutrition of man. These studies 

 have been made under a variety of conditions. The results are pub- 

 lished from time to time, and some of them are of such a popular 

 nature, and so interesting and instructive, that they might with 

 profit be used as a portion of the reading matter in the homes, while 

 others, notably those which have to do with pure foods and the 

 chemistry of special groups of foods, might well be used by teachers 

 to supplement other studies. That there is a very close relation 

 between food and virtue, and between food and health, is now a gen- 

 eral conceded fact. Both boys and girls should be taught in homes 

 and schools that proper food and right habits of eating and drink- 

 ing have much to do with maintaining good health, cheerful temper 

 and right moral tone. 



Children should be so impressed with the importance of right 

 living that they will continue to study and practice the proper use 

 of food, clothing, etc., during life. Teachers of botany could easily 

 emphasize a few facts about the hygienic value of fruits, the rela- 

 tive economy of fruits and other foods, etc., and this would aid much 

 in applying the truths learned in school to the solution of some of the 

 food problems in the homes. In botany, students learn that all fruits 

 are the seed bearing portions of their respective plants. Chemical 

 changes are constantly taking place in fruits as they develop and 

 ripen, and these continue without cessation after maturity until the 

 fruit decays. These are interesting, instructive and useful facts. 

 Some fruits improve by lying for a short time after ripe, others de- 

 teriorate rapidly after becoming mature, and all change perceptibly 

 in a comparatively short time. That is, the new chemical bodies 

 which nature forms before the fruit matures improve the color, fla- 



