14 MASS. EXPERIMENT STATION BULLETIN 296 



Whole-fruit cranberry sauce prepared in small amounts according to much 

 used recipes (1,23) was found to retain approximately 80 per cent of the vitamin 

 C of the cranberries. In order to make it more palatable to the animals, whole- 

 fruit sauce was prepared without sugar, and the same percentage loss occurred. 

 The time of adding sugar did not alter the results. (Commercially packed whole- 

 fruit sauce contained little vitamin C. Samples of two years' packs were assayed, 

 one showing complete destruction and the other a 30 to 40 per cent retention. 



Hot-strained cranberry sauce (1) retained a small part of the original vitamin C 

 of the cranberries — possibly 20 per cent. However, five samples of strained sauce 

 prepared by commercial methods retained only traces of vitamin C. Three of 

 these samples were obtained from leading cranberry-sauce manufacturers; the 

 other two were prepared in this laboratory. 



One sample of strained sauce was prepared by cooking the cranberries to soften 

 them, cooling, pulping, adding the sugar, and packing in one-pound waxed-paper 

 cartons. The cartons were frozen at -30° F. and stored at 0° F. This sample 

 retained only 10 to 15 per cent of the original vitamin C content of the cranberries. 



Summarizing, whole-fruit sauce retains fully three-fourths and strained sauce 

 less than one-fourth of the vitamin C of the fruit. Pulping has a decidedly harm- 

 ful effect upon the antiscorbutic property of cranberries. 



Cranberry Jelly and Candy Filling 



Table 5 shows that true cranberry jelly is practically devoid of vitamin C, the 

 experimental animals living but little longer than the controls. The guinea pigs 

 very much disliked this sticky sweet product and they were force-fed only with 

 difficulty. 



Cranberry candy filling, consisting mainly of finely chopped cranberries packed 

 in glass jars without heat treatment, showed only very slight antiscorbutic activity. 

 If the fresh berries were chopped and used immediately for candy filler, no doubt 

 a much higher percentage of the vitamin C would be retained. 



Vitamin A 



The technic developed by Sherman and Burtis (37) and Sherman and Munsell 

 (36) was used in this investigation. Litters of young rats, 28 days old, were placed 

 on a vitamin A-free diet consisting of vitamin-free casein 18, salt mixture 4, ir- 

 radiated dried brewers' yeast 10, sodium chloride 1, and cornstarch 67 parts. 

 When the body stores of vitamin A were depleted, the rats were placed in individual 

 cages and fed the vitamin A-free diet supplemented by finely ground dehydrated 

 cranberries which were substituted for an equal weight of starch in the diet. 

 One rat from each litter was continued on the vitamin A-free diet as a negative 

 control. Accurate records were kept of the quantity of food consumed and of the 

 weight of the animals. On death or at the termination of the experimental period 

 of 42 days, the rats were autopsied and carefully examined for lesions characteris- 

 tic of vitamin A deficiency. The data are presented in Table 6. 



It is apparent that the quantity of cranberry required to produce unit growth of 

 3 grams per week is probably slightly over 0.5 gram daily or 8 per cent of dried 

 cranberry in the diet. This would place the vitamin A content of fresh cranberries 

 at about 0.2 unit per gram. These deductions do not allow for possible vitamin A 

 losses during the drying process; hence it is possible that raw cranberries may be 

 richer in vitamin A than is indicated in the dried product. Recent findings (16) 



