CLIBRANS’ BIST OF FRUITS, 190S-9. 
5 
2. Saccharine Matters. — In fruits the saccharine matter is in the 
form of grape sugar, or glucose, into which starch is converted by the saliva 
and pancreatic and intestinal juices. 
The most important point about this class of nutrient elements is that 
they do not pass into the excretion or put any strain on the excretory organs, 
but are oxidised and pass into carbonic acid and water as their ultimate 
products, and are therefore great heat factors and not exhausting elements 
of excretion. As they pass towards their final goal they are transformed 
into lactic, acetic, butyric, and other acids ; and these, when produced in 
the small intestines, are of the greatest value in helping the change and 
absorption of proteids by increasing diffusibility through the membranes 
into the lacteals. 
The amount of sugar in fruits varies very much, but it is always con- 
siderable. The ratio of free acid to sugar varies enormously with the season 
and cultivation, e.g. in 1S47 the ratio of acid to sugar in fresh grape juice 
was I to 12, in 1854 1 to 16, in 1S48 1 to 24 in the same kind of grape. In 
plums it is about 1 to 1 63, in currants 1 to 3-00, in strawberries 1 to 4-37 ; 
but where the sugar is high the fruit may not taste so sweet because, in 
some of the sweeter-tasting Iruits, although the proportion of acid to sugar 
is higher, yet the acid is covered by the presence of much pectine, e.g. green- 
gages, peaches. 
Cultivation, too, has a great deal to do with altering the ratio of acid to 
sugar, e.g. in cooking apples the ratio is about 1 to 8, whereas in dessert 
apples it is 1 to 12, and in the finest sweet sorts 1 to 22. In fruits like the 
banana and breadfruit and sweet chestnut, filbert, and pistachio there is a 
considerable amount of starch still untransformed into sugar. 
Dried fruits contain so much less Water that, weight for weight, their 
sugar value is very high, e.g. dates and dried figs have 48 percent., raisins 
56 per cent., while of the fresh fruits — 
Grapes 
Cherries 
contain 
12 to 
>> 
8 ,i 
Apples 
6 ,, 
Pears 
)> 
7 ,> 
Plums 
>1 
6 
Red currants 
475 
Greengage 
>> 
3 '5 
Peach and apricot 
. 
1 5 
13 
8 
8 
stand out as perfect foods. 
3. Oleaginous Matters.— When I come to oils and fats I believe 
that I am dealing with one of the greatest of all secrets of health, vitality, 
and long life. Iam satisfied from observation and experiment that fats 
are the most important of all food elements. 
People unconsciously recognise this when they try to make boys and 
girls eat fat meat, but they forget instinct which rejects that form of fat. 
Again and again I advise my nerve patients to eat more fat, and they 
reply, “Oh, but I don’t like fat,” and I always answer, “ Don’t you like 
butter?” “Oh yes,” they glibly reply; “I like butter.” “Well, then,” 
I ask, “ did you ever see any lean butter?” The fruit world is full of fat. 
The olive yards always formed one ot the foremost pictures in the sweet 
memories of the land of Canaan, and now the markets are full of olive oil, 
Darlene (a refined preparation of cocoanut butter), almond oil, walnut 
butter, almond butter, &c. 
The chestnut contains 1-3 per cent, of fat ; the walnut, 31-6 per cent. ; 
the filbert, 28-5 cent. ; the almond, 54 per cent. ; the pistachio, 51 per cent. ; 
the cocoanut, 35-9 per cent.; the peanut, 50 per cent. ; and the delightful 
little pine kernal is like a little cone of nutty fat. 
These fats are all clean and wholesome, free from taint and free from 
disease, and of a most delightful flavour. 
