bonus fun fact, lime doesn’t help against scurvy. the brits started cultivating limes because it’s easier than lemons, but because the steam ship took over at around the same time, travel times got shorter and nobody noticed that they don’t actually have the same effect. until the 1910 british antarctic expedition when people’s teeth started falling out despite carrying tonnes of limes
I need sauce for limes not preventing scurvy. I was under the impression that the Terra Nova expedition failed because they flat ran out of rations and got stuck in a storm so they couldn’t resupply.
This time Scott made sure to provide his men with fresh seal meat, and scurvy was not a problem in the main camp.
One of Scott’s goals for the winter journey had been to determine the proper ration for sledging up on the Polar plateau, where the men would have to hike for several weeks at altitudes above 10,000 feet. After some tinkering with proportions, the men on the Winter Journey had settled on a satisfying ration, and Scott decided to adopt it unchanged for his own trip later that year: Scott’s Polar ration: 450g biscuit, 340 grams pemmican, 85g sugar, 57g butter, 24g tea, 16g cocoa. This ration contains about 4500 calories (sledging requires 6500) and no vitamin C.
You said they brought ‘tonnes of limes’ and got scurvy despite that.
No, I know, that’s what I’m curious about, haha. I think the expedition is a red herring here.
For all my searching, I can only turn up sources that say limes are less effective than lemons, and lemons are less effective than oranges, and all citrus is less effective than fresh mammal meat, particularly liver. I can find sources that say the vitamin c breaks down when heated, so the navy’s switch from fresh limes to canned lime juice made things worse around the age of the steam ship.
I cannot find sources that say limes don’t work to prevent scurvy, and was wondering if you did.
that’s why i linked the article! the bulk of it is about limes. they did animal testing in the 1920s (before the discovery of vitamin C) and found that
lime juice is about 25% as effective as lemon juice at preventing scurvy, when fresh, and
its efficacy was reduced by being in contact with a) air and b) copper, which means the open-face copper tanks used to store the stuff at sea was… not well thought out.
basically, as it was used by the british navy it was completely useless.
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Should have used more lime!
hell no i wanna live
fruit juice is all mostly apple anyway
bonus fun fact, lime doesn’t help against scurvy. the brits started cultivating limes because it’s easier than lemons, but because the steam ship took over at around the same time, travel times got shorter and nobody noticed that they don’t actually have the same effect. until the 1910 british antarctic expedition when people’s teeth started falling out despite carrying tonnes of limes
Ah yes once again as usual the British are wrong.
I need sauce for limes not preventing scurvy. I was under the impression that the Terra Nova expedition failed because they flat ran out of rations and got stuck in a storm so they couldn’t resupply.
oh they failed for a whole myriad of reasons, but scurvy was one of them.
This blog doesn’t support your claim at all.
You said they brought ‘tonnes of limes’ and got scurvy despite that.
in my defense it was primarily supposed to be a fun fact about limes and steam ships.
No, I know, that’s what I’m curious about, haha. I think the expedition is a red herring here.
For all my searching, I can only turn up sources that say limes are less effective than lemons, and lemons are less effective than oranges, and all citrus is less effective than fresh mammal meat, particularly liver. I can find sources that say the vitamin c breaks down when heated, so the navy’s switch from fresh limes to canned lime juice made things worse around the age of the steam ship.
I cannot find sources that say limes don’t work to prevent scurvy, and was wondering if you did.
that’s why i linked the article! the bulk of it is about limes. they did animal testing in the 1920s (before the discovery of vitamin C) and found that
basically, as it was used by the british navy it was completely useless.
Right. The problem is not that they used limes, it’s that they did a bunch of stuff to neuter the effectiveness of the limes.