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Iwantmyflag t1_iuco7qi wrote

Reply to comment by OneEightActual in The Discovery that Lemons Cure Scurvy Caused the Formation of the Sicilian Mafia by agreea

None of this is true.

Limes contain a lot of vitamin C.

Various cabbages were a widespread winter food in Europe and contain plenty vitamin C.

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Isthecoldwarover t1_iucopa7 wrote

I thought the same on your first point since spuds contain less vitamin c than limes but assume the quantity of each ration was actually improtant, so it was the daily handful of spuds rather than whatever their lime ration was that made the difference

Don't get your second point since cabbages wouldn't last the full lenght of a journey in comparison to spuds which have a much longer shelf life

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OneEightActual t1_iucrwzr wrote

That's the thing; potatoes were given daily or even several times daily when they were available, which got really common. Limes/lime juice were rationed more carefully. I can't find the reference now, but there was even a British expedition to the Antarctic relying on limes that got stricken with scurvy, and it could not be explained why at the time.

Fermented cabbage products like sauerkraut were trialed and were successful, but weren't widely adopted, perhaps because of the Brits' tendency to cook it in iron cookware that gave it an unpleasant metallic taste.

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Frosty-Wave-3807 t1_iue5rgn wrote

Sauerkraut can easily survive 6+ months. I've eaten older preparations, both that I've made and commercially prepared, for longer than that, 10+ months. It took anywhere from ~8-12 weeks to sail across the Atlantic. Think the sauerkraut would be fine.

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ends_abruptl t1_iudgkzz wrote

Yeah, not to mention you need less than a tenth of a gram of vitamin C a day. It's ludicrously easy to get enough. So easy in fact, the human body never evolved a vitamin C storage system.

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