Rickety Woo

[intaglio]

67. OP = Original Post, the post that started this discussion

1) 70 degrees is far below boiling point, indeed it requires considerably less heat to raise water to that temperature than to continue to take the water to boiling point, you are confusing heat with temperature.

2) Nice high school chemistry and, very loosely, true; but many experiments were carried out by the Royal Navy regarding scurvy and cooked, heated or preserved food was completely ineffective at preventing or alleviating scurvy. The reaction might not continue to completion but if insignificant amounts of the ingredient are left they will not help because, not all of a nutrient is absorbed when in the gut and you need a certain concentration to begin absorption.

3) But if you want to accept an anecdote as evidence that anecdote has to carry some resemblance to reality. So far the strikes against this anecdote are:

a) Not rickets because rickets is a disease of childhood, the symptoms in adults do not permit it being called rickets;
b) Adults in the wilds do not get vitamin D deficiency unless north of the arctic circle in winter, additionally (being Catholic) they would be eating fish at least once a week;
c) Vitamin D is not soluble in water and is not denatured by heat or contact with metals;
d) If another deficiency was meant then the likely alternatives are Scurvy (vitamin C) and Rabbit Starvation (vitamin E) - note that Rabbit Starvation does cause bloating similar to rickets;
e) I considered scurvy unlikely because of the instability of vitamin C in heated water and its stability in contact with metals, if vitamin C was required then just pounding the bark in water would mobilise sufficient vitamin C to help a scurvy victim;
f) I considered Rabbit Starvation much more probable as it was a common sickness of explorers early in the occupation of the Americas but that a caveat applied to that as well, specifically that native Americans knew the cure was fat not bark.

4) As noted in my point (2) the Royal Navy would disagree with you on that.

5) Pasteurised orange juice has to have vitamin C added because the vitamin C originally in the product is denatured by the heat; the advertising tells you that orange juice naturally contains vitamin C but doesn't mention that it does not have vitamin C after Pasteurisation.

6) Yes and I have responded at length - in this case in the same format. Would you care to comment about my rabbit starvation theory - which seem to be closer to reality

7) H2O Man is about and will comment when he feels it necessary. All I have said that the story, as told to him by his friend, does not hold water