ORANGE SHORTAGE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 April 1942, Page 5

ORANGE SHORTAGE

SUBSTITUTE FOR JUICE ADVISED. A serious view of the effect that the shortage of oranges, as forecast by the Minister of Agriculture, may have on public health is taken by the Department of Health, because of their importance as a source of vitamin C. In a statement made by an officer of the Department today it was announced that the Department’s experts, in anticipation of difficulties in the supply of oranges, had been testing for substitutes to meet the local deficiency of this vitamin. “The use of tomato juice,” he said, “has already been given wide publicity., and the Department now advises the use of the fruit of the wild rose, or briar rose.”

He explained that these rose hips should be picked when red, and that all other recipes for their preparation except the following should be disregarded. To make the syrup cover say 51b of clean berries with three pints of boiling water in an aluminium or enamel saucepan. Boil until soft and mush them. Dilute the resulting thick mass with two pints of boiling water; bring to the boil and when cold strain through a jelly bag. Return the residue to the pan, add another two pints of boiling water, boil for five to ten minutes, and strain again through the same bag, which should not be washed. Repeat this process a third time. Mix the three lots of liquor, put into a clean jelly bag, and allow to drip without squeezing. About two quarts should collect. Boil and add 31b of sugar for every pint* and boil the syrup for three minutes. Bottle in sterilised bottles, and seal when cool. The officer added that the vitamin C value of the resulting syrup, if these directions were followed, was about four times that of orange juice, so that two teaspoons were sufficient for the baby’s daily ration.