Rex,
Since I don't know the precise definition of Brix (could you supply it? Your
e-mail address suggests you are an expert in this domain!), what I say may be
incorrect, but here is my opinion:
The "Brix" is probably a good indicator of quality of a fruit, good
mineralization, *in a given species*. It happens that on a well-mineralized
soil, fruits grow better, and concentrate more sugar, so a high sugar content is
*correlated* with a high mineral content.
Wild fruits are more fibrous, much less sweet than cultivated ones, but still
have a good mineral content. The reason is that modern fruits, due to artificial
selection, are genetically different, i.e. they have been selected *for* a
high-sugar content, a sweet taste. The sweeter a fruit is, the more it will sell
on the market; the consumer cares about sweetness, not about mineral content and
nutritional tables. Well, you are right, your Brix is correlated with mineral
richness as well as sweetness, but it's not true that wild fruits are poorer in
mineral content, despite being more sour or astringent than modern ones; they
simply haven't been selected for sweetness.
[A comparison could be made between domestic and wild animals: beef can contain
10 or more times fat than wild game, and yet the meat is not poorer in iron.
That's because fat animals taste better and are more profitable economically].
The table I provided is from the USDA database
http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/cgi-bin/nut_search.pl, it represents standard
commercial varieties. I was too lazy to put all minerals, but if you want a more
complete sample, here it is, for 100 grams; carb is expressed in grams, minerals
in milligrams.
---------------------------------------------------------
Carbohydrate Ca Fe Mg P K Na Zn Cu Mn
---------------------------------------------------------
grapes 17 14 5 5 10 191 2 .04 .04 .72
cranberries 13 7 .2 5 9 71 1 .13 .06 .16
blueberries 14 6 .2 5 10 89 6 .11 .06 .28
oranges 12 40 .1 10 14 181 0 .07 .04 .02
passion fruit 14 4 .4 17 25 278 6 .06 .05 ?
broccoli 5.2 48 .9 25 66 325 27 .40 .04 .23
----------------------------------------------------------
(I added broccoli to compare with a vegetable)
So, it's not clear at all if sweeter fruits are more nutritious (compare grapes
and passion fruits). And broccoli beats fruits on most point, but one can hardly
say they taste sweet.
To conclude with the Brix stuff, I will reiterate that, in your profession, it's
certainly a good indicator. I should also add that I appreciate very much your
input on the subject here, since most of us on this list are interested about
how our food is grown and related subjects. But the danger is to generalize the
results of your technical tool to a broader philosophy about human nutrition and
conception of Nature. Your "Brix" work well in the domain of cultivated fruit,
but doesn't work (in my humble opinion) to compare a wild and a domesticated
fruit, or a vegetable and a fruit. A sweet cultivated fruit is usually of higher
quality of a less sweet fruit of the same species; but sweetness is not an
indicator of quality when different foods are compared.
You are probably not aware of the ideas that have been circulating on this list:
to have an idea, you can check in the archives Nov-dec 1997. Some people have
claimed that fruit is the perfect food, and that the best diet is 100% fruit (or
close to 100% fruit). Many bogus arguments have been put forward to prove that
claim, and an incessant war has been waged to debunk these argument, but the
"spectrum" of fruitarianism is not dead...
We are certainly interested in your ideas and your expertise in the subject, but
the Brix stuff and your ideas can be used to defend the objectionable idea that
the more fruit you eat, the healthier your diet. All these arguments can, in my
opinion, be debunked, but that requires such lengthy developments and endless
arguments, discussing fake interpretations of science and misconceptions, that
it can become a real waste of time and energy.
Hope it clarifies a little bit about the the "fruit" issue, and again I (we)
welcome your informative (and other) posts, and your experience is very
appreciated.
Best wishes,
Jean-Louis
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