The almond as a source of the A vitamin

Abstract

Investigations by Cajori have shown that the almond furnishes proteins adequate for growth, reproduction, and the suckling of young, and the B vitamin in liberal amounts. 2 Coward and Drummond have reported an experiment on three rats, of fourteen days' duration, in which one gram per day of almond was added to a basal ration devoid of the A vitamin, which indicates that this amount of nut does not furnish a sufficient supply of A vitamin for growth of albino rats, 3 but so limited an experiment is hardly to be regarded as conclusive, especially in view of the fact that the animals did not eat the almond very readily.

In the present investigation, attempts were first made to feed a diet of ground unblanched almonds, supplemented by a suitable salt mixture and a little starch, the almonds constituting 81 per cent. of the diet by weight. The records of daily food intake show that this diet was eaten in about the same amounts as the control diet, and the average calorie intake was higher than for the control diet. However, young rats placed on this diet at the age of about six weeks made no gains in weight in six or seven weeks. The addition of 2 grams of fresh compressed yeast to the ration of each rat caused a slight temporary increase in weight, but no permanent gain.

Thinking that there might be some inhibiting factor in the integument, as reported by Cajori in the case of the pecan, 1 the nuts were blanched before grinding and supplemented as in the case of the unblanched almonds, with no better results.

It then seemed probable that the high fat in the diet was the disturbing factor, and a press cake containing about 35 per cent. fat was used in making up a diet with the same protein and salt content as the original almond diet.