Yeah, this is technically something I learned during summer reading, but I was reminded of it by the lesson I was teaching at Che High School today. Fernando Magellan (not his real name) survived the debilitating attacks of scurvy that incapacitated his men because he liked jelly on his toast.
Well, actually, it wasn't jelly, it was preserves. He took it along to sweeten up the hardened biscuits that served as the crew's mainstay in the two year journey around the globe. The vitamin C content in quinces is low, but it was enough to hold off the bleeding gum disease that beset just about everyone else. The only other source of the scurvy preventing nutrient on board's Magellan's five-ship armada was was rats--rats apparently produce their own vitamin C, so if you eat them, you can at least slow down the progress of disease as well.
But let's call that Plan B.
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