Apple juice is good as a nutritious drink but excellent in overcoming a liverish feeling, in helping sort out digestive disturbances and for flushing the kidneys. Many of these health providing properties are retained in cider vinegar, so if you cannot obtain apples to prepare your juice you can use instead two teaspoonsful of cider vinegar in a glass of water.
Besides being a great cleanser, the apple juice diet purifies the blood and is helpful for skin and liver, and as a general tonic. After juicing, the liquid often oxidizes quickly so it is best to store for even a short while in the refrigerator. Apples contain some 15 calories per oz (220KJ per 100g). The vitamins present include C, thiamine, riboflavin, nicotinic acid, carotene, B6, biotin and folic acid. There is a little sodium and a lot of potassium and phosphorus. Until the 1930s apples were regarded as an important indicated source of vitamin C. Then some scientist carried out a few analyses which indicated very low amounts of vitamin C. It took years for the poor apples to return to favour, for what the chemist found out was partially true. Modem research shows a fluctuation between 2.3mg per 100g (4oz), in the worst varieties, to 31.8mg in the best.
Those high in vitamin C include Ribston Pippin, Golden Noble, Reinette, Ontario, King of the Pippins, Bramleys, Beauty of Bath, Blenheim Orange, Cox\'s and jonathans. The poor providers include Rome Beauty, Laxton\'s Superb and James Grieve. Around the low middle are such favourites as Golden Delicious and Worcester Pearmain.
Oranges and lemons are more important as providers of vitamin C, but apples, unlike citrus fruits, have very high mineral contents, and also pectins, malic acid and tannic acid, all of which are of the greatest therapeutic importance in normalizing the intestines.