Oleg Zabluda's blog
Sunday, November 18, 2012
 
Captain James Cook (1728-1779), whom aborigines may or may not have eaten, noticed that German sailors never got...
Captain James Cook (1728-1779), whom aborigines may or may not have eaten, noticed that German sailors never got scurvy. He decided that the reason must be the sauerkraut. Not for nothing they were called Krauts [1]. He loaded 25,000 lbs of it on his ship, but instead of making a double-blind test, he tried to stuff it down everybody's throat.

Sailors revolted. They wouldn't eat this crap. They's rather eat lime, and drink grog, which was the custom at the time [2].

He was a smart Cook[ie], and resorted to reverse psychology, declaring that only officers were allowed to eat it. It worked, everybody demanded the delicatessen, and nobody got scurvy. 

Could have been the placebo effect, or could have been that cabbage has as much vitamin C as lemon. No way to know now.

[1] Anachronism. Only since 1918 they were called that.
[2] https://plus.google.com/112065430692128821190/posts/HhLKr5vzGVW
https://plus.google.com/112065430692128821190/posts/gvW2k2HT5uB

About Cook, also see
https://plus.google.com/112065430692128821190/posts/UZLfdfynEnN

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sauerkraut
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sauerkraut

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