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My understanding is that pickling destroys Vitamin C. However, apparently Sauerkraut is very rich in Vitamin C and is used by the German Navy to offset scurvy. What am I missing here?

Because early sailors suffered from scurvy and I must assume they brought preserved fruits and vegetables with them but that wasn't enough (or maybe they didn't? But if they did not I do not know why unless Europeans did not know about pickling but that seems unlikely). What is it about Sauerkraut that is different?

EDIT: Question has been extended to Why weren't pickled fruits and vegetables part of (European) rations during the Age of Sail?

DKNguyen
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    Fruits don't last very long, and preserved fruits often lose a lot of their C, depending on the method of preservation. After saurkraut, the other method used for C for sailors was lime juice stored in tanks, and mixed with rum to make grog (hence "limey" for British sailors). Which leads to a story of how the folks on one of the polar expeditions got scurvy ... – FuzzyChef Jan 26 '21 at 06:05

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Vitamin C is destroyed by heat and light. If you use a preservation method that relies on heating the sauerkraut at any stage (hot pickling liquid, water bath or pressure canning the jars) then some vitamin C is destroyed. Exactly how much depends on the process: not all vitamin C is lost immediately so different processes will have different amounts of vitamin C left. And if you use a preservation method that doesn't rely on heat like lacto-fermentation, no vitamin C is lost to heat (some may be lost to light, depending on how you store it).

user141592
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  • Are there multiple methods to make sauerkraut? Some of which need no heating? This article: https://www.makesauerkraut.com/nutrition-benefits-sauerkraut/ says Vitamin C can be much higher after pickling? – DKNguyen Jan 25 '21 at 15:10
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    @DKNguyen that article is not only badly written, it simply misreports and misunderstands its sources. Especially the claim for the 600 mg is blatantly wrong, you can click on the study they link and see that it is about equivalent antioxidant activity, not about vitamin C content. I would suggest that you simply disregard the article. – rumtscho Jan 25 '21 at 16:11
  • @rumtscho Will do – DKNguyen Jan 25 '21 at 16:12
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    @DKNguyen Natural lacto-fermentation does not require heating. It's just cabbage+salt (+sometimes water) and time. – user141592 Jan 25 '21 at 16:28
  • @Johanna Huh. Then I truly wonder what the reason was that prevented sailors from bringing such foods with them early on. – DKNguyen Jan 25 '21 at 20:36
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    @DKNguyen - it simply was that they didn't know about the cause of scurvy (actually this had been discovered and forgotten several times over western history). Sauerkraut can also over-ferment if stored improperly, making it inedible. There's a credible answer about this over on the [history stack exchange](https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/32616/why-wasnt-sauerkraut-used-to-combat-scurvy). – bob1 Jan 25 '21 at 23:36
  • @bob1 Yes I just read a big long article about how it was constantly cured then forgotten. But I guess what I am really wondering, which veers away from nutrition into history, whether or not they knew, why were pickled fruits and vegetables seemingly weren't brought along more often just as a matter of course. Too expensive? Not filling enough for the volume they took up? Maybe they were brought along but the various pickling methods often involved heating? I just read they did try and bring lemon or lime juice but the production process involved a boiling stage so no dice. – DKNguyen Jan 25 '21 at 23:46
  • @bob1 Because reading, they make it sound like every single long range ship suffered from scurvy. Maybe this was not the case as even if 30% of the ships suffered from it by picking the wrong foods to bring, it would be an epidemic. I can't find reports as to just how common it really was. – DKNguyen Jan 25 '21 at 23:52
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    This is veering into discussion - scurvy is only a significant problem after about a month with no fresh food. Ships often didn't sail that long before re-supply. Fresh vegetables won't keep all that long, and most of the vitamins are lost in approx 1 week, even when stored in a fridge. Instead long easily stored items like salt meat, flour etc were taken. Pickles are heavy, hard to seal properly in large volumes for the required fermentation, and I would guess not very efficient in terms of space. – bob1 Jan 26 '21 at 00:02
  • A fine article on Captain Cook and sauerkraut to prevent scurvy. https://modernfarmer.com/2014/04/magical-sour-cabbage-sauerkraut-helped-save-age-sail/ – Willk Jan 26 '21 at 18:30
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    DKNguyen: it was VERY common. Consider that a trans-pacific sailing trip could take 6 months. That's a long time to be without fresh fruit, veggies, or meat. https://www.sciencehistory.org/distillations/the-age-of-scurvy "Scurvy killed more than 2 million sailors between 1492 and 1900" – FuzzyChef Jan 27 '21 at 00:23
  • @FuzzyChef Then it just goes back to what was preventing so many crews from not having preserved vegetables or fruits by chance just as a matter of course when pickling methods were known. You don't have to understand Vitamin C and scurvy to want to bring along fruits or vegetables. Even if the vast majority of pickling methods used at the time involved heating (I haven't been able to find anything either way), from reading what rations often were, it was more the case that no pickled produce was brought along. What was it that was stopping them? – DKNguyen Jan 28 '21 at 19:33
  • DK: that would be a different question (Why didn't they bring preserved fruits along), which you could certainly post on SA. – FuzzyChef Jan 28 '21 at 23:37