Vitamin Rivers (1951)

[Music] [Music] [Music] and you better take her advice well maybe we can get a better idea some of the material you have here honey what have you got let me show them to you hey this is beautiful what's that supposed to be it looks like a Chinese palace it is daddy that's the core of the emperor hi you here's what my notes say the orange was first mentioned in history about 4000 years ago it originated southern China and northern India and this one showed how the orange moved south through India the Hindus carried them in the rocks cars too bad they didn't have airplanes in those days what have got here a lot faster oh this is much faster then it says the alex took oranges from india over to Southwest Asia see this one these Arabians are carrying oranges on a caravan trip through the Middle East with all the fruit loaded on their channel people who lived on the southern shores of the Mediterranean who oranges for hundreds of years before the Crusaders brought them into other parts of Europe and the first orange deeds are supposed to have come over to America with Christopher Columbus right before sailing this one I'm working on this shows when other explorers came over a lot later they found orange trees growing wild in Florida so naturally they thought the fruit was native to this country they didn't know then that orange trees can live and bear fruit for years and years that's right and and you know all during that time the tree never rests you'll see right fruit on the same tree with newly open blossoms and then pretty soon those blossoms become oranges too I learned quite a bit about fruits and vegetables in Agricultural College well that was back in the days before I decided to come a pilot GJ that's great maybe you could help me with my notebook oh you want to put the old man to work eh well this should be a lot more fun than some of those arithmetic problems we've had lately honey what do you want to know well this orange tree I'm copying oh that's a cinch man run out in the kitchen and ask your mother for a can of orange juice with yeah I think there's a pretty good picture of an orange blossom on one of those cans we bought today probably because you didn't bring the groceries in from the car I did okay what snake you know where they grow best Nora oh that's easy too right here in the United States we grow more oranges lemons grapefruit and other citrus fruits than any other nation in fact I understand it's the biggest agricultural industry in Florida in California Texas grows a lot of grapefruit for juice too and so does Arizona wouldn't those fruit trees grow anywhere people wanted to plant them in this country fraid not Ann you've got to have the right climate for one thing very little cold weather and lots of warm sunshine that's the only way to grow fruits full of sugars that make them tasty and the vitamins and minerals that make them good for us soil is mighty important too I even in Florida the lights and soil has to be carefully cultivated so they can grow hearty fruit trees and also seeds have to be selected very carefully they have to be sure to plant the kind that will grow well in this type of soil oh but nature's got a lot of tricks up her sleeve even with the right climate good soil and the right seeds growers have still another problem all these things may grow a fine tree all right but it's not always one which gives the best oranges so the growers outsmart nature like this when a row of young trees from their selected seed has grown enough so each tree has a strong set of roots and is budding well they cut a small branch with lots of buds on it from a healthy tree which they know produces a lot of fine oranges then with a sharp knife they carefully slip the bark of a young tree near the ground cut a bud from the branch that came from the heavy bearing tree and slide this bud into the slit good and tight [Music] over this graft they wrap a special tape for protection now after the tape has been removed and the bud has taken which means it has started to become a healthy branch of the tree the top of the tree is cut off then when this branch has grown out a little more it's trained up to act as the trunk of what will become a new tree a year or so later the tree with its sturdy strong roots and the trunk borrowed from a tree that bears well is ready for transplanting to a grove where in a few more years it will start bearing tasty juicy fruit provided of course the water supply is watched carefully and growers make sure the trees are properly irrigated and by regular sprayings they eat their trees and the fruit free from insects which might harm them they also protect them from cold if necessary sometimes they warm the air near the trees with heating units when the temperature gets close to freezing as it does once in a while on evenings and in some places they use large wind machines to circulate the air over the Grove and keep the trees and the fruit warm you've heard a lot in school and about vitamins minerals and carbohydrates well oranges are packed with all these plus fruit sugars that give us energy they naturally have the greatest amount of these when they're ripened on the tree and picked at the peak of their goodness like any fruit though the orange is perishable when picked fully ripe and it has to be eaten or canned within a short time one of the most interesting parts of my college work was to follow through from the time they loaded the trucks in the orange groves on through the canning process one of the men told me that the oranges they used for candy juice can stay on the tree right up to the moment their rightist because the cannery is usually only a short distance from the Groves so there's no delay in getting the juice in cans once the fruit is picked and with orange juice so popular these days more and more of the crop is going into cans juice let me tell you how they do it at the cannery the oranges are unloaded from big trailer trucks onto a conveyor this sometimes takes them into storage bins just temporarily or it carries them right on through a cleaning and inspection process after they've been cleaned thoroughly and had a careful check for quality they roll along to what are called the juice extracting drums here they roll into cups on the drums just the right size to hold them and are sliced in half as the drums go around on similar drums underneath these are some inverted cups which press against each half of the orange and squeeze out the juice then it pours down into a stainless steel trough through machines which strain out the pulp and seeds and these along with the peels are used to make fine kettle foods now that's one way I've seen Kanner's extract the juice however another cannery I went through once used extractors that all the orange and one half almost like a half while the other half comes down under pressure and squeeze it under each orange being squeezed punches a hole in it and as pressure is applied to the orange the juice flows down through this tube and out into a trough which takes it to other processing machines oh it really makes you thirsty when you see large stainless steel tanks in the mixing room full of freshly extracted juice some is sweetened here for folks who like it that way and some is blended with grapefruit juice which makes another wonderful drink and from here the juice disappears into large tanks where they take out the excess air it picked up when being squeezed they told me that if the oxygen in this air was allowed to remain it might react with elements in the juice to reduce its flavor and lower its vitamin content then the juice is piped quickly into pasteurizing machines where it's heated to destroy any enzymes and spoilage bacteria but of course not enough to destroy its flavor or goodness now the juice is all ready to be canned you know the skin of the orange is nature's way of preserving all the goodness of the fruit until it ripens on the tree then when it's picked it has to be used in a short time but man has improved on nature he's provided a container in which all that goodness can be sealed in and or at least until we are ready to enjoy it that's what canning really means to everyone is it fast why the modern machines can is use fill and hermetically sealed juice in cans as fast as you can blink your eyes what a sensei yes I see who empted it this little tin can is something you should really feature in your notebook and because it's different and the process is for sealing juice in it are largely responsible for the great expansion of the fruit and vegetable industry in this country giving support to hundreds of thousands of people also making it so easy for people all over the world to enjoy fruit juices whenever they want well here's nice blossom you can copy in your notebook oh and you're right about them growing orange is produced in California daddy says that's where this juice came from huh started there well the Spaniards settle both in Florida and California so guess the orange read both places with them however growing oranges in both states is pretty much the same even though they do have mountains in different soil conditions in California California also grows other fruits for connectors that are mighty good to drink like apricots pears and peaches I'll tell you another mighty interesting thing about this business of canning juices even though it's comparatively young some amazing things have been done in recent years so that more juice can get the more people for instance frozen concentrated orange juice like several other juices that are concentrated canned in frozen its juice from which a lot of the natural water has been removed of course it must be kept under iteration but when it's canned it needs much less shipping space to market when you want to serve it you just put the water back in again [Music] stir it well and presto you've got wonderful tasting orange juice don't you remember seeing mother do it oh here are lots of time which reminds me let's go see how dinner's coming along [Music] it'll stay putting it on the table well I see you already had your favorite juice young man and put these cans refrigerator will you okay mother gee this family certainly likes a lot of different juices mother well I can't think of a better way for us to get some of the vitamins and minerals we need every day daddy it's a great food a lot older than the orange it's sure a lot bigger it's probably the same age an but it's only been grown in this country about a hundred years and it's been grown commercially fewer years and left large quantities of grapefruit first came on the market after some severe Frost's practically put the orange out of business back in the 1890s I think it was Gore's tell me they were originally called the shadek after the man who introduced it but their popular name grapefruit is gotten from their habit of growing clusters somewhat like grapes that grapefruit juice mother's drinking was probably squeezed in the same way as the orange juice fact is grapefruit was the first to be commercially processed for juice just like the orange it's rich in the important vitamin C and naturally very good for you and it tastes good too so does this pineapple juice but you don't know who discovered the pineapple daddy oh yes I do for the same man who discovered the Lyon Islands old Captain Cook Captain Cook oh no daddy the pineapple is supposed to been there already Oh in school we were told pineapples are native to South America and that there's an old story that some Spanish ships hold pineapples we're shipwrecked near Hawaii and some of the free flow to the shore on the island sure I remember now but I never did originating in Brazil I think it was yes the natives called it na na meaning fragrance then as you say there are lots of stories about how it got to Hawaii but anyway today raising pineapples is one of their most important industries the fruity one in Puerto Rico Mexico Cuba and several other places I remember when I was based in Hawaii noticing how carefully they cultivated the fields sugar cane is planted in the lowlands and pineapple in the higher fields after the ground is cultivated rolls of mulch paper which is very much like a light roofing and the pineapple plants are put in the ground through holes made in the paper this paper keeps in the moisture and it regulates the temperature and keeps weeds from growing then follows about a twenty to twenty-two months growing period rain and lots of sprayings help to keep the plants healthy pineapples are not grown from seed but from sip who near the base of the fruit from suckers that are lowered down on the stem of the plant or from the crown on the top of the pineapple about twenty of the planting the ripe fruit is ready for harvest each plant will produce another pineapple one year later and then the field is plowed under and allowed to rest right pineapples are wonderful tasting but if they pick them when they're completely ripe pineapples will spoil in a short time or rather would spoil if it weren't for the canning process Jews for Jews has been fully ripen in the fields this way it has the most fruits and the finest flavor and when picked they're quickly moved to the cannery nearby during the picking season thousands and thousands of pineapples pour into the cannery every day they're an ingenious machine known as the Janaka deals the fruit so that the juice like you're drinking now and can be easily extracted then it's pasteurized like other juices sealed in cans and started on its way to our house say Anne you better not leave this juice out of that notebook honey tomato juice was one of the big first juices to be at reduced and tomatoes are all parts of the country hey Ned remember last year we already too soon but maybe Daniel plant more this year in there please cell for you oh I'd never be able to turn out the wonderful tomato juice at Cannon fine the big growing areas they plant tomatoes with a machine like a tractor a man sits on each side of it down almost at ground level where he can place young plant the soil at just the right distance apart as it moves along at the same time the machine neatly fills in the soil around each plant and also gives it a squirt of water and sometimes fertilizer then they're all set to start growing plants like that grow perfectly right along the ground and with proper care in a few months we'll be loaded with ripe red tomatoes if these tomatoes are fork and juice growers can let them fully right in so they'll have the most flavor and food bag and pick them at just the right moment for trucking to a cannery nearby it's quite a fist excited to see thousands of these fully ripe tomatoes being unloaded at a cannery into a water-filled shop in which they float from the unloading platform right into the plant inside they first get a really thorough cleaning of course and then are carefully checked for quality as they ride along an inspection bill next the whole tomato is passed along to other machines where all its goodness is pressed into liquid form from what are called holding tanks this juice is drawn off to be pasteurized the same as other juices and then fill and seal quickly in the cans all this in a matter of only a short time after the tomatoes were judged just right for picky well kids I've talked myself right into another glass get him a clean glass because they're all rich in the food values we need to stay healthy no matter how young or old we are say you know and it seems to me the title you want book of yours should express what can fruit and vegetable juices mean to us and the people all over the world don't forget besides these juices we've been drinking there are lots of other kinds to enjoy [Music] made from grapes apples prunes and several kinds of vegetables and just think how convenient and healthful it is for us to have all the vitamins and natural goodness of these fruits and vegetables extracted for us canned and then practically flowing in their own home like a lot of rivers anytime we want them why that's it why don't you call your notebook on juices vitamin rivers Oh daddy that's a wonderful idea [Music]