Canned Paw-Paw Juice

Gives You Vitamins and Zipp!

From a Special Correspondent HAWAII’S papaia (paw-paw in South Pacific) promises expansion from a present crop worth about a third of a million dollars per annum to several millions.

This forecast is based largely on the bottling, for export, of papaia juice which in all respects is comparable in popularity to that of pineapple.

Highly marketable features of the papaia, which are now being plugged by the advertising agencies concerned,include the fact that it contains more vitamin A than carrot, more vitamin C than orange; that it contains a vegetable enzyme called “papain” and can be fed to infants as well as adults.

Production is comparatively simple. The tree begins to bear after ten months. Its principal requirements are low altitude, good drainage, and a warm, even tem perature.

Editorial Note PAW-PAWS grow as easily as weeds in all South Pacific islands and in the tropical and sub-tropical regions of Australia.

They are marketed commercially in Australia where they are a popular breakfast fruit, or are used in salads or eaten with ice-cream. But no attempt has been made to grow them commercially in the Islands. About 500 new paw-paw plants spring up wherever the seeds of a mature fruit are scraped out. But, although they are so easy to grow, no one in the South Pacific has ever shown any desire to exploit the fruit or its by products. Certainly, no one in these southern latitudes has ever gone for paw paw juice in a big way. It seems likely, anyway, that this, as a drink, would lack the tang of pineapple or citrus juice. Per haps we are not fruit-juice-minded as are the Americans —and particularly not canned fruit-juice-minded. At all events, the canned variety of fruit juice, made in Australia, is far more expensive than beer, which most Australians and Island residents prefer.