For Quick Energy

Australian Dried Fruits For Quick Energy

Australian dried fruits, rich in vitamins and natural sugar, have all the qualities to make them a valuable addition to diets, and are a source of instant energy.

THEY comprise sultanas, raisins, lexias and currants from the well-known grape-growing areas of Victoria and South Australia, and dried apples, pears, peaches, nectar ines and prunes.

Almost perfect climatic conditions and soil qualities, combined with a fine irrigation system in the Murray Valley, which divides the States of Victoria and New South Wales and extends into South Australia, produce fine grapes.

These grow in sunny vineyards and are dried in the sun—an advantage over fruit which has to be dried arti ficially. It accounts for the fact that Australian dried vine fruits have a larger proportion of fruit sugar—Bo per cent.—than those produced in other countries.

Fruit sugar is the only form of sugar which does not affect teeth ad versely.

Dried grape products are specially rich in vitamin A, iron, calcium, car bohydrates and proteins. Every pound of sultanas is the equivalent of four pounds of fresh grapes.

For Sportsmen

Other Australian dried fruits, such as peaches and apricots, supply vita min C, thiamin, riboflavin and are rich in iron, calcium and phosphorus.

Peaches have a quick and easily assimilable natural sugar content of 43 per cent., and every pound of them has from 1,200 to 1,390 calories.

These qualities are responsible for Australian dried fruits having had an important part in the diet of Austra lia’s star athletes. The world-famous miler, Herb Elliott, the swimmers, Jon and lisa Konrads, and many others, regard dried fruits as essential in their training programmes.

Energy-giving Australian dried fruits were among the rations taken by Sir Edmund Hillary on his feats of endurance—the victory over

Mount Everest and his dash to the South Pole.

In recent years, Australian dried fruits have become very popular at home and overseas not only because of their dietetic qualities but also because of their flavour.

Quantities of sultanas, raisins, currants, prunes, dried apples, peaches and apricots are exported every year to Fiji, New Caledonia and other islands in the Pacific.

Australia’s production is now valued at £l2 million a year, from an investment of about £l5 million a year by growers and packers, and £4O million in Government expenditure in the establishment of irrigation schemes in leading growing areas.

About 66,000 acres of land is used for growing fruit for drying. Sixty per cent, of all dried vine fruits is in

the form of sultanas, and, of thi total Australian production, between 70 and 80 per cent, is exported mainly to countries within th British Commonwealth.

The Australian dried fruits in dustry is now more than 70 years 010 During that time, its growth has le to the conversion of some 30,00 acres of poor grazing land in th Mildura area, in the north-west c the State of Victoria, which one supported a few settlers and 3,00 sheep, to a thriving centre with population of 25,000.

The harvest, usually about mio February, is handled by about 7,00 workers, of whom about 5,000 ai seasonal employees. In six or eigH weeks, they pick grapes which wi be converted into 86,000 tons o dried fruits, of which nearly 67,00 Jon and lisa Konrads, and man