Whole: Rethinking the Science of Nutrition

by T. Colin Campbell

In studying the apple, Professor Liu and his research team began by choosing to focus on vitamin C and its antioxidant effect. They found that 100 grams of fresh apples (about four ounces, or half a cup) had an antioxidant, vitamin C–like activity equivalent to 1,500 milligrams of vitamin C (about three times the amount of a typical vitamin C supplement). When they chemically analyzed that 100 grams of whole apple, however, they found only 5.7 milligrams of vitamin C, far below the 1,500 milligrams that the level of antioxidant activity associated with vitamin C indicated. The vitamin C–like activity from 100 grams of whole apple was an astounding 263 times as potent as the same amount of the isolated chemical! Said another way, the specific chemical we refer to as vitamin C accounts for much less than 1 percent of the vitamin C–like activity in the apple—a minuscule amount. The other 99-plus percent of this activity is due to other vitamin C–like chemicals in the apple, the possible ability of vitamin C to be much more effective in context of the whole apple than it is when consumed in an isolated form, or both.

263x effect from vitamin c in apple vs. isolate