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nafex - Re: [NAFEX] bilberries, anyone?

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Chronological Thread  
  • From: "Donna &/or Kieran" <holycow@cookeville.com>
  • To: "North American Fruit Explorers" <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [NAFEX] bilberries, anyone?
  • Date: Fri, 6 Jul 2007 08:57:45 -0500

Jackie, 
     I first heard about bilberries 15 yrs ago when I was in the health food store and a trucker was buying a bottle of capsules.  He said they really helped in winter when the days were short and the wet roads reflected light.  The story is that pilots are very superstitious people, and that when the British pilots in WWII ate jam and scones before night flights over Germany, they noted that whoever ate bilberry jam was likely to make it home.  They clamored for more bilberry jam, someone did some research, and discovered the pilots were right.  Something in European bilberries, (but not in New World bilberries so far as anyone has been able to figure out) improves night vision in a different way from vitamin A.  Supposedly the Popeye cartoons were partly disinformation to make the Nazis think it was vitamin A that enabled the British pilots to outfight their pilots.     Donna



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