ORANGE AND ITS MEDICAL USES
The normal types of sour orange are usually too sour to be enjoyed out-of-hand. In Mexico, however, sour oranges are cut in half, salted, coated with a paste of hot chili peppers, and eaten.
The greatest use of sour oranges as food is in the form of marmalade and for this purpose they have no equal. The fruits are largely exported to England and Scotland for making marmalade. Sour oranges are used primarily for marmalade in South Africa.
The juice is valued for ade and as a flavoring on fish and, in Spain, on meat during cooking. In Yucatan, it is employed like vinegar. In Egypt and elsewhere, it has been fermented to make wine.
"Bitter orange oil", expressed from the peel, is in demand for flavoring candy, ice cream, baked goods, gelatins and puddings, chewing gum, soft drinks, liqueurs and pharmaceutical products, especially if the water-or alcohol-insoluble terpenes and sesquiterpenes are removed. The oil is produced in Sicily, Spain, West Africa, the West Indies, Brazil, Mexico and Taiwan.
The essential oil derived from the dried peel of immature fruit, particularly from the selected types -'Jacmel' in Jamaica and the much more aromatic 'Curacao orange' (var. curassaviensis)-gives a distinctive flavor to certain liqueurs.
"Neroli oil", or "Neroli Bigarade Oil", distilled from the flowers of the sour orange, has limited use in flavoring candy, soft-drinks and liqueurs, ice cream, baked goods and chewing gum.
'Petitgrain oil', without terpenes, is used to enhance the fruit flavors (peach, apricot, gooseberry, black currant, etc.) in food products, candy, ginger ale, and various condiments.
'Orange leaf absolute' enters into soft-drinks, ice cream, baked goods and candy.
The ripe peel of the sour orange contains 2.4 to 2.8%, and the green peel up to 14%, neohesperidin dihydrochalcone which is 20 times sweeter than saccharin and 200 times sweeter than cyclamate. Potential use as a sweetener may be hampered by the limited supply of peel.
Food Value Per 100 g of Edible Portion
Fruit (raw) Fruit (raw, with only superficial layer of peel removed)*
Calories 37-66
Moisture 83-89.2 g 77.8-83.1 g
Protein 0.6-1.0 g 0.154-0.167 g
Fat trace-0.1 g 0.05-0.07 g
Carbohydrates 9.7-15.2 g ?
Fiber 0.4 g 1.8-2.2 g
Ash 0.5 g 0.57-0.69 g
Calcium 18-50 mg 64.3-81.9 mg
Iron 0.2 mg 0.22-0.85 mg
Phosphorus 12 mg 19.6-20.4 mg
Vitamin A 290 mcg or 200 I.U. 0.055-0.07 mg
Thiamine 100 mcg 0.048-0.059 mg
Riboflavin 40 mcg 0.030-0.040 mg
Niacin 0.3 mg 0.282-0.400 mg
Ascorbic Acid 45-90 mg 55.2-103.5 mg
*Sampled in Guatemala and El Salvador.
Other Uses
Soap substitute: Throughout the Pacific Island, the crushed fruit and the macerated leaves, both of which make lather in water, are used as soap for washing clothes and shampooing the hair. Safford described the common scene in Guam of women standing in a river with wooden trays on which they rub clothing with sour orange pulp, then scrub it with a corncob. He wrote: "Often the entire surface of the river where the current is sluggish is covered with decaying oranges." On the islands of Zanzibar and Pemba, the fruits are used for scouring floors and brass.
Perfumery: All parts of the sour orange are more aromatic than those of the sweet orange. The flowers are indispensable to the perfume industry and are famous not only for the distilled Neroli oil but also for "orange flower absolute" obtained by fat or solvent extraction. During favorable weather in southern France, 2,200 lbs (1,000 kg) of flowers will yield 36 to 53 oz (1,000-1,500 g) of oil.
Neroli oil consists of 35% terpenes (mainly dipentene, pinene and camphene), 30% 1-linalool, and 4% geraniol and nerol, 2% d-terpineol, 6% d-nerolidol, traces of decyclic aldehyde, 7% 1-linalyl acetate, 4% neryl and geranyl acetates, traces of esters of phenylacetic acid and benzoic acid, as much as 0.1% methyl anthranilate, and traces of jasmone, farnesol, and palmitic acid. Orange flower water is usually a by-product of oil production.
Petitgrain oil is distilled from the leaves, twigs and immature fruits, especially from the Bergamot orange. Both Petitgrain and the oil of the ripe peel are of great importance in formulating scents for perfumes and cosmetics. Petitgrain oil is indispensable in fancy eau-de-cologne. The seed oil is employed in soaps.
Honey: The flowers yield nectar for honeybees.
Wood: The wood is handsome, whitish to pale-yellow, very hard, fine-grained, much like boxwood. It is valued for cabinetwork and turnery. In Cuba it is fashioned into baseball bats.
MEDICAL USES
Sour orange juice is antiseptic, anti-bilious and hemostatic. Africans apply the cut-open orange on ulcers and yaws and areas of the body afflicted with rheumatism. In Italy, Mexico and Latin America generally, decoctions of the leaves are given for their sudorific, antispasmodic, stimulant, tonic and stomachic action. The flowers, prepared as a sirup, act as a sedative in nervous disorders and induce sleep. An infusion of the bitter bark is taken as a tonic, stimulant, febrifuge and vermifuge.
The fresh young leaves contain as much as 300 mg of ascorbic acid per 100 g. The mature leaf contains 1-stachyhydrine.
