A historic study that opened a new chapter in nutritional science

“The effect of chemical preservation of eggs upon the stability of their vitamin contents”^[1], published in 1926 by Ernest Tso, was the first paper from China to appear in a Biochemical Society journal^[2]. Using a deprivation-and-supplementation strategy in rats, Tso showed that the originally rich vitamin B content of ‘thousand-year eggs’ (also known as ‘pidan’) was completely destroyed by chemical preservation, but vitamin A and antirachitic substances were largely unaffected by the process. This classical article signaled a new era in nutritional science, deepening our knowledge of the relationship between vitamins and diseases.