Apple is named after a fruitarian diet, and the man who named it spent nine months treating a rare, slow-growing, operable tumour with juice and a vegan diet before he would let a surgeon anywhere near it. Steve Jobs was 21 and had just come back from an apple orchard on a commune in Oregon when he suggested the name. He was, in his own words, on one of his fruitarian diets, and it sounded fun, spirited and not intimidating. He took his diets as an article of faith. He was convinced the regime kept him so clean that he could do without the shower and the deodorant, and at Atari his colleagues complained until he was moved to the night shift. In October 2003 a scan found a tumour on his pancreas. It was a neuroendocrine tumour, the rarer kind, slow-growing and treatable, and his doctors wanted it out. He refused. For nine months he treated it himself: a strict vegan diet, large quantities of fresh carrot and fruit juice, acupuncture, herbal remedies, bowel cleansing, and the advice of a natural healing clinic that ran on juice fasts. He also consulted a psychic. "I really didn't want them to open up my body," he told his biographer, "so I tried to see if a few other things would work." Walter Isaacson heard a hint of regret in it. In July 2004 he went into surgery at last. The surgeons found three spots of cancer on his liver. He had a liver transplant in Memphis in 2009. The cancer came back. He died on 5 October 2011, aged 56. In 2013 Ashton Kutcher played him in a film, and prepared for the part by eating the way Jobs had eaten. Two days before shooting started he was in hospital. "I was like doubled over in pain," he said. "My pancreas levels were completely out of whack." Kutcher wanted to get inside the character. His pancreas got there first.

Doctor: "Calcium oxalate stone. I'd cut down on red meat. I'll print you a diet sheet." Patient: "Does meat have oxalate in it?" Doctor: "No." Patient: "What does?" Doctor: "Spinach, rhubarb, almonds, beetroot. Plants, mostly." Patient: "So why am I cutting the meat?" Doctor: "Animal protein raises uric acid." Patient: "Is my stone uric acid?" Doctor: "No. Oxalate." Patient: "So the meat's banned for a stone I haven't got." Doctor: "It's the standard advice." Patient: "What's on the sheet?" Doctor: "Plenty of leafy greens. Nuts as a snack. Almond milk if you're cutting dairy." Patient: "Spinach, almonds, and almond milk. For an oxalate stone." Doctor: "It's a general healthy eating sheet." Patient: "It's the stone's shopping list. What stops oxalate reaching the kidney?" Doctor: "Calcium in the gut. Binds it, and it passes through." Patient: "Calcium from?" Doctor: "Dairy." Patient: "Which the sheet swaps for almond milk." Doctor: "..." Patient: "So I'm to eat the three foods that make the stone, drop the one food that catches it, and give up the one food that does neither." Doctor: "I can print a different sheet." Patient: "Print one with a steak and a pint of milk on it. I passed a lentil on Tuesday and I'd like to retire from the hobby."