PROPER FOOD.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 220, 16 September 1940, Page 11

PROPER FOOD.

SOIL IMPORTANCE. EXPERIMENTS IN CANADA. "If we are to build a nation we must have correct nutrition," said Dr. Harold Pettit, addressing the monthly luncheon of the Xew Zealand Women's Food Value Leagiie. But the food had to be grown on the right soil to begin with. That was important. To illustrate his point Dr. Pettit described an experiment carried out by Dr. Weston Price, who sent samples of the fame wheat grain to 16 parts of Canada to be grown on 1(> different types of soil. The soils ranged from virgin to that which had been under cultivation for many years. The wheat in due course was harvested. The 10 different crops were analysed to discover their phosphorus and calcium content, and a map of Canada filled in from the results. The parts that had grown wheat with a high phosphorus and calcium content were shaded lightly, and those that had grown grain with e poor mineral content shaded in varying degrees of darkness. The wheat that had grown on virgin soil was found to have so high a mineral content that two slices of bread made from the grain would supply all the phosphorus and calcium thet the human body required for one day, whereas that grown on old soil was so poor that two whole loaves would have to be eaten before the body's daily mineral requirements could be met. Dr. Price's next step was to make a second map of Canada, this time from official health statistics. He shaded darkly the areas where.: the highest incidence of rheumatic fever and heart disease was found. Then he compared his two maps—and found them to be the same. The areas with the worn-out soil, growing wheat with a low mineral content, were also the areas where rheumatic fever and heart disease took heavy toll. Bad nutrition, added Dr. Pettit, meant dental caries, end dental caries meant the constant swallowing of pus which entered the blood stream and was a common cause of rheumatic fever.

"Building a nation means beginning with the mothers and the potential mothers." continued Dr. Pettit. "We've got to insist on proper diet—we've got to insist on vitamins for mothers." Reviewing the vitamins, their importance to the body and the sources from which they are derived, he drew special attention to vitamin E, lack of which he considered to be responsible for the increasing rate of premature births. The mother who got a high percentage of vitamin E in her diet could be reasonably sure that her baby would be full weight and perfectly normal. Bread, said Dr. Pettit, was the nrincipal source of vitamin E, but as long as we continued to throw out the vitamin in cattle feed, Auckland's infant mortality figures could not be expected to improve.