DIET: MAORI VERSUS PAKEHA

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 3, Issue 274, 26 February 1941, Page 4

DIET: MAORI VERSUS PAKEHA

CONSIDERABLE interest attaches to the recent article on the simple items of Maori diet as outlined by a native at Ohope to a BEACON representative and we feel it not trespassing upon our readers patience to reintroduce the matter from the Pakeha point of vie,w. The .declaration that a simple diet of eggs, bread, butter, milk, and shellfish made for an ideal diet, provided alike something for mental digestion, while the assertion that the average Maori youngster was healthier on this type of food than his fairer counterpart is.a fact we feel which cannot be denied. The point we stress is that the Maori is still influenced to a large extent by the simple health-giving diet of his ancestors and as a result reaps the benefit while the Pakeha has left the 'Roast Beef of Old England' for the more refined and less sustaining food of modern life. For the average person to-day there are few meals without some sweetened dish which is calculated to tickle the palate rather than to build and strengthen, while the rich foods which grace the average afternoon tea tables, or social gatherings can scarcely be described as genuinely nourishing. There appears therefore to be something in the foregoing which for the

Pakeha would be well worthy of a little hard thinking.