"BLESSING IN DISGUISE"

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 7, Issue 64, 14 April 1944, Page 2

"BLESSING IN DISGUISE"

RATIONING AND DIET

The opinion that possibly ration books were "blessings in disguise" was voiced by Sister L. Evans, a visiting dietitian, when recently speaking in Wellington on the, errors in everyday diet. "I't has been authoritatively stated that during times of war and na« tional emergency, when once-refined and devitalised goods are quantitatively reduced, people maintain a higher standard of health than in more prosperous time," said the speaker. It was surprising that so many otherwise intelligent people were content to live in an intellectual fog when it came, to keeping fit —which she designated as the primary concern in life. Animals knew how to select their food, but man displayed grave ignorance when it came to food selection. Citing the discrepancy from a nutritional point of view between white, and wholemeal bread, the speaker disclosed that 90 per cent of the population selected white bread. Wheat was one of the oldest cereal foods. Wholemeal bread was rich in phosphate of potash and lime, while white bread was deficient in them. The whole wheat grain was rich in mineral elements in their proper balance and proportion. One-fifth of the weight of. wheat consisted of bran, but this small portion ' contained three-fourths of all the salts, and nearly all the cellulose of the entire grain-