MILK ISN'T PERFECT

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 8, Issue 54, 6 March 1945, Page 6

MILK ISN'T PERFECT

(By the Department of Health.) Milk isn't' the perfect food. It misses out in certain vitamn.s and in iron, but in spite of these deit is still the finest food —almost- the perfect food. It is. rich in vitamin A and riboflavin short in the other parts of vitamin'B and in C and D. Mil'k doesn't contain sufficient iron. If you tried to feed ail infant entirely on cow's milk you wouldn't get a healthy childhe would be anaemic, develop bleeding gums and possibly rickets, too. But you make a foundation with milk—a pint and a liatf or a pint and three-quarters according to age and you've achieved 70 per cent, of the battle. Tlie balance and variety comes from other l'oods ? including citrus fruits or rose hip syrup, cod liver °il, and green or yellow vegetables. r ! hen you have a bonny child with no anaemia ) no bleeding gums and no rickets. Grown-ups too, live healthily if they include a pint of milk in their daily diet. Milk is unquestionably number one food—-a buikler and a protector. Germs know this too. They live and flourish, and multiply enormously in milk. It's good food i'or them too. And milk collects germ&, some-i times from human beings that handle it. A typhoid fever carrier or case, a diphtheria carrier a person with a septic throat -such folk handling milk can infect it with their germs and pass on epidemics to those drinking the infected milk. A sick cow can infect gallons of milk. If it has manimitiS' septic germs geL into the. milk, and we get outbreaks of sore throats and septic troubles. Undulant fever and tuberculosis may be passed 011 in the milk of an. infected cow. Diseases liable to be spread by milk are septic sore threats, undulant fever, tuberculosis typhoid fever scarlet fever and > 1 j diphtheria. That is why the Department of Health is urging the wider use of pasteurised milk, which has all the nourishment of raw milk without ') the risk. THAT "TOUCHY" FEELING (By the Department of Health) Most o/ us at some time or anilier liavc experienced that "touchy"

feeling when the slightest little discord in our daily routine puts us off balance. Generally Ave get rid of it as the days goes on. But there are times Avhen the condition particularly in the lady of the. household, becomes more or less chronic and as far as the rest of the family is a little hard to bear. Mother becomes a mass of nerves is' subject to bouts of crying and periods of depression for Avhicli there seems to be no cause. She is liable to ily off the handle: she is irritable appre]iensive ) and easily exhausted. This is Avhcn the rest of the family should lie patient and forbearing. It is difficult at times to see the reason for mother's upsets but it's not fair to assume that Avorry and fussing about things have brought on this condition—a condition that is so often loosely described as "mostly mental." i It's not always fair to say that mother may be. suffering from anaemia or an overactivity of thq* thyroid or glandular readjustment during the or change of life, and that it's usual, at this time in a Avoman's life to liave physical upsets and changes in normal disposition. The point is that these and other causes—there can be a number of other causes—arc specifically a job for bj r a doctor. Therefore, when mother becomes jumpy and hard to deal with f make and insist on her seeing a doctor. He should find out Avhat's AA'rong anid Avill be able to make it easier for her.