Food for thought

Press, 17 April 1979, Page 19

Food for thought

Linus Pauling, the double Nobel Prize winner and champion of vitamin C, maintains that you can add more than a decade to your life with proper nutrition. Cut down on sugar, cut out smoking, eat more nutritional foods

and vitamins, and you have a good chance of living a longer, healthier life. It's not difficult, says Pauling, but il does need a conscientious effort, and the reward is certainly worth the effort.

The Department of Health points out that one’s food needs vary greatly according to age, occupation and activity, but that everyone should eat a wide variety of foods to ensure that "their nutritional needs are met.

They advise regular choice from these four groups. (I) Meat, Fish, Eggs or Cheese: A good diet includes one of these foods every day. If these are not available, acceptable substitutes are dried peas, beans, cereal with milk.

(2) Milk: This is especially important for young children and preschool children should drink about half a litre of milk each day. Older children and adults should take as much as their ap

petite demands. (3) Fruit and Vegetables: Two servings from this group, including potatoes, should be eaten each day, with a special emphasis on raw fruit and salad vegetables. (4) Bread and Cereals:

this group includes such dishes as rice pudding and oatmeal, and should be eaten sparingly if there is a tendancy to overweight. Bread, with a good proportion of roughage, should be eaten in preference to cakes and biscuits.

Other staple foods — butter and other fats, oils, sugar, jam. honey and other spreads — can be used to satisfy appetite and needs. The Department of Health stresses the wisdom of using iodised salt regularly. The Department offers the following as a basic meal pattern. BREAKFAST: For active hungry' people — an egg or other savoury food, or cereal with milk. For the less active — cereal and milk, or fruit and cereal, or toast and a milk beverage.

LUNCH: Salad vegetables in summer, soup in winter, bread or rolls with a variety of fillings, dried or fresh fruit. DINNER: A meat, fish or cheese dish; potato, kumara pasta or a green banana, a green vegetable or salad; desert — fruit, milk pudding, ice cream or biscuits and cheese.