NUTRITION

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 153, 2 December 1938, Page 12

NUTRITION

PROTECTIVE FOODS

REVIEW BY DR. BRYSON

NEW ZEALANDERS' NEEDS

An interesting and instructive afternoon was held in the St. John Ambulance Association Hall, Vivian Street, on Wednesday when a film dealing with nutrition was screened before about seventy women, members of various organisations in the city. At the conclusion of the screening an address was given by Dr. Elizabeth Bryson. "You have just seen a very remarkable film, with real pictures, and real scientists speaking simply, and wisely, and very'clearly," Dr. Bryson said. "Nothing is over-stated, nothing is fanciful: every statement made is simple and supported by the truth of science. The film deals with nutrition —with the* great subject of the food we eat, and shows how insufficient food and wrong feeding gravely affect; the health of a nation, and how the children are the first to suffer where the food is not sufficient and satisfactory. "You have seen that food may be insufficient for health and growth, and that a great deal of this actual want exists in England; and you have seen something of the measures being taken to deal with this evil of poor feeding. But you have seen in this film something more than that. You have seen that food may be sufficient in quantity but wrong in quality. You have heard perhaps for the first time, about foods that are more important than the proteins and carbohydrates and fats that we all learned about at school. You have heard today about the protective foods. We talk a lot these days about vitamins, and some ppople are so taken up with vitamins A B C D that they forget about foods. It will probably be better for you all here to forget about vitamins and think about protective foods. NECESSARY FOODS. "These are the foods that are absolutely necessary to maintain the body in good health, to protect it against disease, to increase its resistance to disease, to keep the bones and tissues in repair; and to keep up the quality of the blood. You see, food must do more than satisfy hunger, more than satisfy even a greedy appetite. It is possible, easily possible, to be overfed and yet badly fed. "Have we no nutrition problem in New Zealand?" Dr. Bryson asked. "Have we no malnutrition? Have we no children who could be better and healthier if they were fed better? Every medical inspector of schools, every district nurse, every doctor, every welfare worker, will tell you that we have. But you don't need to ask them. Use your eyes. Look at our health camps. Look at our hospitals, filled to overflowing. Look at our recruiting figures (for the last war if you like).. If you look honestly you will be ashamed. Because we have no excuse of poverty. We have no excuse of real inability to secure food. We are compelled, if we are honest, to admit that our problem is—not insufficient food, but wrong food, wrong food habits. This is where I want you to think again about these protective foods, because this is where we fail badly in this land of plenty. MINERALS NEEDED. "The protective foods supply the minerals that our body health demands —the calcium, iron, iodine. The poorer wage-earners in England have the excuse that the protective foods are the more expensive foods, and that they simply cannot afford to buy them. But in New Zealand we have this paradox —that with sufficient money we do not eat enough of the protective foods. We could buy them, but we don't, not in sufficient quantity.. We prefer bread and sweets and meat. Because of this we suffer from well-marked deficiencies, particularly of calcium and iodine. Our teeth, or the lack of them, proclaims the first deficiencies. Our goitre proclaims the second." Protective foods, said Dr. Bryson, were milk and milk products, eggs, fresh fruit, vegetables, salads, fat fish like herring, and fish oil. As a nation, New Zealanders ate too much bread, cakes, scones, pastries, buns, sponges, sugar, sweets, iced cakes, and chocolates; too little milk, eggss and seafish. "We are not so bad in vegetables, but we often cook them badly, and more of these should be eaten as salads," the doctor continued. "We should eat more fresh fruit, and not so much unripe cooked fruit with sugar added. Remember that children suffer more than grown-ups from this national excess of sugary and starchy food, with too little milk, too few eggs, too little fresh fruit, and every child in New Zealand should have cod liver oil."