NUTRITIONAL FOODS

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 138, 8 December 1938, Page 8

NUTRITIONAL FOODS

(To the Editor.) Sir, —I was interested to read Dr. Elizabeth Bryson's statement on malnutrition. I have lived in this countrythree years and am still wondering why I was informed in a booklet issued to me by New Zealand House in London, that in New Zealand "food is cheap, abundant, and of excellent quality; fruit and vegetables being particularly plentiful." The Child Welfare Centres in England stress above all else the value of oranges. The food value of milk has been advocated for so long that most people take it for granted but every mother is advised to give at least one orange every day to each child; even to babies. The only substitute that I have learned of is tomatoes, and the season here for them is so short that it cannot be a remedy for the exorbitant price of oranges. How can any working mother with even three young children afford oranges for them at 2d, 3d, and even 4d each? Next is stressed the value of green vegetables, and who could afford cabbages for a family at the price we paid last winter for them? I am afraid I do not agree that people of this Dominion as a whole can afford to buy food for its nutritional value rather than for its hungersatisfying qualities. Something ought to be done about the supply of fruit and vegetables, which are so necessary to good health. —I am, etc., ORANGES FOR HEALTH.