FOOD HABITS

Evening Star, Issue 22455, 28 September 1936, Page 10

FOOD HABITS

MORE FRUIT LESS BREAD People in Europe, including Britain, are eating more fresh vegetables and fruit and better quality meat. At the same time they are consuming less beer, wine, and bread. These facts about the increased consumption of foodstuffs compared with pre-war rears are recorded in the third report of the League of Nations on the Problem of Nutrition. The survey, which reviews the dietary conditions in various countries, has been drawn up by the Secretariat of the League. The report gives the following table showing the estimated annual consumption per head of the population in the United Kingdom of the chief foodstuffs for the five years preceding the war

POTATO EXPERIMENT. Increases are most marked, the report pointed out, in relation to “ protective ” foods containing vitamins. It adds that the consumption of liquid » slight falling off, coupled

with a rapid growth in the consumption of condensed milk, leaving the aggregate unchanged. Describing measures taken in some countries to decrease food prices to necessitous persons, the report refers to the experiment in disposing of surplus potatoes at reduced prices which was conducted by the Potato Marketing Board in Bishop Auckland, Durham, last year. For eight weeks in February and March the price of 141 b of potatoes was reduced from 7d to 3d for 6,236 unemployed persons, or 33 per cent, of Bishop Auckland’s population. During the eight weeks normal sales of potatoes in retail shops fell by 40 per cent., but the total consumption in the whole area rose by 96 per cent. The report says: The experiment definitely showed that, in a town having a high proportion of low-level incomes, and even at a time when prices were already exceptionally low, the consumption of an article like potatoes, the demand for which is usually regarded as inelastic, is, under certain conditions, responsive to a fall in price to a remarkable degree. In Belgium the consumption of bananas has risen sixfold in the last few years. French housewives all insist on having the best cuts of meat, with the result that there is practically no demand for other cuts, which are mostly to the canning factories. In Italy the better conditions are reflected in striking decreases in the death-rate and in infant and maternal mortality.

and for 1934: — 1909-13. lbs. 1934. Ibs. ' Fruit 61 115 Vegetables 60 164 Potatoes 208 101 Butter ... ,16 157 Cheese 7 143 Margarine 6 133 Sugar ... ... 79 119 Meat 135 106 Wheat flour ... 211 «3 146 Eggs (in numbers) 104