DIET NOT BALANCED.

Mt Benger Mail, 9 November 1938, Page 4

DIET NOT BALANCED.

NEW ZEALANDERS REMISS. CHILDREN’S TEETH POOR. / “New Zealand has made a good 30D of ridding stuck of b.-sfl-slckacss and otaer diseases which arc caused by deficiency of certain minerals in the soil and the feed, but from what I have j seen there is not .ho same energy put j . to .emodying deficiencies in the diet . :r banian beings,” declared Mr R. D. ;1 r, medical bio-chemist at the . .ivensity, Baltimore, Maryland, in 1 interview at Invercargill. . u- Stiehler, who has made many rei rnit inquiries during his several months in N w Zealand, said that ho could not understand why this country, i.-i.h im .c.y low infant mortality, had s ,ch a large pioportion of children and adults with bad or artificial teeth. The percentage of persons suffering from mental disease was also higher than in the bustling United States. The teeth problem was purely dietary. ,Iu the sheep, wool and dairying industries the Dominion had made some - efforts to improve the quality of the product by raising the standard of health of the stock, but little or no effort had been made from the point of view of public health. A free medical service in a country did not necessarily make for an improvement in the health of the nation. Many of the diseases might bo purely dietary, but there had been little attempt to discover human dietary deficiencies. This’ was in striking contrast to the care and attention given to soil deficiencies and the balancing p£ feed rations for stock.

DIVERSITY IN AGRICULTURE. Thaf New Zealand agriculture is unbalanced is an impression gained byMr /Stiehler, who said that, in the face of the country’s primary products being entirely dependent upon foreign /markets, practically no attempt had been made to make agriculture more diversified so that the local markets could be supplied with a greater range of produce. The New Zealand dietary was not nearly as diversified as the American. New types of fruit and vegetables could be grown here. Most of the New Zealand hotels had three , types of vegetables, two of which were lof potatoes in different forms. The I American practice was to offset a starchy vegetable with two other types. Salads were almost non-existent in New Zealand, which for climate and food potentialities was almost a paradise. From the community health point of view the half-pint of milk given daily to thousands of school children in New Zealand was invaluable. The scheme was also providing a home market for milk, the price of which was not dependent upon export. The speaker, when inspecting the Wellington municipal milk supply, learned that one quarter of the total distribution went to children during school hours. A determined effort was being made in America to educate the people on the question of a balanced ■ diet, and so-much success had been met that Mr Stiehler believed that the death-rate among Americans would be found lower than in New Zealand, if the negroes and others living at a low economic level in the larger country were excluded from the calculation, as there was not a corresponding “bread-line” type in New Zealand. The educational propaganda for a wiser choice of < foodstuffs was carried out in America through women’s clubs, the home science classes in schools, and through radio broadcasting.