WHY DO WE EAT?

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 380, 11 March 1937, Page 3

WHY DO WE EAT?

A Varied Important We are, so it is quite truthfully said, daily 'becoming more food conscious, and this food conscious nets means not only the appreciation of a good meal, it goes further than that; it means that we want to know whether what we are eating contains all the essentials 1 that Will make for good health.. What is food? Many people would find an answer in terms perliaips facetious, perhaips condemnatory, but Jet an expert answer for us: “Food is any substance which when passed into the alimentary tract is capable of supplying the materials for the growth and repair Of the tissues of the body, or for the regulation of any of the processes of the body.” Food must include things to drink —milk, water, tea, etc., such things as salt, the various solids and even indigestible materials as vegetable fibres. The purposes* of food are really five-fold. First of all, food is a building material. Then, as one authority put it, food is a fund to meet depreciation, to replace the tissues thht are continually being worn out as the result of the work they do. Itair for instance, is continually growing, so are the nails and the skin, and just as continually being cut, worn or sloughed off, and there must be material to make their replacement possible. Thirdly, the body needs energy. Think how' far you walk in the ordinary course of your daily round in the house or in the office, or of 'that rush to catch the train in the morning, or of that rush up .the stairs, to save time.

Even a quiet Saturday afternoon | spent in the garden, pruning the I roses and certainly cutting the lawn, I uses up energy, and the power that j supplies all this energy comet' from fqbd. Then, too, food supplies heat. To a very large extent the body is all the time losing heat to the surrounding air, and though clothing and the warming of homes and building checks this, it is mainly from the • burning of food that the body gets ; its heat. Indeed, the greater part of | all food serves as fuel for warmth / and energy, and forms no part of the ! living structure. And then finally ; the body must be protected against | ditease, health must be promoted, and these protective elements, to a very large extent, can only be supplied by food. It is the mineral salts and the vitasnins that are found in certain foods that supply this essential protection. Essentials of Diet. The amount and the kind of food required varies according to age and occupation. The growing child will need a larger pro-portion of bu-Tding material than the adult. A man is doing hard manual work will require more fuel than the man who is doing more sedentary work. A woman engaged on heavy housework or taking part in strenuous outdoor sport requires plenty of fuel foods, '.he expectant mother has special need of body-building foods, and the active, growing child demands both fuel and building materials. Scientists concede that in ordinary life the appetite is a fairly reliable guide to the quantity of fuel food, but that man, civilised men at any rate, has no natural instinct to help him to choose the right kind of food. They even go a«J far as to say that it is easier to eat (the Wrong kind of food than the right, and that a certain amount of resolution and effort are necessary to secure really nourishing foods. No one food really eupplies all the needs of 'the body, so that it is necessary to see that the -defects of one are made good 'by others, and to the importance of a varied diet is impressed on us. T)h.is diet to be considered good must contain certain substances —proteins, fats, carbohydrates, mineral salts, vitamins and water.