HOME HEALTH GUIDE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 18 December 1943, Page 4

HOME HEALTH GUIDE

YELLOW VEGETABLES PLACE IN A BALANCED DIET ' (By the Department of Health) This is for the benefit of those who are not quite sure just what are the yellow vegetables, which have been mentioned in previous articles and also in the Department’s recent advertisement about a balanced diet. There are not many yellow vegetables —carrots, swede turnips, golden or yellow variety small turnips, yellow corn, kumara, marrows and pumpkins. While the last two are popular, they are not very valuable from a nutritive point of view. When recommending a balanced diet, it is usual to suggest for every day two or more servings of vegetables, one to be green, and the other yellow, if possible, together with fruit, of which there are also yellow varieties —peaches, apricots, etc. These vegetables contain the element that helps to keep healthy our skin, and also the membranes lining the various organs in our bodies. That element is Vitamin A. This vitamin is present fully formed only in animal foods such as cod liver oil, liver, egg, butter, cheese, milk. The material from which vitamin A is made is carotene, and is present in vegetable foods. For instance, carotene gives the carrot its colour. When eaten this pigment carotene is changed in our livers to vitamin A. Generally, the yellower the vegetable, the more carotene there is present. Thus kumaras contain more than white potatoes, yellow corn more than white corn, and apricots more than peaches. Weak membranes let the germs through, particularly into the eyes and lungs, and lack of vitamin A also increases the tendency to night-blindness. The desirable thing to do is to eat the yellow vegetables as often as possible, and at least once daily, along with the green vegetables.