MORE ABOUT BREAD

New Zealand Listener, Volume 5, Issue 119, 3 October 1941, Page 17

MORE ABOUT BREAD

(Written for " The Listener" by DR

MURIEL

BELL

Nutritionist to the Department of Meaith)

three main points in which wholemeal bread is a healthier food than white bread. Now, lest anyone reading this delivers himself of that weighty argument already mentioned, "I never eat wholemeal bread, and I've never been ill in my life,’ we must say this at the outset-that that is unfortunately no argument at all. Though he is lucky enough to be out of the hospital in spite of dietetic indiscretions, there are those, who, living under the same conditions, have managed to achieve an unwanted stay in a hospital bed. Perhaps if we switch the illustration from bread to iodine, you will get the drift of our meaning better. You are acquainted with the experience that, though all members of a family may live on the same food, one will develop a goitre, while the others do not. This is an illustration of the variability that exists among human beings. We are not all made alike. If the quantity of iodine in the food had been sufficient, it is fairly certain that no one would have developed a goitre. Now, to get back to bread, there are those who can manage to keep well all. their lives, even though they take white bread. But there are those who, because they are missing the daily extra quantity of iron present in wholemeal compared with white bread, become anaemic. And there are those who, because they are missing the quantity of roughage and of Vitamin B contributed by Wholemeal, are suffering from chronic constipation. And there are those who are below par when they might be full of (non-culinary) ginger! And thus, what +: my last article I summarised the

one advises is done with the object of benefiting the people as a whole, not thé exceptional pebble on the beach who spoke out of his turn just now! I have already alluded to the fact that wholemeal bread contains more iron than white bread. The New Zealand Year Book that has just been published tells us that the average consumption of bread will contain nearly five milligrams of absorbable iron per day, or from onethird to one-half of the requisite daily amount. The section of the population who are particularly liable to lose by not getting this contribution of iron are the women and children. By far the greatest incidence of anemia is among women and their offspring. Iron is needed for making the substance that gives blood its red colour. Losses of blood have to be replaced. Women, moreover, give their offspring enough iron to last them for about 6 months after the child is born. In this, the child is something of a robber-robbing its mother of the natural currency of the body-not gold, but iron; for the body regards iron as an extremely important metal — it trades on an iron standard, not on a gold standard. The recent Year Book tells us that the average consumption of wholemeal per head per annum has gone up from 1014 lbs. to 12lbs. in the past year. This is encouraging. It will be reflected in so much less anemia among women. By this time, you are asking whether there is much anemia here in New Zealand. Going by medical testimony and the evidence of nurses, the answer is yes-

plenty among Maori women, and their children, and not a little among pakeha women. ; And there is still a great deal to be said for wholemeal bread, so we shall have to extend this subject into a third article. : (Next week: "Still More About Bread," by Dr. Muriel Bell.)