ARITHMETIC IN MILK: FOR MOTHERS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 7, Issue 161, 24 July 1942, Page 14

ARITHMETIC IN MILK: FOR MOTHERS

(Written for "The Listener" by DR.

H. B.

TURBOTT

Director of the Division of School Hygiene, Health Department)

OTHERS, can you solve this Vi tiny problem in arithmetic? A child of 5 to 15 years of age needs daily 134 pints of milk, taken as drinks, or in puddings, etc. Now if 4% pint of milk is supplied by the Milk-in-Schools Scheme, how much milk must mother provide at home? Oh, that’s easy, 1144 pints! Wrong-according to many mothers! They say % pint, because you subtract the 4% pint giveri at school from what they used to provide for the child before school milk existed. In a good many families mother’s arithmetic works it out at ¥ pint at home each day. Check your own daily milk order and see where your personal answer to this problem lies. Now, here’s another problem! If a child needs 154 pints of milk daily, and the Army,’ Navy and Air Force need many buckets more milk than expected in winter, there’s less labour on farms to produce more milk, and not enough cows have been planned for winter production, and as a result the half pint of school milk has to be suspended, how much extra milk must mother take at home? There are two types of mothers who answer "None." There’s the thoughtless mother who gets no extra milk

because it hasn’t occurred to her. There’s the realist who says her milkman is rationing her and she can’t buy any more anyway. These mothers are entirely wrong. The right answer is half pint more at home if school: milk fails, for every child, if unobtainable from the family milkman to be bought as dried, whole or dried skim milk from the grocer, Experiments with Rats I have just read in the Education Gazette a delightful description of some child nutrition experiments at the Agricultural High School, Feilding. It appears the school has a "Rattery" and the children learn that food makes a difference in bodily well-being by feeding various diets to white rats and observing the results. I quote the experiments as written up, and trust the unknown author won't. object to the wider audience. Experiments and Case Histories: (1) To show the relative merits of (a) white bread and tea by Little Audrey; (b) Brown bread and butter: Zasu Pitts; (c) Brown bread and milk, Big Bertha. Results-Little Audrey: A very sad case, this. She will probably never laugh again, though pity has compelled us to add a daily ration of cheese. Weight, 101 grammes. Zasu Pitts: Zasu has quite enjoyed her brown bread and butter, but being a well-trained experimental rat, knows .it is not enough. True, with such a generous supply of Vitamin A, she will never suffer from night blindness. Zasu has had all the cream in her youth. We are now giving her skimmed milk, and trust she will have sufficient discrimination to show the difference. Weight, 134 grammes. Big Bertha: Fed on brown bread and milk and undoubtedly top of her class. A beautiful rat, Bertha, revealing in her own perfect way the shape of things to come when every child will have 142 pints of milk, and bread will be always browm. Weight, 206 grammes. (2) To show the effect of diets high and low in calcium: (a) Milk and wheat: Heroine, Catherine the Great. (b) Meat and wheat: Victim, Rickety Kate. Catherine the Great has lived on milk and wheat since she was quite a little thing of 50 grammes. Weight, 120 grammes, and still growing strong. Rickety Kate is a sister of Catherine, but even the strongest family resemblance withers under the ravages of rickets, and nobody would guess at the connection. She has lived on meat and wheat and lots of sympathy. We do feel sorry for Rickety Kate-a poor rat of a creature — but pity will not build strong bones and teeth. Weight, 99 grammes, \ (Continued on next page)

ADVICE ON HEALTH (Continued from previous page) (3) Experiment to show the effects of animal and vegetable protein or milkpowder versus peameal. Rat Musso has a carefully calculated diet containing mineral salts, cod-liver oil, and carbohydrate, with milk-powder as the source of protein, Rat Lini: A brother of Musso, and living on the same diet except that peameal is used in place of milk-powder. Both rats are in fair condition, but Musso on milk-powder is distinctly a bigger, better, and brighter type of rat. Mothers, please get your milk or dried milk arithmetic right!

(Next week: " Britain’s Bread." by |

Dr=

Muriel

Bell.)