NEW ZEALAND FISH OILS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 7, Issue 181, 11 December 1942, Page 14

NEW ZEALAND FISH OILS

/ (Written for

"The Listener"

by DR.

MURIEL

BELL

Nutritionist to the

Department of Health)

HIS article is written with apolegies for becoming arithmetical; it is necessary to know that 400 international units of vitamin D are required per day by children, adolescents, expectant and nursing mothers. Adolescents are included, because their bones are still growing; in countries where rickets is a prevalent disease, it is quite common, so I am told by a doctor of experience, to find rickets developing at the age of 12 years or more. Though actual bending of the bones does not occur at that age here in New Zealand, it is his opinion that such conditions as flat feet and other minor defects may arise at the adolescent period because of insufficient vitamin D, Our "average New Zealand diet" as calculated from the Year Book and other data, does not supply us with more than 100 international units of vitamin D; we are thus dependent either on sunshine or on cod-liver-oil (or its equivalent), to supply three-quarters of our needs. If we include merely the above groups of the population as requiring a teaspoon of cod-liver-oil to provide 300 units per day for the winter months, our national needs work out at above 120,000 gallons of cod-liver-oil per year. Actually, the total consumption of cod-liver-oil is probably only one-third of this amount. This statement is based on the fact that we imported in pre-war years something like 60,000 gallons, much of which was used for poultry and calves. If to this we add the needs of the remainder of the population-assuming that the opinion of the American National Research Council is correct that 400 units of D is probably advisable for the adult population — our national requirement would be still greater. With supplies from overseas becoming restricted on account of war conditions, we must turn to our own resources. A teaspoon of the liver oils from New Zealand fish would supply, in international units, approximately the following: groper, 6,900; black flounder, 4,200; ling, 1,500; snapper, 170; skate 45; shark, 40. The body oils of fish are not usually such good sources of vitamins as the liver ojls, but a teaspoon of the body oil of eels would furnish about 140 units of D. Lest you think that whales come into the picture, let me remind you that they are mammals, and that their fats are not a good source of fat-soluble vitamins. It has been. calculated that from groper and ling liver oils alone, if all | the livers available from the catches made:.under pre-war conditions were salvaged, would come the equivalent of half of our pre-war imports of vitamin D. ‘Fish oils also contain’ vitamin A. Of this second fat-soluble vitamin we have a plentiful supply in oils from ee "ig of ii ‘oper, alia" eel, sw h, | Be they happen not to provide. oaidh vitamin D, the artificial Preparation of vitamin D can be added in an amount sufficient to make it equal in value to cod-liver-oil,