Feeding The Multitude
«I. (Written for "The Listener" by DR.
MURIEL
BELL
Nutritionist to the Dept. of Health)
--- / NY housewife or cook is able to grapple with the problems of making a meal for 4 or 6 persons, but change the number either to 1 or 100 and she would not be so happy about it. Meals for the multitude have their own particular difficulties, and though we may turn our sympathy to the cook it is the consumer who has to bear the last effects if these particular difficulties are not met in the proper way. From time to time, the idea is put forward that it would be splendid to free mothers from some of their present toil by instituting communal catering. Such an arrangement has points in its favour in a land that is so devoid of domestic assistance as is our N.Z. The mother of a small baby is often so worried by the numerous duties in the home that her milk-supply suffers; we thus read in the report of the Plunket Society that only 55% of mothers are able to breast-feed their infants at 3 months, and only 31% at 6 months, the causes being attributed to worry, overwork and improper diet. It is an accepted fact that a good supply of breast-milk gives a baby a definite advantage over an arti-ficially-fed baby. Now, though such an innovation as communal feeding, carried out by skilled and _ nutritionally-minded cooks, has something to commend it, the results might be disastrous if it were put into effect by cooks who are not conversant with the pitfalls of large-scale cookery. For the cook needs to be aware of certain nutritional facts before she can feed the multitude with as little loss of food value as the housewife can achieve in cooking for her small family group. She needs to be acquainted ‘with the special devices that are available for "quantity cookery" in order to retain food-value. She needs to understand that as soon as the mass of food to be cooked is multiplied by 10 or 100, the length of time taken to heat it and to serve it may also increase, leading to inevitable losses in its nutrient properties. Whether we like it or not, communal feeding becomes a special problem in war-time. It will be dealt with further in the next article. Ps
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 8, Issue 188, 29 January 1943, Page 14
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396Feeding The Multitude New Zealand Listener, Volume 8, Issue 188, 29 January 1943, Page 14
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