In Defence Of The Potato

New Zealand Listener, Volume 8, Issue 198, 9 April 1943, Page 18

In Defence Of The Potato

(Written for "The

Listener" by DR.

MURIEL

BELL

Nutritianist to the

Dept. of Health)

OU have probably run across the type of person who weighs himself hopefully at least once a week; whose weight and spirits stand i» inverse relationship to one another, whose weight has only. to go down a pound or two to make his spirits soar. If you offer him a cake at afternoon tea time, he says, "No thank you, I have had my calories for to-day." The term "calories" or "heat-units" signifies the "energy-value’"’ of a foodthe capacity of a food to provide fuel for muscular energy, or for keepmg the body warm, We vary in our tendency to store up this energy~-value in our bodies, and it remains a puzzle to us that, while one may have this propensity in marked degree, another is of the "thin kind," whose wife is defeated in spite of her excellent culinary efforts to "fatten him up." In the converse case -of the fat man, it is a bit hard that calories which should have been destined to provide him with energy should have. ‘become paradoxically the means for weighting him down and actually diminishing his physical energy. More than that, by acting as a very potent factor in overloading the machinery of his circulation, these stored calories may finally bring him to a standstill before his normal span is run; for it is true that after middle life adiposity and excess weight are factors in the production of disease and in shortening the life-span, : For those interested in slimming, here are a few of the higher caloried foods that each provide 100 of these heat. units. Flour, loz.; % cup of ice cream, fruit cake, loz.; butter, 1 tablespoon; cream, 2 tablespoons; chocolate, 0.60z.; sausage roll, 0.70z; bread, 1.402. potato, 4oz. Now, of this list, the ones you should choose to satisfy hunger are the bulkier ones, from which you will see that the’ potato wins out. Curiously enough, there are many who avoid potatoes because they are fattening, but take a chocolate. cake without any qualms. In defence of the potato, be it said that potatoes supply so’ many things besides calories. They are richer in vitamin C than many varieties of apples — their introduction into Europe was responsible for banishing outbreaks of scurvy during the winter months. They contain iron for preventing anaemia, They contribute considerable quantities of vitamin B-for example, there is as much vitamin B in a 5oz. potato as there is in a slice of bread from a sandwich wholemeal loaf. Moreover, they are more universally appreciated than any other vegetable. Our average consumption of potatoes (50z.) is small compared with Britain (90z.); Germany and France (17¥40z.); and Belgium (190z.) — all pre-war figures. : :