DO YOU KNOW?

New Zealand Listener, Volume 9, Issue 220, 10 September 1943, Page 18

DO YOU KNOW?

(Written for "The Listener’ by DR.

MURIEL

BELL

Nutritionist to the

Health Department)

O you know these things? 1. That keeping vegetables hot is one of the worst ways in which you will lose their precious Vitamin C? Avoid cutting them up when they are hot. Vitamin C is destroyed by oxidation, especially when the vegetable is hot. The rule for green vegetables is to shred them immediately before cooking, put them into a little boiling salted water, bring quickly to the boil, cook for the shortest possible time, put the vegetable water into the soup; serve the vegetables right away. 2. That the most important time for the prevention of goitre is in the expectant and nursing period; for it is during that time that goitre may develop in either mother or child? For the prevention of goitre, iodised salt should be used, in cooking as well as on the table. If for medical reasons the doctor orders a diet that is low in salt, the iodine should not be omitted. One way of taking regularly the amount that is required is to put two drops of ordinary tincture of iodine into a two-ounce bottle of water and take a teaspoon a day of the water. _ 3. That a pint of milk in an adult's diet will supply 70 per cent. of the day’s requirements of calcium; and half the day's requirements of riboflavin (one of ‘the vitamin B factors)? No other food can do this. 4. That when sugar or sweets are eaten, the stomach pours out fluid in order to dilute the sugar? Thus the feeling of hunger is abolished, for hunger occurs when the stomach is empty. There is then no appetite for the next meal. 5. That the daily ration in Norway in September, 1942, was: Skimmed milk, 8ozs. (1 cup); meat, %oz.; cheese, 1-50z.; bread, 8'¥0zs.; butter, loz.; sugar, loz.; making a total of 32 grams of protein, 29 grams of fat, 161 grams of carbohydrate, and 1052 calories? In a climate such as that of Norway, it is probable that 3000. calories would be needed. Add to this the hardship of having 80 per cent. of their fish requisitioned by the Germans, and of being unable in many districts to get full rations of milk and butter, and even more difficulty in getting meat and cheese. Norway is, moreover, a country in which they are able to grow vegetables for only four months of the year; formerly they depended on oranges and other imported sources of vitamin C in the other months; now they cannot obtain these. 6. That many New Zealand mothers forget to recommence giving cod liver oil to their children when the summer months are over, and thus their children develop rickets? Rather than have this happen, it would be better to continue with the cod liver oil (or suitable substitute) during the summer months as well. It is not only during infancy that ‘a child needs vitamin C (400-800 International Units), but during the preschool period, the school period, and during adolescence. It is stated that adults would also benefit by including 400 International Units of vitamin D per day in their diet. Expectant and nursing mothers need 400 to 800 units (1-2 teaspoons of cod liver oil). Ordinary foods do not supply enough D.