NUTRITIONAL WEDDING

New Zealand Listener, Volume 13, Issue 318, 27 July 1945, Page 19

NUTRITIONAL WEDDING

(Written tor "The Listener" by Dr

Muriel

Bell

Nutritionist to the Health Dept.)

VER since the Technical Commission of the Health Organisation of the League of Nations met in 1935, and Mr. Bruce, the Australian delegate, put up a plea for the "marriage of health and agriculture," nutritionists have had this nuptial aim, subsequently expressed at several conferences. For instance, the United Nations Conference on Food and Agriculture at Hot Springs, Virginia, in May, 1943, to which New Zealand sent several representatives, consisted of delegates from 43 nations. They accepted the principle that governments individually and internationally must take over the responsibility for seeing that the people of the world have an opportunity to obtain the food necessary for health, and that agricultural policies should be directed towards this end. It expanded the idea of the Atlantic Charter, of creating a state of affairs that would mean freedom from hunger and freedom from want. The deliberations formulated by the Hot Springs Conference were to. the effect that each would convey to its own government certain recommendations, briefly summarised as follows: "During the period of critical shortage in the, aftermath of war, freedom from hunger can be achieved only by urgent

and concerted .efforts to economise consumption, to increase supplies and distribute them to the best advantage, "There has never been enough food for the health of all people. This is justified neither by ignorance nor by the harshness of nature. Production of food must be greatly expanded; we now have the knowledge of the means by which this can be done. "The first cause of hunger and malnutrition is poverty. It is useless to produce more food unless men and nations provide the markets to absorb it. There must be an expansion of the whole world economy to provide the purchasing power sufficient to maintain an adequate diet for all. With full employment in all countries, enlarged industrial production. the absence of exploitation, an increasing flow of trade within and between countries, an orderly management of domestic and international investment and currencies, and sustained internal and international economic equilibrium, the food which is produced can be made available to all people. | "The primary responsibility lies with each nation for seeing that its own people have the food needed for life and health; steps to this end are for national determination. But each nation |. can fully achieve its goal only if all work together." ne

To anyone who, like myself, saw something of mining towns in England and Wales during the depression, and beheld the grocers’ shops with displays, not of New Zealand butter, but of all grades of margarine (then non-vitaminised) the truth of this last statement is obvious. One felt alike an ache for the New Zealand farmer unable at that time to sell his butter, and for the miner who needed the vitamin A to prevent the industrial eye disease of nystagmus.