MEDICAL NOTES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 267, 10 November 1934, Page 7 (Supplement)

MEDICAL NOTES.

FOOD AND DRINK. MANY COUNSELLORS. AGREEMENT NEEDED. (By PEEITUS.) Conflicting opinions, contradictory advice, and the effect of fads, fancies, obsessions and "cults" create confusion in the public mind, and prevent any concerted effort to prevent the onset of disease, which is far better than to assume that disease is inevitable and expend all energies in its alleviation. Apart from infection (and even in securing immunity from that) it is now generally believed that heredity, environment, food and —in a much less degree —employment are the four chief agents in tho production of disease. We cannot choose our parents, and this cause remains as fate, chance, or luck, and is quite beyond our powers of correction. Employment is mostly under educated control, and is watched by health authorities, and only, in exceptional cases causes disease. Environment depends upon the possession of wealth, or its absence, and is a matter for the consideration of employers, as every sane person with means uses those moans to provide such conditions of life as appeal to him personally. ' It is in relation to food that a national agreement is needed. Food manufacturers, growers, vendors, cooks, diet

experts of all kinds, doctors and scientists should come to a decision about foods, and food values. As it is, the scientist forms his opinion on the digestive reactions of rats and guinea pigs; tho doctor is inclined to think that all food is good but some food is better than others, that "milk diet" is a safe order, and "no potato" a useful allround slogan, but that what a healthy man cats 13 no affair for the doctor's comment; lie has enough to do in thinking how*, without training, he can prescribe a harmless, if not curative, diet for men and women and children (all ages) that are ill.

Invalid's Instinct. The nurse is told that "soup is just hot water coloured," that "beef tea has no nourishing elfect—no food value," and is not taught that instinct almost always guides an invalid in food selection, and invalid "fancies" should be complied with. Cooks are uncertain about degrees of heat, and how heat affects various foods. Cooke, when they go to market, accept almost anything which does not smell or appear repulsive, and when they do not go to market they do the best they can to raise everything to a temperature point just under lire insurance level, caring nothing for tho ultimate destination of proteids and carbohydrates, because cooking is not a job which includes a knowledge of human internal processes. The food grower is a business man. Hear him: "I would never have had fruit like that if I had not drenched it with arsenate of lead." The food vendor is simply a conduit pipe. Jlo Kelte what is sold to him. He trades in tins and gaudy labels, and all manner of sophisticated materials which have been toileted by the chemist, or are '"substitutes" or pure only in the sense that they are not unlawful. Happy the man who can hold both ends of the chain, produce his own food and eat only that, and also have the sense to cat in such quantities, and at such times, that his stomach is notabused. Of all the opinions about food there is no one altogether sane. The sanity can be created by taking fractions of many differing opinions and welding them into a whole. The flesh eater, the vegetarian, the pure foodist, the raw diet man, and a hundred others all have some grains of reason for their beliefs, and all these people need a leader who will bring down tho whola thing to first principles and, like the House that Jack Built, make each link in the chain depend upon neighbouring links, so that when a man sat down to his dinner ho could bo sincerely grateful to everybody concerned in its provision and preparation, right back to tho soil from which it must have come in the beginning.

White and Brown Bread. In this country it might have been better if the Maoris had instructed us in food selection and cooking, rather than learn from us our suicidal diet. Preservation of foods is convenient, and makes fortunes, but at what a price. Only forty out of each hundred of our young men passed as physically sound. Compared with English visitors and those from our South Island, the people of North Auckland are a sallow, liverishlooking crowd. This may be due to some climatic influences, but more probably to a lack of iron in the soil, and in tho food. Anaemia is common. Two of the chief opposing factions are the white-broaders and brown-breaders. The latter vote for wholemeal wheat, but sometimes get white flour and bran. Anyhow, experiment proves that in point of nourishment there is nothing to choose between the white and the brown. Tho latter is harder to digest and leaves more waste in the bowel; the white takes up less room in proportion to its food value, and makes better biscuits and toast. For the national health, unwholesome and "treated" foods should bo aboliwfied, and tho public informed (by knowledgeable authority) what are the best, purest and most nourishing foods, best methods of cooking, and current prices of. say, a dozen varieties containing , all elements needed by n healthy body and offering occasional change.

As to drink, we are all agreed that water is the natural dilutent, but water is of infinite variety, and when not polluted by man may contain injurious substances'. Rain water may be spoiled by means of collection or storage; well water by accidental drainage, and "service" water by treatment or lack of filtration. Our modern dependence upon chemical "protections" and "preventives." preservatives, flavouring? and decorations, has almost destroyed out natural appetite and taste. We eat too much sugar, too many cakes, too much pastry, not enough eggs, cheese, butter and cream. As no two persons dicrest similar food in exactly the same time routine feeding hours are really unnatural for many persons or for one. To eat when hungry suggests it is inconvenient but reasonable. It is bettor to miss a meal than eat when eating is not indicated by desire. The doctor, being neither food expert nor coolc, is less'"to be trusted than instinct about food and feodino- times, as tho overscrupulous and obedient nurse can toil vou.