"Easy On The Sugar"

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 159, 6 July 1940, Page 2 (Supplement)

"Easy On The Sugar"

/"\NE of the food items in which the people of this country are urged to economise, in order to reduce the volume of wartime importations, is sugar. A most necessary of our articles of food, it is also undoubtedly one which is wastefully used." Few tear drinkers who take sugar ever think of restricting themselves to one spoonful instead of two, or accepting one lump onlv, except for politeness sake. I must con-

By James Cowan

fees I have always teen rather careless about it, except when in camp, in the bush or on the mountains in the years of the past, when. it was necessary for the sake of the swag to ration the sugar. The indulging of thoughtless tastes for the sweets bowl is, of course, a selfish habit and shocking lack of economy and all that, and it is just as well that we sugar-lovers should be brought up with a round turn. The present reminder from the food conservation authorities is not merely a useful hint towards the reduction of Fiji sugar cargoes imported. It- is indirectly a step forward in the promotion of the public's health. There is an excellent substitute or alternative sweetener, which we have in abundance, and that is honey. It is a natural food, unspoiled by factory-manufacture refinements. New Zealand produces the best honey in the forld; it is exported largely, and is appreciated in markets on the other side of the globe even more thai) it is here. Try a spoonful or two of honey instead of sugar in thp future— when you think of it. The plover honey which comes from the busy rangers of the fields fs a pure food of enormous valpe ip the building up of the hea)th qf the young generation. Get children into the honev-eating habit and they will come to prefer it to thp sugar of commerce, and the older generation will not despise it. I must say, by way of confessiop again, that often—when the rest of the family have gone to bed— I find myself returning to the cupboard-raiding days of youth, and, with a dessertspoon, laying into that lordly six or ten-pound tin of honey on the )ut§h£n shelves. It is an excellent sweetener of the throat as a nightcap, I give as my excuse; it assists voice-Milture; it saves the sugarbag; or any ether plea I am think of. "Eat more honey" is qne of the calls in the win-the-waf econony that can be followed with perfect enjoyment. In the day§ of one's

youth it was sometimes associated with nauseous medicines. One was given a spoonful of honey or treacle as a disguise for some necessary nastiness or a "chaser" for something that gave one the shudders. But now, provided you take that honey spoonful or two with enthusiasm as a regular habit, you will not need the nasty medicine for throat or elsewhere. A great advantage of honey, and. its attraction, is that you do not need anything with it. You may spread it on bread if you like, but I suggest that you take it as I do, by the spoonful, several of them, without the bread foundation—and come back for more. The solidified honey is the less "messy form," and that is inv preference; you are not so liable to leave a sticky trail about the pantry. • t • » Such a lpt could be written in praise of honey as a diet. Wise doctors who proscribe white sugar prescribe honey (that little vowel makes all the difference). There are, of course, times when honey is not advisable as a fowl. That is, however, only the "wild honey" known on the bush-edge and

swamp-edge districts. It is made by those quite lawless bees which feed on one of the species of plants called wharangi. About bush-honey, something another day. Honey flavours vary, as many of my readers will agree, with the districts which the bees ranged for their sweet*?. The honey produced on Rangitoto Island has a rich flavour all it own. But delicious as it is, this poliutukawa lionev, there is nothing superior to the fine red and white clpver of the Manawatu or the Waikato country. The Maqri Tenp. The Maoris had no word of their own for honey, because the bee V'as a pakeha immigrant, but the pioneer missionaries coined ,a name for it. "mi'ere," from the French "miel," whicji derives from the Latifi "mel, melis," honey. So pur Maori "miere" is a direct descendant of the classics, and is

TRY HONEY AS A SUBSTITUTE

related to such English words as mellifluous, referring to ewee£ and agreeable speech, literally flowing like honey. There is also an original Maori "mire," •ftliiefc means a kind of spell, an incantation reducing an enemy to a weak or powerless condition. As fpr the bee, the Maori equivalent is the simple pronunciation of its name, as "pi," the vowel being pronounced "ee." The native bir<Js long ago appreciated the sweets that the bee stored in liojlow trees, as well as the hqney, containing native flowers, such as the flax „aiul the pqhutlikawa. Tl|ere are Maori proverbs for tl>e biipl)-gingers, >vliich ehjmed most sweetly wliep the flax-flowers were brimming over with honeyliquor and wl)en the pphutukawji was rjcli in blos=soininjr> so rich the tui arid bellbiFd were quite intoxicated with its rich and "miere."