WAR TIME FOOD POLICY

Press, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23811, 3 December 1942, Page 3

WAR TIME FOOD POLICY

LEAGUE REPORT

« DUTIES WHICH SHOULD HAVE BEEN DEPARTMENTS’ ”

Measures in a war-time food policy which, it was claimed, should have been taken already by Government departments, were emphasised in the annual report of the president of the New Zealand Women’s Food Value League (Miss A. L. Loudon). War conditions, the report stated, imposed on the executive the need to watch carefully the changing economic conditions of the land which had led to a shortening of supplies and to many anomalies in distribution of necessary food products. "A complete war food policy is a matter which should have the attention of the country’s best experts, and measures should have already been taken to ensure that the international loss to the people is as little as possible.” the report added. "The falling away is bound to be in the direction of the ‘protective’ foods, and public health measures should have been introduced to see that supplies of these foods were adequate for civil as well as for military needs. In Britain, eminent authorities early pointed out, and with good effect, the decisive part that correct nutrition must play in affecting both the efficiency of the fighting forces and the courage and r solution of non-combatants, “This executive has, therefore, to take upon itself the duties and responsibilities which should have been undertaken by official Government departments.”