High nutritious food cost 'jeopardises health’

Press, 20 May 1987, Page 36

High nutritious food cost 'jeopardises health’

PA Dunedin The high cost of nutritious food jeopardises the health of many New Zealanders, says Professor John Scott, of the Auckland School of Medicine. Professor Scott told the the joint conference of the Nutrition Society of New Zealand and the New Zealand Institute of Food Science and Technology that concerted action was needed to lower the cost of basic, healthy food. Large health costs would be saved if people ate a variety of good food. Nutritionists said families should eat fish twice a week but the cost of fish

was too high for many poorer families who consequently lacked a dietary choice. A national food policy was needed to ensure an adequate variety Of nutritious food was available, Professor Scott said. If the Government and New Zealand had the will to develop such a policy, there were ways it could be implemented, he said. He called for tax incentives- which would ensure fish was available for the home market and deregulation of the milk industry to curb price rises. A greater variety of fast food should be encouraged and other measures introduced to

make nutritious food available. Professor Scott said research showed health problems were more prevalent among lower socio-economic groups which would benefit from reasonably priced food. There were financial benefits from promoting dietary care. A sensible diet in early life could increase a person’s resistance to disease, limiting the cost of health treatments; With incentives in some cases, further deregulation and various other measures, subsidies were not necessarily needed to make a good variety of nutritious food available.