DIET AND HEALTH

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 266, 6 August 1931, Page 6

DIET AND HEALTH

Value of Lime and Iron DEPENDENCE ON SOIL How lime and iron works in the human body was explained to a large audience last evening by Mr. R. J. Terry,,of Auckland, in a lecture given under the auspices of the Radiant Health Club. Mr. Terry’s lecture, which was on diet in relation to health, contained a rather striking illustration ,of the dependence which he held to exist between the richness of the soil and the vigour and development of animals living above it. Mr. Terry, who is well-known in Auckland as a dietitian, held formerly a position in an Australian Department of Agriculture, and at the same time an honorary position in the Department of Health. Mr. R. T. McLean, president of the Radiant Health Club, was chairman last evening. “A dietitian is not in opposition to doctors,” Mr. Terry said. “As a matter of fact, when I started five years ago I suppose the medical profession said generally, “Well, here’s another man we 11 have to smash.’ But as the years, have gone by they have come more and more to think as a dietitian thinks, and I myself, far from being antagonistic, want to be in co-operation with them. I am certain the day is not far away when there will be true co-operation between dietitians and doctors.” Soil, Food. Health. After explaining that a bucket of fertile soil, a bundle of healthy green stuff, and a section right through the human body consisted of the same 16 constituents, in differing proportions, the lecturer asked his audience to consider the question of soil, food and health by looking a f conditions in England 100 years ago. when steamships, cool storage, and preservatives did not exist People stayed, moreover, in their own districts, and travelled very little. Taking the heavy rich loam soil of Lincolnshire one found on that soil Shire horses, Lincoln cattle and sheep, and Fen men and women. They were alike in their size and strength. Going now to the poor soil in Wales.one found there the Welsh pony, the little Welsh cow, and the small Welsh men and women. “That means simply that those things were evolved from the soil, . Air. Terry said! . . Lime and Sugar. “If we come back to the soil again , and its constituents, or mineral salts.” he continued, “we find they have a wonderful effect on our body. If they are not in the correct proportions we don’t remain in good health. One of these salts is lime, about which some of you probably have mistaken ideas. Most of you know it as lime water. If asked why you 2’Vo it to babies you sav. ‘Well, it’ll make the baby h-ve good bones and stop him from getting rickets.’ “As a matter of fact, the baby won t absorb that lime. It will probably do him some good, but not in the way you expect. When you make lime water you can put a ■shovel full of lime in a bucket if you like, but the water will absorb no more than one part on a thousand. But if you gradually add sugar it will take 35 or 36 times as much. That is the reason why kiddies have bad teeth. What happens is that your blood streai has an excess of sugar m it, and this being so it has to find lime. In the case of a child the blood robs the tissue of lime, after which there is only one source left—the ■bones and the teeth.

Iron a Necessity. “Iron also is necessary,” Mr. Terry said. “You have heard that it is necessary, but there are a great many who don’t know why. A person is anaemic, and you say they want iron. Quite right, they do. The trouble is not a lack of available iron, because it would be quite easy to buy it, but the fact that your body will not absorb it. The iron has to go .through nature’s laboratory. The person who has only 50 per cent, of the proper amount of iron in his body is only 50 per cent, efficient, and that not for long, because things start to break down. “Iron is found freely and in a form that you can easily assimilate in all foods, but in some much more than in others,” Air. Terry continued. “Briefly, it is found is the largest quantities in green leafy vegetables, the outside leaves of the cabbage, spinach, raisins, and in fact, any green stuff. It is only small quantities of iron you want, but you need them often, for iron goes out of the body and has to oe replaced.” At the end of Air. Terry’s lecture a number of questions were asked. He will give the second lecture of the series on Alonday evening next under the auspices of the same organisation.