The Importance Of Diet

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 178, 26 April 1938, Page 5

The Importance Of Diet

Value 01 Vitamins And Necessity For

Overcoming Nutritional Faults

PROMINENCE has been given from time to time to the complaints of such bodies as the New Zealand Defence League that New Zealand is rapidly developing a C. 3. population, and it is an unfortunate fact that these complaints are only too well founded. Too large a proportion of the population has bony defects, enlarged tonsils, poor posture and nutritional anaemia—disabilities for which diet alone is to blame.

Medical authorities will agree that so depleted is the constitution of many people that in some cases it will take several generations to improve the stock. One naturally asks, how should that be done? The answer to this vital question may well lie in one s attitude toward diet.

CJONSIDER diet not as something ab-

normal, but as the natural appreciation of the proper things to give the human machine in the way of building material and as fuel. There are numerous fad-diets . which, from time to time, have been brought to the fore. One can call to mind the pineapple and chops diet, and diets of potatoes and skim milk or bananas and skim milk. Special names are given to these diets, which flourish for a day and are then forgotten. It is important to realise that fad-diets are not only unnecessary, but, in many cases, decidedly unwise. We tend to be irked by the sight of a number of superior people each “obliged” to have a special type of meal. There is no superiority in the fad-diet, and the sooner its victimi! realise it the better.

The essential thing to remember is that the human machine should receive a reasonable choice of materials from which to build, and, fortunately, these can be obtained best from a good, varied diet —it must be good and it should be as varied as possible. The intelligent choice of foods has become a matter o£ urgent necessity at a time when ignorance has allowed the devitalisation of so large a proportion of our foodstuffs. The Human Factory. The human body may be regarded as a complex factory that builds and repairs its own machinery. Large numbers of diffrent materials are required, and these can be obtained only in the diet. It is helpful to divide the food into two classes, that providing the bricks and repairing material and that providing the workmen and tools. In the first category are those foods which contain protein, minerals, salts, and vitamins. Eggs, fish, meat, milk, cheese, and the growing portions of vegetables are included under this head.

The second category contains the energy foods —starches* and sugars, storare vegetables, and fats. Tbe diet of the present day is unbalanced, providing as it does an excess of “workmen,” who are unemployed because of lack of building materials. Where are the bricks and morlar to be found? A rational system of diet aims at the provision of an adequate amount of building material. If this is obtained, the “workmen” will he provided in

plenty, as starches are to be found in most foods.

People seldom realise that it is practically impossible to reduce weight through exercise alone, as the energising food consumed each day is usually more than sufficient to cover the energy lost by the exercise. “Tiredness” is more often the result of lack of building and repairing materials than lack of the so-called “energy” foods.

TT has been proved beyond doubt that the ordinary “mixed” diet is seriously deficient in the elements for.the calcification of the bones and the teeth. In New Zealand this is clearly shown in the large number of children exhibiting deformities, particularly of the chest, where'the soft rib bones show the first signs of deficiency. It seems almost too obvious to mention teeth as the deficiencies are so outstanding as to be recognised on the other side of the globe, and our dentists have so much practice that they are among the best in the world. Extension of facilities for mechanical treatment is not the remedy. It is only a palliative, though an essential one under the present conditions.

If the ordinary “mixed” diet is analysed, it is found to be curiously unmixed in its excess of starches and sugars. It is true that at different times different factors in diet are stressed, and the public must often feel that science is fickle in her beliefs. For instance, calories were heard of much more frequently a few years ago. but they have now been relegated to their proper place, in which, it may be added, they are essential. The fuel value of the food and the requirements of the body can be accurately gauged and measured in calories. A diet correct in beat units, however, does not necessarily mean one adequate in other essentials, and hence these also must be considered. Importance of Vitamins. QF special importance in relation to the diet of the present day are the vitamins. Each one of these is essential, and the required daily amount o£ each has been accurately determined bv repeated experiment. The vitamins are the chief substances removed in the processing, method of preparation and cooking o£ foods, and therefore they must be sought i£ there is to be adequate replacement o£ the nutritional elements lost in the course of the “civilisation” o£ foodstuffs.

It was considered that foods could be'made more attractive by removing the coarse outer husks and by “purifying” and “refining” them. It was some considerable time before the realisation came that something had gone very wrong and that there were very evi-

dent reasons for the declining health and physique of the population. White Bread v. Brown. rpHE need for emphasising the deficiencies of white bread is imperative. The chief deficiency in present-day diet is one of the vitamins known as the vitamin B complex, and a deficiency of the source of this vitamin can produce most of the ills for which civilisation is blamed. The presence of this vitamin is responsible for preserving the proper functioning of the nervous system, for toning and strengthening the muscles, for improving the growth of bone and for ensuring protection against infections. It is significant, too, that the materials which contain this vitamin B also contain the mineral salts essential for the building of living tissue, especially bones and teeth. In the preparation of white bread, two portions of the original wheat grain are removed. These are the husk and the germ. Immediately under the husk lies a layer of living material —the living cells, the function of which is to deposit the store of starchy material to be used for the growth of the new wheat plant. This layer contains proteins, mineral salts and vitamin B. and is the constituent, of bran. The most important portion of the wheat grain, however, is the germ, the portion from which a new wheat plant would grow. This contains more than 12 times as much vitamin B as the bran, and is kept aside and sold as a most precious an deffective medicinal substance.

The remainder of the grain, the starchy storage portion, is the only part used in the preparation of white flour, and it contains only a minute quantity of vitamin B as the result of the accidental inclusion of a portion of the outer cell layer which is usually removed with the husk. Almost the full daily requirement of vitamin B for a child of four can be supplied in three ounces of good wholemeal bread. If white bread is used, the only source remaining is in a large amount of fresh vegetable material or by the addition to the diet of expensive extras. 'Many of the medicines prescribed today are preparations containing vitamins which should be available in our normal intake of food. It is irrational to wait till symptoms of vitamin starvation appear and then apply an expensive remedy. Nor does it appear reasonable that we should pay people to remove the nutritive materials from our food and then be obliged to pay more to get them back again. —l. McG.