LOW-COST DIETARIES

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 93, 13 January 1939, Page 3

LOW-COST DIETARIES

Experiments By Otago University

i LIVING ON 30/- A WEEK

A series of experiments on low-cost family dietaries carried out by the Olago University under the auspices of the New Zealand Social Research Bureau form the subject of a special article contributed by a member of the university faculty to the “Journal of Science and Technology.”

Low-cost dietaries were prejiared, and actually adopted, for a number of Dunedin families. u All provided the nutrition required by a family of two adults and three children, and variations were made between summer and winter, and also for the contingency of father and children taking lunch away from home, and of using beef as an alternative to mutton.

Those diets show in their detail a wide variety of eatables, and in every case allowance is made for the free issue of five pints of milk weekly to the schoolchildren, though over eight quarts were also bought for family use. The highest weekly cost is shown as 33/41 where the diet had to provide for older children, and included 121 b. -if mutton, an unusually large allowance compared with most of the other lists. The family tests wore made for periods of a week, and the conclusion of the investigators Is that in many cases I here was too much food, but in no case ti shortage. High Nutritive Value.

'That It was a Spartan diet compared with the usual New Zealand standard is admitted, though its nutritive value was higher than standards set by the League of Nations organization concerned in the subject of nutrition “No sweets mid few cakes were ,-il lowed." states the report, “while the ninouiits of meat and butter are below the average New Zealand consumption, and therefore the application of these dietnf-les would represent n change in food habits—it would, however, lie desirable change, as it is associated with a corresponding increase in the consumption of milk.”

New Zealand, it is pointed out, leads tlio world in the consumption of milk and milk products. However, it ’s taken largely as butter, while skimmed milk, which the investigators found to be of great nutritive value, is fed 19 animals or; wasted. New Zealanders also lend the world in the consumption of meat a head. As meat costs are relatively hijrh. the cximrimental diets used by the New Zealand families contained less Ilian the average weight of meat a head. It was assumed in the experiment that all lams were home made, ami that families living on the lower incomes would preserve eggs and bottle tomatoes to use when prices were higher. Tomatoes have such a high vitamin content that certain bottling and cooking processes still leave them a valuhMe source of vitamin. Tile article does not include any [>ersonal opinions of the families which lived on the official dietaries for a week, in the interests o£ seiene-