HOME HEALTH GUIDE

Evening Star, Issue 25673, 22 December 1945, Page 9

HOME HEALTH GUIDE

POTATOES AND VITAMIN G (By the Department of Health.) The season for new potatoes is with us, and many of our women folk are afraid to eat too many because they think they are fattening. 'Potatoes, new or old, are not going to widen your figure any more than other food. If you are getting fat through eating, it is because too may calories are being ingested daily; you are eating too much total food, and you have to retreat somewhat, keeping a balanced diet, but eating less total food. So you cannot dismiss potatoes, for they are part of the balanced diet. Ther,e is no need to deprive yourself of the pleasure of eating them, fresh and full of flavour from your own garden. Potatoes are good for us. Their carbohydrate gives us fuel for muscular energy. They contain minerals, especially iron, and vitamins B and C. Now iron and vitamin B are inclined to be short in our diets, and anything with vitamin Cis useful. There is no food that readily stakes the place of

the potato, so do not encourage any funny ideas about it! New potatoes are quite a good source of vitamin C. When we are hungry we eat about seven ounces of potatoes, and there is more vitamin C in that than in the juice of one lemon. Here is a little story. It is pretty bleak in Nova Scotia, and if the fishing harvest fails they haven't much food to come and go on. One winter the people lived entirely on potatoes. Illness was prevalent. Many people went down with scurvy. But one family remained well. On inquiry they were found to be eating their potatoes in their skins, while everyone else was .peeling them. Potatoes store their vitamins and minerals just beneath the skins. So eat them every day—enjoy them new—bake old ones and boil hew ones—in their skins.