HOME HEALTH GUIDE

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXVI, Issue 26, 29 December 1945, Page 7

HOME HEALTH GUIDE

POTATOES AND VITAMIN C. (By the Department of Health.) The season for new potatoes is v ith us, and many of our womenfolk are afraid to eat too many because they think they are fattening. Potatoes new or old are not going to widen vour figure any more than other food. If your’re getting fat through eating it is because too many 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. There 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 C is useful. There is no food that readily takes the place of the potatoe, so do not encourage any funny ideas about it! New potatoes are quite a good source of vitamin C. When we are hungry we would eat about seven ounces of potatoes, and there is more vitamin Cin 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 almost entirely on potatoes. Illness was prevalent. Many people went down with scurvy. But one family remained well. On enquiry they were found to be eating their potatoes in their skins, while everyone else was pealing them. Potatoes store their vitamins and minerals just beneath the skins. So eat them every day—enjoy them new—hake old 'ones and boil new ones—in their skins.