Pride Causes Food Errors

Northern Advocate, 22 March 1937, Page 10

Pride Causes Food Errors

Why do twice as many people eat sausages in St. Andrews as in Cardiff? Why is nearly five times as much brown bread eaten in Scotland as in England or Wales? And whj/ do Cardiff folk insist on butter where the good citizens of Reading will have margarine? These variations of taste in food are selected by the “News Chronicle” from “A Dietary Survey in Terms of the Actual Foodstuffs Consumed,” issued by the Medical Research Council. The survey was carried out by Professor E. P. Cathcart, Regius Professor of Physiology at Glasgow University, and Mrs A. M. T. Murray.

Investigations were made into the food consumed by selected families at St. Andrews, Cardiff, Reading and Glasgow. It was found that 78 per cent, of St. Andrews families ate sausages, only 38 per cent, in Cardiff; 94 per cent, in Cardiff consumed butter, only 61 per cent, in Reading; 94 per cent, in Reading consumed margarine, only 57 per cent, in Cardiff. In St. Andrews and Glasgow 41 per cent, and 25 per cent, of the families analysed ate brown bread. In Cardiff and Reading the percentages were as low as 9 and 5.

Prejudice.

These apparently inexplicable likes and dislikes support the contention of the authors that improvement of the nutritional standards of the people is not merely a matter of discovering the perfect diet. Prejudice, tradition, the desire to keep up appearances, all influence the housewife when she is out with her shopping basketThe authors say that people are “hidebound by tradition, full of prejudices and a curious false pride, which often prevents them from buying excellent foodstuffs like skim milk, either because they imagine it to have no food value, or else because they are afraid their neighbours will despise them for buying a reputed inferior article.

“The public opinion of the immediate neighbours is one of the most powerful for good or evil, especially where households are crowded together. Too Much Rent. “The quite laudable desire to keep up appearances has a bad side, as it may lead to an excessive expenditure on house-rent to the detriment of food supply.” The general conclusion of the investigators was that though a few of the diets were really poor, many left much to be desired, particularly in their allowance of “protective” foodstuffs, like milk, green food and fruit. A great difficulty in the way of dietary reform is the attitude summed up as follows. “If the income is limited, and if the natural cravings of the appetite ca> be met by the purchase of certain relatively cheap articles of diet, why spend more, when such a diet leaves some free cash for the cinema or to “put on” a horse or the dogs?”

Ignorance,

“The main casual factor of inadequate diet in many households,” the survey says, “is ignorance of how to buy, what to buy and how to use to the best advantage the materials bought.” Without denying that much inadequacy is due to lack of money, it is suggested that much can be done by education in these matters.

The survey considers in detail the question of waste of foodstuffs by the average housewife and concludes that the conventional allowance of 10 per cent, for waste and refuse is an overstatement.

St. Andrews housewives only wasted 2.6 per Cent of the calory value of their food. But the same standard is not expected to be general throughout the country.