Timely Topics

Northern Advocate, 1 April 1937, Page 4

Timely Topics

CAUSES OF MALNUTRITION,

Much malnutrition undoubtedly exists in Britain, and undoubtedly some of this malnutrition is due to poverty, says the “Morning Post” in comment on the recent debate in the House uf Commons on the subject. Poverty, j however, is not the sole cause. There i is statistical evidence that the Lrit-i ist people today are eating more, and i better food per head than at any pre- j vious period of their history. There j ,is evidence in the prosperity of innumerable -forms of entertainment, that the British people as a whole are rich enough to afford good food. What, then, is the causb of malnutn- j tion among .them?' Ths answer is to j be sought partly in recent extensions j i f knowledge, partly in the new con- j fUtions of domestic 'life. Scientific j study of nutrition is a new develop- j ihent, , j The knowledge of food values i which science has given us was be-1 fore only empirically available; the standards of diet which science lays down have probably never been attained since the British man was divorced from the soil. On the domestic side, industrial life has all but killed the old art that lay in the preparation of food. Food is not generally so well cooked as it was. It is rarely well balanced. Because of the combination of acquired- tastes ; . and processing’ <jf foods,. food once ; , uhiviersally acceptable is not ’ necessarily acceptable today. As a Government spokesman said in the House of Commons, many children do not take the cheap milk provided for them at the schools for the elementary reason that they do not like milk.

■ B M ® B Words Of Wisdom We can only have the highest happiness by having wide thoughts and much feeling for the rest of the world —George Eliot. v b ® a.. b .]' Tale Of The Day Swagger (in hay stack) -—“Say, Sam, do you feel o draught?” '■ Friend — “Yes; I must have loft the pasture gate open” . '5.;