MORE FARM FOODS FOR BRITAIN

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIX, 30 January 1936, Page 8

MORE FARM FOODS FOR BRITAIN

EXPERTS ON FAULTS IN WORKING CLASS DIET

NLYV ZEALAND’S HELP TO BRITAIN'S TItADE

(By Air Mail, salvaged from the Air liner City of Khartoum, which was lost in t!ie Mediterranean Sea.)

LONDON, 24th December. The wider use of dairy produce, fresh fruit, vegetables and other protective foods” was strongly urged by the diet expert, Professor Edward Mellanby, the other day, in a Royal Institution address which threw further light on the food policy which British public authorities are now planning for adoption by the nation as a whole. lie reiterated Lord Blcdislqc s recent statement that malnutrition in Britain was due not so much to poverty as to a total ignorance of food values. A great amount of illness among adults, said Professor Mellanby, seemed to be caused by wrong feeding; if people got on to protective foods before they developed illnesses, their resistance would be greatly increased, lie deplored the growing tendency to cat sugar. Ibe amount of sugar eaten in this couutiy, especially by young people, was alarming, for. sugar contained no vitamins or salts and the more of it people ate the less' they took of nourishing food. While wealthier families in most cases took plenty of milk, blitter, meat, cheese and eggs, the poor ate virtually none of the protective foods. “CHRISTMAS DAY IN THE WORKHOUSE”

The same point is emphasised by Sir William Wayland, M.P., in a letter to the press in'which be commends the efforts being made by Public Assistance authorities to improve the dietaries ol homes, hospitals and institutions under their control. „ , “Fresh milk, butter, fresh fish, green vegetables and fruit,” be says, form part of ilia regular daily fare, and these foods, reinforced by the seasoned dainties which most institutions now provide, should make Christmas, 1935, memorable in the history of poor law administration In many of these institutions the daily milk and butter ration is higher than tlie average daily consumption lor the population as a whole. “1 trust that in 1936 increased prosperity, coupled with greater public enlightenment in the matter of food values, will bring about an equally marked unprovement in working-class nutrition* That the problem is not entirely economic is shown by the latest statistical evidence that we, as a nation, spend as much as, or more, on entertainments as on such essential foods as butter and cIIGCSG. The British press lias given wide attention to statements regarding the New Zealand trade by Mr H. E. Davis, London manager of the New Zealand Daily Board, on liis return from the Dominion two days ago. “The present improved prices ior meat and dairy produce will enable New Zealand, wlio is already Britain’s best customer, to buy much greater quantities of British goods,” said Mr Davis. “Even during tlie worst years of the depression, the New Zealand people have never wavered from their preference for British goods. Better produce prices, though not yet at an economic level, have encouraged Dominion farmers to buy more, and business people to renew their stocks. Reviving capital expansion, and the feeling that the improved price level is not merely temporary, point to a healthy increase in our demand for British manufactures of all descriptions.

MOTOR CARS AND SHIPPING

“A gratifying feature of New Zealand’s import trade is the increased number of British cars now to be seen oil the Dominion’s roads. New Zealand’s purchases of British goods during the first eleven months of this year increased by about £2,000,000, or 18 per cent., over tile same period of 1934; and, of this increase, British motor imports contributed nearly one-third. ‘'British shipping companies, who carry New Zealand’s inward and outward trade, are showing their confidence in the Dominion’s future by continuing to order new cargo liners from British shipyards for the carriage to these shores of New Zealand lamb, butter and cheese, which form an increasingly important contribution to Britain’s food supplies.”

NEWCASTLE CAMPAIGN SUCCESS

The Dairy Board’s sales campaign in Newcastle-on-Tyne has, meanwhile, been a record success. Visitors to the New Zealand reciprocal trade shop and exhibition there have averaged 4,000 a day, and during the first week 8,000 samples °t -Dominion butter and cheese were sold. lhe Board’s appeal to Tynesiders to support New Zealand produce in return for recent Dominion shipping and other contracts which had gone to. Newcastle has been, as was expected, more effective. New Zealand’s case was, of course, greatly strengthened by the message of good wishes sent to the Board by Mr Malcolm MacDonald, the new Secretary or the Dominions, who referred to the building of New Zealand foodships, and urged lynesiders to support the Em. pire s most British Dominion.