Incomes and Changing Diet

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22402, 24 April 1936, Page 6 (Supplement)

Incomes and Changing Diet

BRITISH SCIENTISTS' DISCOVERIES ABOUT FOOD

A GROUP of food manufacturers in England went to the head of a research. laboratory last year, and said: " We want a report on the variations in consumption of our products in different partsi of Great Britain." So the scientists set to work, states a London correspondent. They discovered that the job of finding out what people eat, and how much they spend on food, was so complex that it would be worth while to place all their researches, yielding many new sidelights on the nation's feeding habits, at the disposal of Government departments. The food habits of a nation change from generation to generation. But even to-day, when British people spend £1,075,000,000 a year on food out of a total income of £3,750,000,000 —more than ever before in our history—a diet completely adequate for health is reached at an income level above that of half the population. For there is a curious and unmistakable relationship between what you earn and how you spend it on food. The lower the income the more bread and potatoes figure in the dietary. The higher the income, the more important do milk, eggs, fruit and meat become. We are a nation of meat eaters in Britain, the nation's butchers' bill totalling £29,500,000 a year. Fruit comes next, the total value of thG retail trade :in fruit being £119,000,000. This is a marked post-war development. A hundred years ago we consumed 80 per cent more bread and flour than we do to-day. But now we consume five times as much sugar as in 1835. This is the most striking change in the nation's diet during the past century. Even in the last fifty years there have been many changes ?n food consumption. They include consumption per head oiF bread and potatoes 30 per cent less, of meat 45 per cent more, of sugar 40 per cent more, and of tea and butter 100 per cent more. Since the pre-war years the largest increase

has been in fruit; then vegetables, butter, eggs, cheese and margarine. But the most fascinating feature of the researches of a noted dietitian Sir John Orr, is the effect of right diet on children's growth. Tests were carried out with thousands of boys from council schools, a public school, Christ's Hospital Scheol, and young working lads aged 17. At 13 years of age the boys at Christ's Hospital School are on an average 2.4 inches taller than those of the council schools; at 17 they are 3.8 inches taller than employed lads. Public schoolboys were taller than any other groups. At 17 the average among public schoofboys was two inches taller than the Christ's Hospital average. Sir John is careful to point out that stature is largely determined by heredity. The extent to which a child will attain the limit set by heredity is, however, affected by diet. This is the main conclusion reached by Sir John Orr, and is, incidentally, the clue for improving national health: " The consumption of bread and potatoes is practically uniform throughout the different income level groups. Consumption of milk, eggs, fruit vegetables, meat and fish rises with income. Thus, in the poorest group the average consumption of milk, including tinned milk, is equivalent to 1.8 pints per head per week; in the wealthiest group 5.5 pints. The poorest group consume 1.5 eggs per person weekly; the wealthiest 4.5. The poorest spend 2.4 d on fruit; the wealthiest Is Bd. " To make the diet of the poorer groups," concludes Sir John, " the same as that of the group whose diet is adequate for full health, would involve increases in consumption of milk, eggs, butter, fruit, vegetables and mieat varying from 12 to "25 per cent." One wonders what would be the result of similar investigations in New Zealand. One thing, at least, is certain. Fruit in this country at the present time would be found to be fast becoming a luxury for the rich, nob a food for general consumption.