CHOICE OF DIET

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LII, Issue 17153, 1 October 1926, Page 12

CHOICE OF DIET

THE IMPORTANT VITAMINS. ' (By Walter M. Gallichan, the well-knotvn food expert). The discovery of a certain property or quality in several kinds of food apart from the simple nutritive substances, is proving invaluable in the prevention and cure of illness. Vitamin is the vital principle in diet, and without minute quantities of it mankind would disappear. Vitamin deficiency is the cause of serious diseases in human beings. If lard were the only fat substanco eaten by a child undergrowth and informed hones would result. Butter, yolk of egg, and cod-liver oil are rich in Vitamin A, which exists also in milk, animal fats, and, to a less extent, in green vegetables and wholemeal flour. Vitamin B is present in yeast, wholegrain flour, dried peas and beans, oatmeal and potatoes, but is absent from white flour, cornflour, tapioca, and sugar. RAW VEGETABLES. Vitamin C is found in some fruits, 'but not in the dry or bottled states. The best fresh fruits and vegetables for supplying this vitamin are oranges, lemons, tomatoes, lettuce, crees, endive, swede turnips, cabbage, spinach, and carrots. To obtain the largest proportion of this vitamin vegetables should be eaten raw, but green vegetables, if not over-boiled, and if soda is not added to the water, retain some of it. It is necessary to cut a variety of foods in order to maintain the vitamin balance in diet. If there is enough milk, cheese, and eggs in the dietary meat is not essential, but the use oi vegetables and fruit is imperative. Foods that are poorly provided with the vitamins undoubtedly nourish nobody, bub they must be combined with foods rich in tlie protective and stimulating vitamins. Various diseases of the digestive and nervous system and the skin can be kept at 'bay by eating the vitamin-containing foods, and there is reason for believing that the general usci of wholemeal flour would supply a sufficient proportion of Vitamin B. The value of Vitamin*._A, found in some of the fats, is very notable in the prevention of diseases of thei lungs and eyes, and influenza would be lessened if we ate more fresh fruit and green vegetables in winter.