HOME HEALTH GUIDE

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 72, Issue 6243, 17 June 1946, Page 6

HOME HEALTH GUIDE

VARYING THE DIET (By the Department of Health) There is a general idea in our community that the harder the work one does the more meat and,, bread and butter one needs. It is perfectly true that the more muscular work we do the more energy foods we require—more fat, more bread, more cereal. More protein there must be too, to keep the diet balanced, and to provide the extra fat needed. In practice our heavy workers have been too limited in supplying their extra needs to more meat and more bread. They could widen the range of their extra energy supplies with improvement in their health—bacon, oatmeal, more potatoes instead of so much bread, and more milk. Let us look at the diet required by an office worker and that needed by a’ bush-feller, and see how the extra energy needs of the latter should be met. The white collar man should have 1 pint of milk daily, the bush worker li pints; one ounce of cheese a day for the desk man, two qunces for heavy manual work; of meat 4 ozs- is plenty for the former, but the later requires over twice as much and will need to eke out his ration with rabbit, or peas, beans, and lentils served with his meat; Pjoth require an egg a day and if they can’t get this should use peas and beans in the diet on eggless days. The office worker requires about 7 ozs. potato, the bush worker at least twice this, with a good sized helping of carrot as well; green vegetables, 3 to 4 ozs. for the one, becomes double that for the other. Each needs about the same amount of fruit—preferably one citrus type and one other each day. The bush worker needs the little extra butter allowed him in his ration, and he needs more fat, which he’ll get from his extra meat, or from suet puddings, or bacon. Both types of worker ought to have part of their bread wholemeal; 8 ozs. of bread for the office man becomes up to 20 ozs. in the bush-feller. The latter needs 2 ozs. of oatmeal against one for the office man.