MARGARINE

Waikato Independent, Volume XX, Issue 2317, 12 October 1920, Page 5

MARGARINE

EQUAL IN FOOD VALUE TO BUTTEE OP ADULTS

OUR HEALTH OFFICER SAYS SO.

In view of the present scarcity and high price of butter, it is interesting to have the following statement by Dr M’Kibbin, district health officer, as To the use of margerine and its food value; The position here just now suggests consideration of the amendment of the margerine regulations under the Sale of Food and Drugs Act, (New Zealand), which prohibit the addition of coloring matter or any other substance save salt to margerine. The article produced here is white in color, and unattractive for table use.

Good oleo-margerine is of equal food value to butter for adults.

As one item in the daily diet it lacks only an accessory food factor, vitamlne, present in cream, and essential for the growth of infants and young children. The English Margarine Act, 1887, and amendments, 1889, permit the addition of harmless vegetable coloring matter, and not more-than 10 per cent, of butter fat to margerine. Nowadays it is made almost exclusively form vegetable oils, and, when properly prepared, provides not only a food of equal value to butter, but equally palatable, and, in fact, almost indistinguishable by the ordinary consumer. The pre-war price in England was about Is per lb retail,-and is now Is 6d or Is 9d It is rare to see butter on the table there, the price being form 4s to 5s per lb and the ration allowance pe* week.

The butter producer cannot very well be deprived from getting world parity price for his butter fat ;but if good oleo-margarine can be produced here, or even importel at a considerably lower figure, its introduction would help to solve the present high cost of living problem. Adults could use it for table and cook ing purposes, and cream in some form be assured to the children.

I am proposing the use, not of a new food, but a food that the people of other countries have been using for years. —“Dunedin Star.”