PROPER FOOD

Waikato Independent, Volume XXV, Issue 2453, 31 March 1925, Page 7

PROPER FOOD

LECTURE BY DR THACKER

Tho importance of a proper food diet, as a prevention of cancer and other diseases was- stressed by Dr 11. T. J. Thacker, of Christchurch, in a lecture delivered under the auspices of the New Zealand Food Reform and Anti-Cancer League at Auckland recently.

Tho Mayor, Sir James Gunson, presided over a large and enthusiastic attendance.

Dr Thacker, who was introduced by the chairman as a leader of Dominion thought in connection with food reform, dwelt on the danger of an enervated condition of the body causing cancer and allied diseases. When the body was in an unhealthy and enervated state it was liable to succumb to catarrh or any disease without resistance. Enervation was chiefly due to over-eating, or eating unsuited and in many cases poisonous foods.

Ho recommended what he termed “live” foods, or foods that contained vitainines, such as milk, butter, cheese, fruits and vegetables. As regards fruits, he mentioned the apple, which he described as a perfect food, charged, it had been proved, with electricity, and tho citrus'fruits, such as oranges, lemons and grapefruit, which should form a most important clement in the diet of young children.. Among vegetables, he mentioned lettuce, beans, peas and raw carrots. He compared the average European with the Maori as he was before the white man came. Their diet was fresh and sundried furit, dried shark, which contained one of the most wonderful of foods, namely, cod-liver oil, fern roots, karaka berries and native cabbage, and there were no greater fighters, athletes and human being on the earth to-dav than the best of the Maoris.

It was significant that infantile paralysis epidemic came during the stone fruit season, called by the old nurses the “plum season.' 5 ’ Although he did not attribute infantile paralysis to stone fruit, he pointed out that children often became enervated through eating unwashed or cooked fruit, and were liable, in such a condition, to catch anything:

Dr Thacker advocated the eating of wholemeal bread, or barley and rye bread. White bread, he said, was deprived of vitamines or the natural oil of the wheat. In all cases, bread should be delivered in sealed paper parcels.,;. ,Thc three worst foods, in his opinjoiip’.were white flour, white sugar and gassy drinks. If drinks were mixed, they should be taken with water and not with gaseous liquids. He also condemned the use of preservatives. Ninety per cent of the peoples’ food, he declared, was either tinned, potted, dried or dehydrated, and he disagreed that presenvatives did no' harm. Speaking of the inaccessibility of fresh fruit supplies, Dr Thacker said that if three large steamers, insulated for tho carriage of fruit, were placed in the Island service, oranges would

probably be obtainable at three or four dozen for .1/, instead of three or

four oranges for 1/. The fruit being imported to-day consisted of bananas picked, 'absolutely green and ripened 11. the. Dominion, and half-ripe oranges, icither of which were the best, from the health point of view. <• Dr Thacker also spoke of the danger of flies, mosquitoes and pet dogs and cats when kept indoors.

The following resolution was carried on the motion of Dr G. S. Share: “As the rational determination of our natural tjh'ct is of vital importance to the preservation, longevity and the good health of our nation, the whole question of food supplies,bo considered by a Royal Cominision or by a committee, set up by the Government anti formed by one or two recognised food experts representing the milling industry and one or two practical' physicians, and their conclusions be given wide publicity by the Dominion press.”