VATAMINS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 13 May 1938, Page 5

VATAMINS

VITAL FOR GROWING CHILD. Vitamins, vital for the growing child are literally the A-B-C-D of growth nutrition. For health and growth the human body requires at least four different vitamins, two mainly associated with the fatty portions of the diet, and the other two with non-fatty foods. Each of these is classified alphabetically, and only occurs in minute quantities. Vitamin A is particularly important. It enables the body to resist infection, colds, and chest troubles. It is called an anti-infective vitamin. Insufficiency of this accessory food factor is often responsible for serious eye trouble. The mother-source of this vitamin is the yellow pigment, carotene, found in the leaves of green vegetables and in all vegetables and fruits containing yellow and green colourings.

When carotene is embodied in the food eaten by animals it enriches' the fat of the bodies with vitamin A. The milk from cows fed on natural grass is therefore richer in this vitamin than when they are fed on dry feed. Liver, kidney, and heart are all valuable adjuncts to the dietary, because they aro so rich in vitamin A. The oil obtained from fish livers, the much-scorned shark being foremost, then the halibut which is even better than the cod, is strongly advocated for building up tho constitution against chest troubles, the fish obtaining this vitamin from the green seaweeds that constitute their food. Other essential items ip the diet comprise milk, cream, cheese, butter, fatty fish, egg-yolk, green vegetables, yellow vegetables, citrus, and yellow fruits. •

The accessory food factor, vitamin D, is less widely distributed than A, and is not obtained from plant or vegetable life, but is produced in the human body through direct sunlight, and can be obtained ill various forms of concentration in patent “irradiated” products. When there is not enough of this vitamin D, inadequate development of growing bones and teeth — the condition of rickets—may then develop. Vitamin D is called, therefore, the anti-rachitic vitamin.

Cod-liver or halibut oil, together with sufficient sunshine directly shining on the skin at the right times and in right amounts each day, combined with a diet of milk, butter, cheese, eggs, fat and fish, all of which have been well enriched by the violet rays of the sun, are all aids to proper bone and good teeth formation.