August 1950 — Vol. 31, No. 8 — Good Food is Good
Business
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Many a person in Canada is suffering ill
health and poor business just because he doesn't eat the right
food. He does not realize that the happy—go—lucky
stone—age way of eating anything that came handy is not
the thing for this age of refinement.
To get the most out of life in the way of health, success
and happiness, we need to live according to certain rules.
Infinite opportunity is offered us for improvement "in our
diet. We can improve without parading behind every Pied Piper
who pipes a tune to the effect that the mere taking of his
pills will turn us into new men and women.
One wise man said - and we have come upon nothing to deny
it - that ninety per cent of all so—called "stomach trouble"
is due not to any inherent weakness of the organ itself but
to a misunderstanding between the stomach and its owner.
The purpose of this article is to investigate our food needs;
to tell what authorities believe is necessary for body maintenance,
growth and physical effort; and to show how the expenditure
of a little thought can bring about friendly understanding
between a man and his stomach, without a "veto" in a year's
meals.
One principle that applies to everyone is: set your standards
high, even though you can't attain them. It is worth while
trying sincerely, because even a little success will mean
a great deal to you in increasing your resistance to disease
and enhancing your joy in living.
Hunger, Seen and Hidden
An experiment in Minnesota a few years ago, involving thirty—two
volunteers, revealed not only the effect of semi—starvation
on behaviour, intelligence and personality, but the order
in which symptoms developed. First was tiredness, followed
by. muscle soreness, irritability, apathy, sensitivity to
noise, loss of ambition, loss of self—discipline, decrease
in mental alertness and in the ability to concentrate, moodiness
and dizziness.
That was a case of deliberate semi—starvation over
a period of months. More to the point is the result of surveys
made in Canada in 1939 - 1940, reported in an article in the
Canadian Public Health Journal Roughly speaking, only
40 per cent of the people studied were adequately nourished,
40 per cent were in a border—line state, and 20 per cent
were seriously undernourished.
Still more striking is the statement by Dr. L. B. Pert,
Chief of the Nutrition Division of the Department of National
Health and Welfare, to the effect that more children died
in the year 1944 from nutritional deficiency diseases than
from infantile paralysis. To this he added: "...despite the
fact that our present knowledge is sufficient to avoid malnutrition."
No one would suggest that forty per cent of the people in
Canada go around in a perpetual state of hunger, in the ordinary
sense of the word. There is another kind of hunger, the hidden
hunger that lets people pine away, go through life sluggishly,
and finally die before their time, even when they are eating
plenty.
Many of us drag our way through life, suffering all kinds
of ailments that could be avoided by better feeding.
We feel depressed, and blame our woes on creditors, the
family or the boss, when perhaps we suffer from vitamin shortage.
We feel fatigued, out of sorts and listless, due perhaps to
nothing but improper food. Our tables may groan with good
things, and yet we may be starving ourselves through ignorance
and indifference.
We must not deceive ourselves by thinking that poor diets
are confined to low—income groups. It is quite possible
to spend a lot of money on food, and yet not be getting the
food values that lead to health.
Nutrition in Canada
Canadian diets can be improved. An effort to better them
was started in 1939 by the Canadian Council on Nutrition,
resulting in a guide called Canada's Food Rules. Here
are the daily requirements as revised in 1950:
1. Milk - Children up to about 12 years, at least
one pint; adolescents, at least 1½
pints; adults, at least ½ pint.
2. Fruit. - One serving of citrus fruit or tomatoes
or their juices, and one serving of
other fruit.
3. Vegetables - At least one serving of potatoes, and
at least two servings of other vege—
tables, preferably leafy, green or
yellow, and frequently raw.
4. Cereals and bread - One serving of whole grain cereal
and at least four slices of bread with
butter or fortified margarine.
5. Meat and Fish - One serving of meat, fish, poultry or
meat alternatives such as dried beans,
eggs or cheese. Use liver frequently.
In addition, the rules suggest that eggs and cheese should
be served at least three times a week. Vitamin D (which is
obtained in cod liver oil, eggs, specially fortified foods,
and concentrated in tablets) is essential for all growing
persons and expectant and nursing mothers. The daily intake
should add up to at least 400 International Units, equal to
approximately a teaspoonful of cod liver oil.
The rules are not designed for a quick campaign, but are
part of a long—term programme. They are not intended
for spasmodic "drives" but for day—in, day—out observance,
and the food should be spread over at least three meals a
day.
One reason why we are not better than we are nutritionwise
is that education has not yet found a way of teaching us so
that the lessons "take". Unless we are rickety or too thin
or too fat or too something else we don't think the rules
of eating are meant for us. We thrust aside salads, disdain
fruit, refuse whole grain cereals, and don't touch milk except
in our tea or coffee.
The solution in both school and public must include these:
(a) making educational efforts more interesting by giving
practical evidence; (b) explaining nutrition in terms of research
discoveries rather than mere lists of foods that "should be
eaten"; and (c) combining educational value with direct action
through school lunches or supplements.
The Right Foods
Food may be divided into three main classes: bodybuilding
foods, to make good your wear—and—tear; protective
foods, to ward off disease; and energy foods, to give you
power and warmth.
Good nutrition involves calories (energy), protein (growth,
maintenance and repair), vitamins and minerals (protection),
and "balance".
It is not necessary to carry a set of scales and a measuring
glass to the dining table, but only to apply common sense
to a knowledge of the qualities and attributes of foodstuffs.
The amounts of individual items vary from time to time in
the same person, depending on many external and internal factors
such as age, sex and activity. No figure in any general table
should be taken as an absolute value to assess your dietary,
requirements. These general tables are only approximate. Their
use calls for good sense and interpretation in keeping with
your special environment and requirements.
Take calories for example. A published table may say that
the average man needs 2250 calories a day. But if he is sitting
at home doing nothing he may need only 2000, while if he is
out chopping down trees he may need 4000. Another authority
may give the amounts in calories per pound of body weight
for various ages: here, again, caution is needed to interpret
the figures in terms of what is being done with the body.
The business executive, by the way, will be disappointed
on learning how few calories are required for brain work.
Dr. G. A. Dorsey says in his interesting book Why We Behave
Like Human Beings: "With the brain actively at work so
little extra energy is consumed that the calorimeter cannot
find it." On the other hand, a jazz—band drummer uses
up 7200 calories daily. A nutritionist, commenting on this
figure which was given in a British publication, remarked:
"He must have drummed continuously day and night."
Cooking is Important
Besides making sure that the range of food is such as to
provide the essentials of good diet, we need to watch the
cooking to ensure that the goodness is kept there. A sensible
word of advice was given by Joseph of the Savoy: "Make the
good things as plain as possible. God gave a special flavour
to everything. Respect it. Do not destroy it by messing."
The extent to which good food can be converted into valueless
food by unintelligent preparation is not generally appreciated.
It can make the difference between health and malnutrition.
Everyone knows that leafy vegetables are among the essentials
of a good diet, but their goodness too often goes down the
drain with the cooking water. The boiled fibrous tissue we
eat has lost not only its savour but much of its essential
chemical matter. Mineral salts have been boiled out. Water
soluble vitamins have been lost.
An investigation made at the request of the Government of
Newfoundland by nine Canadian, British and United States doctors
resulted in significant findings.
The first of two diet and health surveys, five years apart,
revealed that the average person in Newfoundland showed no
fewer than eight symptoms of deficiency diseases; malnutrition
in early life resulted in three out of four dying before the
age" of 40; only one person in ten reached 60; the overall
death rate was twenty per cent higher than in Ontario, and
the death rate among children was two to three times the North
American average.
The investigators were puzzled at first, because the diet,
while low in eggs, milk, citrus fruit and tomatoes, was good
enough in fish, potatoes, cabbage, bread and cereals to justify
a higher record of health.
An article in Saturday Night gives the explanation:
"It was not until the investigators went into the kitchens
of the Islanders that they discovered that they were almost
literally committing suicide by their cooking methods." Potatoes, .for
example, were boiled after peeling, losing 50 per cent of
their ascorbic acid; they were cooked in the morning and held
until night, by which process they lost all their ascorbic
acid. Cabbages were boiled for one to two hours, losing 90
per cent of their ascorbic acid.
The second survey showed great improvement, reported by
Dr. Russell M. Wilder of the Mayo Foundation last December.
The government took steps recommended by the doctors. Flour
was enriched with thiamine, niacin, riboflavin, iron and calcium,
and margarine was fortified with vitamin A. Canned milk was
imported. Orange juice was made available to pregnant women
and nursing mothers. Schoolchildren received milk and cod
liver oil.
The result of these diet changes, all in forms which could
not be ruined by bad cooking, was immense. The death rate
fell from 12.1 to 10.5 per thousand; deaths from tuberculosis
fell sharply, from 135 per 100,000 to 101; infant mortality
dropped in three years from 102.3 per 1,000 to 61; and - significant
this - the children who had been "like little wooden Indians"
on the first visit "were now noisy, rambunctious and inquisitive,
as children ought to be."
It should not be thought that Newfoundland alone is suffering
malnutrition due to poor cooking. Similar findings have been
made by the University of Pennsylvania, which studies hundreds
of upper—income Philadelphia families.
Besides good selection of basic foods and good cooking,
variety is needed. Science can analyse a pork chop, and say
how much of it is protein, but science cannot fathom a man's
wish for a pork chop and say how much of it is true hunger,
how much fancy, and how much a love of a beautiful—looking
meal.
The safest guide for the food provider is variety of diet
and variety in cooking. Peanuts are good food, and there are
105 different ways of turning them into tasty dishes. Cheese
is a concentrated form of the most important nutritive elements
of milk, and in a recent book review of the New York Times
there was advertised a book containing 250 unusual recipes
for cheese cookery, from hors d'oeuvres to dessert.
Eat What You Need
Every age group has its own special requirements, and all
are important.
Young people up to twenty years need the right kind of food
to live, to grow to maturity, and to acquire education. The
combined effect of strenuous athletics, school and home study,
the tension of examinations, and the general upset feeling
of adolescence, all combine to put stress upon the body machinery.
Lunch is important, and very often an after—school snack
(such as a peanut butter sandwich, and a glass of milk) would
be a lifesaver.
As the years pass, and we slow down to a decorous pace,
the energy of youth is not needed, and we don't exert the
muscular strength of middle life. We do need reasonable amounts
of protein, and we should be satisfied with foods that our
experience has taught us are easily digested. Milk, fruits
and vegetables in full amounts continue to be important.
Women may lay down the nutritional law in their homes, but
they are often guilty of breaking their own rules.
Men emerge from some surveys with a better record than women,
except that they are deficient in vitamin C because they brush
aside "rabbit foods" like salads and raw vegetables. On the
whole, men eat a good lunch, while women just nibble at something.
Men make up in sheer volume of food for their carelessness
in selection. A survey in Philadelphia among families in the
$2,500 and more income range found that four out of five married
women were undernourished.
About Eating Too Much
"More" is not necessarily "better" in nutrition. A Chinese
poet remarked: "A well—filled stomach is indeed a great
thing: all else is luxury." It may be also a pain.
An occasional feast matters little; it is the continual
daily overloading ourselves with food that is so injurious
and depressing. If you want to eat like a ditch—digger
you must exercise like a ditch—digger.
Overweight is a problem of great importance. It shortens
life, decreases efficiency and increases liability to many
diseases. A survey in Canada, reported by Dr. Pett in 1948,
revealed that "rarely have we encountered 'overweight' in
less than ten per cent of the adults in a given area."
There's no use in asking a doctor "is lobster Newburg fattening?"
Such a question leaves out the important factors. It does
not tell the doctor how much lobster Newburg there is, how
often it is eaten, the amount of exercise, or the caloric
requirement of the consumer. Every food that has any food
value at all is fattening if taken in large enough quantities.
Medical men are opposed to all violent attempts at weight
reduction. Such methods as amount to starvation for all practical
purposes often do permanent damage to the liver or heart.
The use of drugs is unwise, except under the care of a physician.
The simplest way to reduce is to cut down the amount of
fattening food eaten at each meal, and this may be done, under
competent advice, without hardship. Don't try to get rid in
three weeks of the excess poundage you spent ten years accumulating.
Protective Foods
The average diet of all classes in western countries has
tended in recent years to include larger amounts of the protective
foods. Cereals and other energy—bearing foods retain
the important place they have always had, but modern science
attaches special importance to the need for supplementing
these diets with foods rich in vitamins and mineral salts.
Vitamins didn't trouble anyone up until 1906, because they
had not been discovered. Then the great English physiologist,
Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins, of Cambridge, turned the attention
of the world to the subject of diet deficiencies. He found
that the most carefully balanced diet of carbohydrates, fats
and proteins is insufficient for health if it lacks the tiny
traces of those complex chemical substances that we call vitamins.
Adequate amounts of vitamins can be obtained, for most people
so far as present knowledge goes, by eating a variety of the
common foods. Persons vary in the amounts of vitamins needed,
and in some cases the use of concentrates and synthetic vitamins
at the hands of a physician offers advantages. For example,
the acute symptoms of pellagra can often be cured in 48 hours
by large doses of niacin supplemented by yeast, while it might
take as long as 48 days to effect a cure with an ordinary
good diet. It is wise to obtain the advice of your physician
to make sure you get the vitamins you need.
Cost of Good Diet
We must emphasize the possibility of obtaining a good diet
for little expenditure. There are many pamphlets issued by
departments of health to show how this is done.
Commodities should be judged by their intrinsic soundness
and food value rather than by glamorous packaging. Inefficient
and impulsive buying may prevent your family from obtaining
proper food value for the money expended. Lack of interest,
lack of knowledge of elementary facts about the nutrient values
of individual foods, and lack of skill in cooking: all these
may contribute to malnutrition.
If the household income is above the poverty level, it is
possible for the housewife to lay out her food budget in a
variety of ways, and by careful buying to obtain a satisfactory
diet at moderate cost. Those who have gardens can plan their
production with definite nutritional improvements in mind.
If it comes to a choice between food and some other commodity
of household use, it is ridiculous even to consider reducing
the diet by skimping or cutting it.
The Montreal Diet Dispensary, under direction of Miss Nan
Garvock, issues a Minimum Adequate Weekly Food List which
gives complete food requirements for a family made up of two
adults, two boys 6 and 12, and a girl 10. Since Montreal has
the highest cost of living index of all Canadian cities, the
cost will be no higher elsewhere. The copy we have before
us, dated May, gives the total cost for a week, $18.41, and
the cost per person per day, 53 cents. Here is a skeleton
of the plan: a detailed sheet will be sent by Miss Garvock
on request, together with a sample family menu pattern.
Milk, 21 quarts; 1 pound cheese; 1½ dozen eggs; 3 dozen
oranges; 1 tin (28 ounces) tomatoes; 2 pounds dried fruit;
5 pounds other fruit (apples, bananas, plums, pears); 20 pounds
potatoes; 4½ pounds green vegetables; 13½ pounds root vegetables;
4 pounds whole grain cereals; 11 (24 ounce) loaves of bread
(whole wheat or Canada approved); 2½ pounds refined cereals
(flour, macaroni, rice, cornmeal); 6 pounds of meat; 1 pound
fish; 1 pound liver, kidney or heart; 1 pound dried vegetables
(green peas, navy beans); 2 pounds butter; 1½ pounds other
fats (lard, peanut butter); 2½ pounds sugar; 1¾ pounds other
sweets (molasses, dark honey, jam); and cod liver oil (for
children.)
A Personal Inventory
It is time to check up. Are you well nourished, or do you
need to eat better?
There are two easy ways to find out. Ask your family doctor,
who knows your health history and environment. Or write to
your provincial health department for what is called a Score
Sheet for Each Day's Meals. When you have marked this
for two or three weeks you will have a good idea as to whether
you are starving yourself of some needed food - and this may
go far toward explaining your fatigue and other symptoms of
less—than—the—best—possible health.
Eating a special diet and cultivating a relaxed attitude
will no more remove troublesome gallstones than they will
put back in place a dislocated joint, but they can perform
helpful wonders when intelligently applied. Moderation, thoughtfulness,
variety and regularity are the key notes in diet, and if they
are not observed - if you eat hugely of the wrong things,
or neglect to think of the necessary things, or alternate
starvation (like skipping breakfast) with surfeit - then you
must expect your digestive system to act up, and you may be
surprised by the variety of disturbances it can cause.
Digestion, even of the best food, is interfered with by
emotional stress. One should be in the best possible humour
when eating. When one is angry, the stomach stops its activity.
When one is afraid, the digestive functions are paralysed.
Is This Your Picture?
You got up this morning, wolfed your tiny breakfast, raced
for a train or street car, scanned the alarming newspaper
headlines, and arrived at your office frustrated by world
events and tense with worry over your own problems. New troubles
came in your morning mail and by telephone. Other people -your
customers and your associates - were worried, and you had
to pour enthusiasm and hope into them. By eleven o'clock you
had used up a day's reserve of energy. You went to lunch.
You ate too fast and too much, and never for one minute stopped
thinking and talking business or worrisome politics or alarming
world situations. By three o'clock you were loggy from over—eating
in digestion—inhibiting circumstances. By four o clock
you were punch drunk. You staggered home, wondering whether
the effort was worthwhile, and sat down to another hearty
meal. Even if yon loaf around all evening and go to bed early,
tomorrow will be just another such day. That is, unless in
reading pieces like this you decide such a life isn't worth
living and that you will do something about it.
The "something" that needs doing is easy once you get started.
Check your diet, get some fresh air regularly, take some exercise,
and learn to relax. These are the four legs on which good
health and energy rest.
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