The Nation's Food

Nine hundred doctors, dietitians, chemists, industrialists met in Washington last week to tackle an immense problem: the U.S. diet. As a whole the U.S. today is probably better fed than any other nation, but at least 45,000,000 people in the U.S. are undernourished. Another 50,000,000 people drag along on four cylinders, but cut a good five years off their work-life by not eating the right foods. Of the 35,000,000 remaining, quite a few suffer from overeating.

To work out plans to improve this situation was the job of the first National Nutrition Conference. Chairman: Federal Security Administrator Paul Vories McNutt. Fellow laborers: Vice President Henry Agard Wallace, who has an expert's knowledge of vitamins. Secretary of Agriculture Claude Raymond Wickard, Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, Nutritionists Russell Morse Wilder of the Mayo Clinic and Henry Clapp Sherman of Columbia University.

Model Menu. For good health, the Conference urged citizens of all ages to eat the following foods every day: "One pint of milk for an adult and more for a child; a serving of meat . . . one egg or some suitable substitute such as navy beans; two vegetables, one of which should be green or yellow; two fruits, one of which should be rich in vitamin C, found abundantly in citrus fruits and tomatoes; breads, flour and cereal, most or preferably all whole grain or enriched; some butter or oleomargarine with vitamin A added; other foods to satisfy the appetite." With such a diet, added vitamins are not necessary, except vitamin D (in cod-liver oil) for babies and for older children and adults during winter months. According to most dietitians, a basic diet costs at least 24-c- a day per person. But for the 45,000,000 undernourished. 5-c- a meal is all they can spend.

A necessary vitamin is B--a group of at least half a dozen different chemicals. Most radio listeners, said Vice President Wallace last week, know B as the "oomph vitamin, that puts the sparkle in your eye, the spring in your step, the zip in your soul!" Vitamin B is found abundantly in whole wheat and coarse grains, is appreciably reduced in the milling process, when the rough coat is "scalped"' from wheat kernel.

Most of the big flour mills and bakers have recently agreed to put vitamin B1; nicotinic acid and iron back into their flour and bread. But experts last week pointed out that such "enriched bread," although a step forward, was not the ideal solution of the problem.

Reasons: 1) sufficient productive capacity for riboflavin, which may be a required ingredient of the new flour, will not be ready for almost a year; 2) enriched flour is not as rich in minerals and vitamins as whole grain; 3) to keep up his vitamin BI requirement from this source alone, a person would have to eat almost a whole loaf of enriched bread every day (of the non-enriched white bread, he would have to eat three to four loaves); 4) the amount of vitamins available to put into bread may just now be seriously curtailed by shipments to Britain; 5) natural flour goes a third of a way longer in breadmaking than refined flour.

Coarse brown bread, the delegates agreed, is still the best source of vitamin B1. but relatively few people want it.

Out of the Earth. According to Secretary of Agriculture Wickard, if everyone in the U.S. ate enough of the right food, we would need to consume "twice as much green vegetables and fruits as we do now . . . 70% more tomatoes and citrus fruits, 35% more eggs, 15% more butter, 20% more milk [to say nothing of meat]."

The Secretary said that he aims to turn over many acres of cotton, tobacco and wheat lands to diversified farming.

Said Mr. Wickard: "Egg production is to be increased sufficiently to supply British needs, and in addition furnish the United States with as many eggs as we ever used in the year of greatest egg consumption in the past. We hope to increase milk production enough to supply Britain's need for milk products, and in addition maintain our own consumption at the level of the past four years. The production of canned tomatoes is to be increased by 50% over that of last year, and the production of all types of dried beans [a fair meat substitute] by 35%."

Two days after the Conference closed, Britain's Food Minister, Lord Woolton, urged U.S. citizens to "do without" some of their milk, cream, cheese, sugar, canned salmon and meat, send them to Britain to relieve "an unhappy and dull diet." Next day, the first shipload of U.S. Lend-Lease food -- eggs, cheese, flour -- arrived safely in England.

Surgeon General Thomas Parran begged farmers to stop throwing "one of the most valuable foods -- dried skim milk" -- to the pigs. In fact, he said, "we have given our livestock the best part of many foods." Other experts urged that more dried eggs be produced, that farm lands be devoted to mass cultivation of vitamin-rich peanuts and soybeans.

Come and Get It? The great problem, delegates agreed, is not producing food --the U.S. produces plenty -- but distribution. Most citizens can eventually be educated to eat the right food, if they can only afford to buy it. Food manufacturers promised last week to help the educational campaign with high-powered advertising -- a cooperation not to be sneezed at, because the advertising of citrus growers, canners and cereal producers has probably done more to improve U.S. dietary habits than all the doctors' urgings.

But one-third of the nation still cannot afford to eat enough good food. About 10,000,000 of the most needy are now reached through the Surplus Marketing Administration, which gives free lunches to school children, provides stamps for free butter, eggs, pork products, fruits, vegetables, flour, cereals. But the number of free foods may soon be curtailed. Even as the delegates talked, newspapers reported that butter had been taken off the Stamp Plan.

For another 30,000,000 citizens who are not on relief but who do not have much money to spend, the food outlook is not bright. Only help for them is to keep prices down; otherwise they too will become a charge on the Government. On the very day on which the first Nutrition Conference opened, the President signed the new crop-loan bill, which will tend to raise prices of flour, pork chops, ham, bacon, other vital foods.

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