Some British Work on Nutrition

Abstract

NUTRITION is the theme of vol. 2, Nos. 10 and 11 of the British Medical Bulletin, The issue opens with an article on nutritional science in medicine by Sir Edward Mellanby. Sir Edward pleads for an international agreement on the optimum composition of bread and other cereal foods which form such a large proportion of the normal diet. The Health Section of the League of Nations has prepared the way for this kind of agreement by working out the international standardization of vitamins and by setting up standards of nutrition in terms of common foods. Discussing bread, Sir Edward says that British men of science consider that it should be made of flour containing as much of the wheat grain as can be physiologically absorbed, that is to say, the whole grain except the outer coarse bran; some North American workers, on the other hand, favour the old type of low-extraction, and white flour with the addition of vitamins known to be present in the wheat grain. The health of the consumer, said Sir Edward, and not the milling or other interests concerned, should control the composition of bread.