Tuesday, May 19, 2020

COVICTORY UPDATE & The Post War Legacy of Nutrition

May 8, 2020

While deciding what to eat during your day you may have a number of considerations. 
How much time do I have? Do I have to make something? Do I have to buy something? 
You may also consider the purpose or the value of the food you eat.
Will this give me energy? Will this make me feel full?Is this good for me to eat? Is this bad for me to eat? 

But who tells you what is good food and what is bad food?
Nutritionists and Food Scientists of course. Or is it the politicians? Your friends? Or do you take your food choices based on what is told to you by athletes, celebrities, or what is posted on social media? The power and control over what we decide to eat, what we have access to eat, and how we value food is a consequence of the enduring legacy of nutrition and food science that grew out of World War II.
As I mentioned before, wartime nutritionists in Britain actually argued that bacon be added as a staple of the ration to add flavour to foods, even though energy inefficient. When Britain entered the war in 1939 the government had not yet implemented a wide scale rationing system. In contrast, Germany had begun a nationwide ration by August 1939. When Britain did begin to impose rationing, it repeated a system from World War I, which unlike Germany - had no reference to nutritional advice as to what should be part of the national diet. The Ministry of Health and Ministry of Food simply reflected what was available. As a result there was no guarantee of a balanced diet, and many food alternatives were made available due to the restrictive measures on imports.



Processed foods were essential to save shipping space, which also led to some of the most unpleasant wartime foods to eat. Every four weeks each British household was entitled to a packet of dried egg. "The very worst breakfast ... was a two inch block of hard scrambled egg oozing with water ... and the TASTE - ugh!"

Processed 'cheese' in a tube was described as, "a soapy wartime product with no consistency and poor keeping quality, unfit to eat raw."
"[T]owards the end of the war dried banana powder appeared but we all thought it was disgusting. It became a joke that if we children were naughty we'd be made to eat a spoonful of it."
Condensed milk was however very much sought after. Tins of condensed milk became a useful commodity for barter between soldiers and civilians.


Canada's Food Guide
Today, the access to nutrition is widely available to most people. If you can get an internet connection you can access Canada's Food Guide which tells you what to eat. Health and Nutrition are part of the Ontario curriculum taught in schools across the province. Or you can read the Nutrition Facts label on most of your food containers and you will know what you are eating. Mostly.
What you may notice when you examine those labels are the vitamins and minerals contained in that food, some of which does not occur there naturally. Fortified foods are an example of the influence nutritionists had on food during World War II. During the war, Britain was consuming huge quantities of bread (1.8 kilograms a week 1939-1945). However, white bread made from wheat imported from the USA was very low in nutritional value. The extraction process removes a lot of wheat germ, where the vitamins, iron and protein are. In contrast, wholemeal bread is more nutritious, but it would go stale faster, and generally people did not like it as much as the white bread loaves. By 1942 white bread was outlawed in Britain due to the shipping crisis, and the dreaded beige 'National Loaf' became the staple of the British war diet. But it doesn't end there, for it was discovered that phytic acid in wholemeal flour hinders the body's ability to intake calcium. As dairy products were also rationed, 120 grams of calcium was added to every 100g of wheat flour to increase calcium intake. Many other foods took on added vitamins, such as fortified margarine with Vitamins A and D. 
With the Victory Garden plots throughout Britain, potatoes which are high in Vitamin C, and the greater intake of fresh vegetables due to the 'dig for victory' campaign helped to give the British people healthier diets.

But how did this change after the end of the war in Europe? While Britain had enjoyed its bread during the war, in 1946 bread was rationed for the first time and a special system was introduced to control the sale of potatoes. The two unrestricted food sources that the Ministry of Food had made a principle of allowing in unlimited quantities were now restricted to the British people. After the war the amount of fat and meat in the national diet fell and the average calorie consumption dropped to 2,300 - which was about two-thirds of American post-war consumption.
Hershey's Chocolate Fuel for Victory
While not all countries had the plenty of the USA, around the globe diets based on nutritional knowledge improved. In Canada with a raise in worker's wages increased the consumption quantities of proteins, iron, and calcium. When the government discovered a lacking in Vitamin C, oranges and grapefruits were imported from the United States at great expense. Canadian workers continued to do their part for the post-war European states. Between 1946-1947 Canadian meat processors produced canned, pastes, and meat spreads as well as blood sausage for Europe. Mechanization of the prairie provinces also freed up 40,000 draught horses which were sent to farmers in Czechoslovakia, France and Poland.

Britain and the Dominions ended up at war's end with healthier populations who had also fostered a healthy expectation of their governments be responsible for the health and the feeding of its people. The position of food scientists and nutritionists also saw their positions elevated in the public and government sectors, resulting in the power to influence food choices and the dictating of good and bad foods.

Source Material

Lizzie Collingham, The Taste of War: World War II and The Battle for Food. New York, Penguin Books: 2013.

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