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48
"It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of adequate nutrition in the maintenance of health.
By adequate nutrition I mean the provision of a diet which is not only sufficient in quantity, but which, at
the same time, contains in an assimilable form all the substances necessary for the proper functioning of
every organ and tissue of the body. The science of dietetics is much more complex than it used to be
when we calculated food values in calories alone. It appears that our diet must contain a variety of foods
unless we are to supplement it with the synthetic concentrates which enterprising chemists have now placed
at our disposal.
"But nature provides all that is necessary: the problem is to carry food from the agricultural to the
industrial areas; to preserve it so that there shall be no seasonal scarcity of essentials and to retain all its
nutritive qualities. I think that refrigeration has solved this problem; for nothing is added to the food,
nothing is taken away from it, and its nutritive value is unimpaired.
"The men who have thus made more and better food available for the people of this country have played
a more prominent part in the improvement of the public health than is generally recognised. We hear a
great deal of what has been achieved by sanitation, improved housing, tuberculosis schemes, the medical
inspection of school children, maternity and child welfare work and the National Health Insurance Act, but
unless the people are properly fed all this is as the sounding brass and the tinkling cymbal. The two things of
primary importance to life are good food and good water, a fact which is such a commonplace that we are
apt to forget it in our enthusiasm for social improvements in other directions. We should take care not to
divert into other channels money which ought to be spent on food, and I think we should endeavour to keep
constantly before the public the fact that at all ages adequate nutrition is the first essential to health, and to
educate the people in the choice and preparation of food according to their means. Being well fed does
not mean merely that hunger is appeased or that the palate is pleasurably tickled, but that the needs of the
body are fully supplied. The efficiency of a diet is therefore not to be measured by either the sense of
repletion of the stomach or depletion of the pocket which it engenders.
"We approach the inspection of refrigerated foods first of all with appreciation of the fact that in an
industrial country such as this it is refrigeration which has brought an adequate diet within reach of every
section of the community at all seasons of the year, and secondly with the feeling that refrigeration is the
ideal method of preservation of perishable foods because, as I have already said, it adds nothing, takes
nothing away and does not impair their nutritive value. Consequently we ought not to impose standards
which would react to the disadvantage of refrigeration as compared to other methods of preservation, or
which would tend to make refrigerated foods more expensive. Although, as I shall explain later, the scope
of inspection of imported foods is very limited it is less so in refrigerated products which arrive practically
in their natural state than in goods preserved by canning, drying, pickling or salting, &c. There is perhaps
a tendency, therefore, for legislation to be more specific in regard to refrigerated foods than in regard to
other imported foods. Thus it is at the present moment possible to import into this country either in a can
or salted, meat which would not be admitted if preserved by refrigeration alone. I would not suggest that
our standards in regard to refrigerated foods should be lowered, but I would suggest that we should be at least
as exacting in regard to foods preserved by any other means.
"The law empowers a Medical Officer of Health to seize any food which is diseased or unsound or
unwholesome or unfit for the food of man. Where disease or unsoundness is found, the course of action is
clear and there is no difficulty; indeed, the Medical Officer of Health has no need to seize the goods, they are
almost always voluntarily surrendered. But on the question of unwholesomeness there is scope for argument .
We may not be able to prove that any disturbance of health will result from the consumption of food which
we have classed as unwholesome. However, so long as food is plentiful and cheap in relation to the purchasing
power of the people we should give the benefit of any doubt to the consumer. Then there is the
aesthetic point of view. We may not be able to point to any risk to health, but we may be able to say that
it is objectionable to contemplate the consumption of food from a certain source, or which has been exposed
to certain contamination. Again, in time of plenty we should adopt a very broad interpretation of the
term unwholesome. But if essential articles of food were scarce or dear it would be folly to exchange the
remote possibility of some minor disturbance of health amongst susceptible individuals for the certainty of
widespread malnutrition. Thus because refrigeration has increased enormously the available food supply,
and because its technique has developed to such a pitch of perfection, we are able to demand higher standards
in regard to food hygiene than were practicable formerly. No doubt you will make still further progress,
and we shall follow when we can safely do so, always keeping in mind that nutrition is the basis of health,
and that we must not be responsible for making it difficult for any section of the community to obtain an
ample supply of the essential foods.
"Legislation in regard to food inspection has therefore been adapted to the progress in the development
of the food industry. The first regulations dealing specifically with imported food were the Public Health
(Unsound Food) Regulations, 1908, and the Public Health (Foreign Meat) Regulations, 1908, and Amendment
Regulations, 1909. These were replaced by the Public Health (Imported Food) Regulations, 1925, which
have recently been amended by the Public Health (Imported Food) Amendment Regulations, 1933. No
doubt there will be further amendments in due course.
"Though these Regulations refer to imported food in general, meat receives special attention. Efficient
meat inspection involves ante- and post-mortem examination at the time of slaughter of the animals from
which the meat is derived, for there are diseases which, though obvious in the live animal, are difficult to
detect post-mortem and conversely disease may be detected post-mortem which could not be diagnosed, or
even suspected, ante-mortem. Evidence of disease is most likely to be found in the internal organs, the
lymphatic glands and the serous membranes, and the Inspector in the abbatoir or slaughterhouse will insist
on seeing the internal organs and the carcase at the same time, and he will not allow serous membranes or
lymphatic glands to be removed. It is at once apparent how limited is the scope of the Meat Inspector at
the port of discharge of refrigerated meat. He has no knowledge of the condition of the animals prior to
slaughter, no internal organs are available for his inspection; he has only lymph glands and
serous membranes to guide him, and in some cuts of meat not even these. Moreover, the meat is covered in