Abstract
THE statistics of our national food supply, in so far as they have been available, have hitherto comprised no more than bald statements as to the amount available of this or that marketable foodstuff. We have been told how much meat, home-killed or imported, has been upon the market, how much wheat, potatoes, etc., but no one has as yet taken the trouble to determine the actual nutritional value of the food supply we have to rely upon. Without such knowledge it is impossible properly to appraise the national position, or determine whether we have a safe margin upon which to draw when retrenchment is called for. The truth, as Prof. W. H. Thompson points out in the very timely study before us, is that we are in such matters a happy-go-lucky people, and leave the nation's affairs too implicitly in the hands of our legislators and administrators without insisting that business or scientific knowledge shall be sufficiently taken into account. So far as it is possible to do so Prof. Thompson has now given us othe information required, and the preparation of his paper must have cost him much labour. He tells us how much protein, how much fat and carbohydrate, and how many calories of food energy are available for the nutrition of Great Britain as a whole. His survey of the subject has been made independently, without reference to previous investigations.
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References
œThe Food Value of Great Britain's Food Supply. By Prof. W. H. Thompson. Reprinted from the Economic Proceedings of the Royal Dublin Society, Dublin. (Dublin: Royal Dublin Society; London: Williams and Norgate.) Price 2s.
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National Food Supply and Nutritional Value 1 . Nature 97, 231–232 (1916). https://doi.org/10.1038/097231a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/097231a0