Chapter I 



INTRODUCTION 



Research workers are usually so busy piling brick on brick on the edifice of 

 human knowledge that there is never time for them to stand back and 

 survey what has been built and how it has been done. 



Nature, Sept. 20, 1947. 



The war of 1939-45 focused attention on the vital importance of 

 food and nutrition, and showed how vulnerable are the food supplies 

 of a large industrialised nation to enemy attack. The weapon of 

 blockade was used alongside weapons of offence, and precautions 

 against starvation were given the same high priority as air-raid 

 precautions. It was fortunate indeed for this country — the most 

 dependent of all the Western nations on external sources of food 

 supplies — that so much was known concerning the nutritional value 

 of foodstuffs. This knowledge enabled substitutes to be found for 

 foods in short supply ; it enabled a sound rationing system to be 

 built up which, although reducing food intake well below the level 

 considered by nutritionists to be optimal, prevented any serious 

 symptoms of malnutrition developing in the population as a whole, 

 and gave to " priority " classes — children, expectant and nursing 

 mothers and certain types of manual workers — a generous allowance 

 of special foodstuffs to take the additional strain of growth , pregnancy, 

 lactation and heavy work ; it assisted in the development of new 

 methods of preserving and storing foodstuffs to reduce to a minimum 

 the loss of food value ; and it helped to determine what foodstuffs 

 should be selected to ensure the best possible use of the limited shipping 

 space available for bringing imports into this country. 



Although hostilities have now ceased, the importance of the science 

 and technology of nutrition remains as great as ever, for a large pro- 

 portion of the world's population is imderfed. Even in this country 

 we were until recently subsisting on a diet only just adequate for 

 ordinary activity. For some sections of the population, particularly 

 adolescents, it is probably less than adequate. Sir Jack Drummond 

 has stated in a monograph published by the Royal Institute of 

 Chemistry (1948) that adolescents " are often the first among the 

 population to reveal signs of inadequate feeding. In Western Europe 

 in 1940-45 that was true, and it is also true that this ' red light ' is 

 showing here today. Many of these young people who were well 



I I 



