World Aspects of Nutrition—Part I
Abstract
World Aspects of Nutrition—Part I SAGE Publications, Inc.1947DOI: 10.1177/001789694700500104 H.E.Magee Ministry of Health THE world food situation is at present passing through a phase of shortage which is dominated by the need for energy-giving foods, and two matters emerge from this as of supreme importance-how can we obtain from the soil the maximum amount of energy-giving food in the form most suitable for human consumption, and what is the minimum amount of food on which the human body can subsist? In the first place, we have to answer the question whether it is generally more profitable to obtain our energy in the form of animal foods or in the form of vegetable foods. This question, fortunately, is not difficult to answer. It is, in fact, physiologically impossible for an animal to convert all the energy it consumes in its diet into animal foods which can be used for human consumption. This principle is not so important when we are dealing with feeds, grass, for example, which cannot be consumed by man, but it becomes supremely important for foods, such as wheat, which are consumed by man and farm animals alike. In the conversion of vegetable foods, whatever they