PIGS AND POTATOES
Sul,—In the August 16th leading article " Facts about Famine " you claim that " potatoes eaten as vegetables provide much more nutrition than when converted into pig flesh." Made in this way the statement is I feel, open to considerable criticism. If nutrition means food or nourishment, the statement is :rot correct. There are several essential ingredients in food, and its calory, or energy, value is only one of them. Starchy foods, rich in calories, cannot replace proteins. Under certain conditions they can produce fat in the animal (or human) body, yet a dietary entirely free of fats in time produces a longing for them such as was experienced in the last war. It is only when the supply of proteins, fats, and offals are adequate for the whole mixed population, containing children and adolescents as well is fighters and labourers, that it is true to say that potatoes provide more food eaten direct than converted into pig flesh. It would be disas- trous if the essential nature of meat, fats and the nuclear proteins of some offals were to be ignored.—Yours, &c., ALEC HOBSON, Secretary, The Small Pig Keepers' Council.
Victoria House, Southampton Row, London, W.C. z.
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