Depressing Diet

Have starch-stuffed Britons come out of the war as physically fit as nutrition experts say? Many Britons doubt it. Last week, in the London Observer, common-sensical Air Chief Marshal Sir Philip Joubert quarreled with nutrition statistics that "confuse existence with life." He argued: "One can exist on the fruitless, starchy, dismal diet of Britain today, but what matters is liveliness, vitality, vigor. We are being called on to make a tremendous industrial effort. . . . That needs live folk, not mere existers."

More specific was the charge of Dr. Elizabeth Gourlay, a London school doctor. Said she: "We have never had so many multiple boils, sores, rashes and scurvy. . . . With regard to vitamin C, we have been reduced to an almost 18th-Century plight."

The sharpest statement came from D. R. Nicholson, who came to the U.S. with a British trade delegation. He was amazed to see how much harder Americans worked than Britons. "We in this country . . . have not got the same vitality." Added Nicholson: "Enough food is wasted in New York in one night to feed England for a week."

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