Observer Sunday 15th May - Article by Andrew Purvis, FOOD ISSUE on the high fat content of broiler chickens. "IT USED TO BE LEAN CUISINE" I wish to congratulate Andrew Purvis (Food Magazine, Sunday, 15th May) for a thoughtful analysis of the errors that have crept into food production over the last 50 years.{}

During World War II the coalition Government, remembering the adverse impact of poor nutrition in the fighting force during World War I, created a Ministry of Food to secure the food supply. Professor Jack Drummond, aided by leading nutritionists of the day conducted a policy of nutrition and health, which was based on the principles of Sir Robert McCarrison’s seminal studies on nutrition and health between the wars and new knowledge on micronutrients. All forms of chronic disease declined during the war. After the war, the policy was abandoned and replaced by “production” and “growth rates”., much to the dismay of Drummond. He left academia in disgust and went to work for Boots. He still comapaigned for a return to food production linked to nutrition which had been proved to be effective during the war. He with his whole family was murdered and taken out of the debate that raged. Just afterwards in the early 1950s. Hugh Sinclair, one of Drummond’s people durin the war, was ostracised for daring to write in the Lancet that atherosclerosis and heart disease was a deficiency disease, especially of essential fatty acids. His laboratory at Oxford University was shut down and he had to set up a laboratory in his own house. The public perception is that animal products provide protein which is essential to life. That they actually provide 2-6 times more fat calories than protein, will come as a shock to people outside nutritional science and the McCarrison Society as this point has been discussed at several of our conferences. It is worth pointing out that Purvis vindicates Sinclair’s position as the twist in the protein fat calorie ratio ipso fact, means people get less nutrients for the same calorie count. Hugh Sinclair was a past President of our Society and a man far ahead of his time. He was perfectly correct about the deficiency of essential fatty acids and at a symposium (no. 21) of the Zoological Society of London, which I origanised, he gave a seminal paper in which he identied docosahexaenoic acid as an important compment of the story. Now everyne talks about the importance of omega 3 fatty acids to protect agains heart disease. It is all there in Hugh's paper pulished by the Zoological Society in 1968 and in the Society's library.