Kantha Joseph

The effect of a supplementary multipurpose food on the growth and nutritional status of schoolchildren

Dietary and clinical surveys carried out in India, Africa and in several countries elsewhere, in Asia and South America, have shown that the diets of large numbers of people are deficient in many essential nutrients such as proteins, vitamins and minerals (Patwardhan, 1952; Autret & Behar, 1954; Gopalan & Ramalingaswami, 1955 ; Brock & Autret, 1952). Protective foods such as milk, eggs, fish and meat are not available in sufficient quantities in these countries and the prospects of increasing their production in the near future are poor (Autret & van Veen, 1955). Considerable attention has recently been devoted to evolving Supplementary foods from indigenous resources for improving the health of the vulnerable groups of the population (Autret & van Veen, Various attempts have been made in India and other countries to prepare palatable milk substitutes from soya beans, groundnuts and other raw materials (Dean, 1953; De & Subrahmanyan, 1945; Nandi, Rajagopalan & De, 1953). Feeding experiments carried out on infants and children have shown that such foods possess a marked supplementary value to their ordinary diet (Dean, 1953 ; Subrahmanyan, Reddy, Moorjani, Sur, Doraiswamy, Sankaran, Bhatia & Swaminathan, 1954). Other processed food products which appear to have immense possibilities for large-scale use in combating malnutrition are the multipurpose foods prepared by suitable processing of expeller soya-bean or groundnut cakes and fortifying with essential vitamins and minerals (Cooper & Bryan, 195 I ; Subrahmanyan, Ramarao, Kuppuswamy, Narayanarao & Swaminathan, 1957). The multipurpose food prepared by the Meals for Millions Foundation, Los Angeles, U.S.A., has been reported to be a good supplement to the diets of schoolchildren (Cooper & Bryan, 1951). Investigations carried out recently in the Central Food Technological Research Institute, Mysore, have shown that a multipurpose food prepared from a blend of low-fat groundnut flour and Bengal-gram flour and fortified with essential vitamins and minerals possesses a marked supplementary value for poor Indian diets as determined by studies on albino rats (Joseph, Narayanarao, Swaminathan & Subrahmanyan, 1957 ; Kuppuswamy, Joseph, Narayanarao, Ramarao, Swaminathan & Subrahmanyan, 1957a, b). The present paper describes studies on the value of the multipurpose food as a supplement to the diet of children.

Use of calcium caseinate in the treatment of protein malnutrition in children

Summary1.Nine children with protein malnutrition, aged 2 to 5 years, were treated with calcium caseinate, as prepared by us, at a level of 30 gm. protein/child/day from this source.2.Disappearance of diarrhoea and oedema took a shorter time and rate of regeneration of serum proteins was faster than the time taken for the comparative changes reported by others by treatment with skim milk powder.

Calcium requirements of infants, children and adults

The calcium requirements of human beings have b~en the subject of investigation by a number of workers over the past forty years. A large amount of data is available on various aspects of calcium metabolism. The present review deals with the following aspects of the problem: (i) The calcium content of the body during growth and the rate of accretion of calcium (ii) Metabolism and retention of calcium in humans on different diets. (iii) Factors affecting the dietary calcium absorption and (iv) Dietary calcium requirements.