FOOD PREJUDICES AND FOOD FACTS

The dietary prejudices of man are both amusing and pathetic. Aside from the factor of personal preference with respect to palatability or culinary properties of food items—features that are entitled to his own consideration—the individual who decides to exclude one or another food from his regimen may be convinced that certain articles of diet are irritating or noxious in some way. The idiosyncrasies of reaction to certain food as the result of sensitization, the initiation of skin eruptions, asthma and other anaphylactic responses are too well known and substantiated to justify debate. Naturally, a person will protect himself from such discomforts on the basis of his dietary experience; and he may, as a result, gain some prejudices. These comments are directed rather to the generalization of certain individual impressions into rules of food choice for the nations.

Prejudices fostered in this way are gradually being broken down with the progress