immeasurably more valuable as an absolute necessity for life and health.
The thyroid gland in the neck, one of the master architects and protectors
of the body, cannot make its precious secretion without iodine which is
unfortunately lacking in much of our food, so that very many of us surfer,
though we don't know it, from some degree of iodine deficiency.

You may ask how it comes to be that the herring possesses such an
assemblage of dietetic merits. The answer is quite simple. It is that the
herring is the most abundant and by far the cheapest of the few kinds of
fish which distribute their valuables throughout the muscles, instead of
collecting them all into one place, the liver, and leaving their muscles without
vitamins, without iodine and without oil.

The herring has a very small liver, but it has in its'flesh all the merits
of cod liver oil at a very low price combined with a delicious flavour. No
wonder it is wholesome faring ! It has, indeed, been singled out by eminent
authorities as one of the best of the "protective" foods.

The latest scientific research has proved that the food value of the
herring is not likely to be lessened by cooking. Nor are the vitamins destroyed
by smoke-curing as lovers of kippers and bloaters will be pleased to learn.

Herring roes, too, are especially full ot nutriment and soft roes are thus
an excellent food for young children.

To sum up—in value for money the modest herring is truly a King.
In its various forms—fresh herring, kipper or bloater—it supplies weight
for weight, more strength, more energy, more solid satisfaction than almost
any other dish that you can put on the table.

I have already mentioned the Herring Industry Board and their
strenuous endeavours to make the herring as popular in this country as it
deserves to be. But one thing everybody already knows about herring
is that it is regularly thrown back into the sea in enormous quantities !
This idea in the public mind is a vastly exaggerated one. Occasions
certainly do occur when sudden very heavy landings of fish are more than
a port can deal with in the circumstances of the moment, which may be that
the herring is of an inferior or even more than usually perishable quality
or that it is very hot weather or perhaps a Saturday. In such cases when
the herring could not in any case reach the market in fit condition it is thrown
away, but it is true to say that fully 99 i per cent, of the total catch
every year is usefully disposed of, though often at prices that mean
loss to the fishermen.

The Board point out that at the present time our average yearly
consumption of herrings in this country is only 15 herrings per head ! If
that fifteen could be increased to 50—less than one a week actually—the
troubles of our herring fishermen would be at an end. Not too much to
ask, surely, when you consider how much this country owes to its
fishermen, and how greatly the health of the people would benefit from a
more liberal use of this appetising food.

March, 1938.

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