The Nutritional Value

Of Sago Grubs Eight Scientists Visit New Guinea to Find Out

ALONG, “human-interest” story in the Wellington (NZ) “Evening Post’’ of March 25, tells how two Australian girl scientists ate grubs and other native New Guinea delicacies. The two girls were dietitian members of a team of eight who made a survey of New Guinea natives last year.

The leader of the team, the article says, was a doctor, who medically exam ined the natives. There was an agricul turalist, to see how the food was grown; the two nutritionists, to see what was eaten, a bio-chemist, to see how healthy the natives were on that diet; a parasito logist, to see what other diseases they might have; and an anthropologist, to study their general social background and any customs that might affect the food situation. A dental team also joined them for three of the five villages.

The remarkable thing is that little, if anything, has been heard in Australia of the excursion of the Australian scien tists. Presumably this is because Aus tralian taxpayers who have to pay lor the upkeep of New Guinea are not ex pected to be interested in diet surveys; New Zealanders, on the other hand, have no financial obligations in New Guinea and therefore have no kick coming.

Part of the job of the dietitians, apart from eating sago grubs, was to weigh everything that was cooked and eaten in the villages they visited right down to the last bit of sugar-cane the children nibbled. In the course of their survey they visited villages where they were, in evitably, “the first white women’’ to have been there. They were suitably received.

While realising that such expeditions constitute a good talking-point with the UN Trusteeship Council, we still have room left to wonder why the diet of Australians in the Territories is not causing the Commonwealth similar worry; or why an expedition could not be sent to the Territories to find out why planters cannot take full advantage of world prices for copra.