Parents and ancestors are always important: they endow us with a genetic inheritance for better or for worse, for the balanced diet, for overfeeding or for starvation. Some of us die young, some succumb in middle age to chronic disease, others join the gero- cracy - the healthy, happy people in their 70s, 80s or even 90s. Genetic inheritance, nurture and nutrition, all play their part. The nurture and nutrition are our own responsibility; we make our choices and live with the consequences. This book is dedicated to the students of nutrition who may be interested in the subject for themselves alone, for their families, for teaching and counselling others and for research and investi- gations. We found it necessary to include basic information in order to support some of the statements we make or advice we give; this material appears either in the main body of the text or as footnotes. If the student of nutrition is familiar with the basic con- cepts, these sections can be skipped. At the end of the book we have included appendices, with examples of daily menus pro- viding adequate vitamin C, an extensive bibliography, a glossary and an index. We have drawn up a food table of the vitamin C content of specific foods and described the point-system which is a ready-reckoner for approximate calculation of the vitamin C content of foods and diets.