At the meeting held on 1st October John Illston suggested that U3A members should follow the Canadian practice and refer to ourselves not as senior citizens but as super adults!

The Group Organiser reported that, although some groups are oversubscribed, a list of groups that still have vacancies can be found in the Library file.

Application forms for the joint U3A Christmas Dinner on 17 December can be obtained from Cyril Gordon.

As well as the outing to see Miss Saigon at the Mayflower Theatre, Southampton, on 6 November, Rosemary Nicholls has organised a trip to London on 10 December. Options are to visit the National Art Collections Fund Centenary Exhibition at the Hayward, or the Imperial War Museum, or just to have a day in town. Seats are still available for this trip.

Beryl Paton, formerly of the Hospice Homecare Team, gave a talk on Nutrition and Health, with the warning that "you are what you eat". She told members that foods have been changed for the worse by modern farming practices and the food industry. Intensive growing of crops is reducing minerals in the soil and fungicides are killing the beneficial as well as the harmful bacteria. Residues from sprays get into our food, and the feeding of concentrated and artificial foods to domesticated animals adds to the fat content in meat. Refined flour loses huge amounts of essential minerals and vitamins, and processed oils and margarine have not only lost almost all the nutrients which were present in the original seed, but have also gained a number of toxic molecules from the breakdown and alteration of fatty acids.

Approximately 7,000 man-made chemicals have been identified in our environment; they have to be detoxified by our bodies, mainly by the liver. To do this the liver needs vitamins, minerals, essential fatty acids and amino acids. We also need vitamins to protect the immune system; conventional food now has 50% less minerals and vitamins than in our childhood.

We were advised to eat a wide variety of foods, preferably organic. Palm oil and coconut oil as well as cold-pressed olive oil are healthy to cook with, butter is better than margarine which is full of chemicals, wholemeal bread, brown rice, nuts seeds, fresh fruit and vegetables are all good for us. Organic foods have a higher level of essential minerals and vitamins, also 50% more antioxidants.

We all left the meeting making good resolutions to improve our diet, in the hope that we really will become super adults!

The Anniversary Lunch on 12 November will take the place of the monthly meeting. At the meeting on December 3 Rachel Seager-Smith from Wessex Archaeology will talk about recent archaeological finds, including the Amesbury Archer.