Katharine Blunt

“ Although wheat in most parts of the country has been the main dependence, we have used a much greater variety of cereals than most people, so that it is comparatively simple for the majority to make increased use of them.
The very poor must depend largely upon cereals because they can get more for their money from them than from other foods. Cereals, to most of them, mean bread. It is such a large part of their diet that doing without it means a far more fundamental and difficult change in their food habits than for the well-to-do with greater freedom of choice. ”

“ If you cannot grow vegetables, use them in abundance anyway. They are too perishable to ship abroad and too bulky, containing so much water that it would be an uneconomical use of shipping to export them. But the more America eats of almost any kind of vegetable or fruit, the less of the more durable, concentrated foods will she require. The products are so varied in kind and composition that they can be used to serve almost any purpose—beans and peas to save meat; potatoes and others to save wheat; sweet fruits to save sugar; jams, even, when spread on bread, to save fat. ”

“ Wheat is as much a war necessity as ammunition—wheat is a war weapon. To produce it and distribute it where it is needed and in sufficient quantities is the most serious food problem of the Allied world. The continent of Europe, with her devastated fields, can raise but a small fraction of the wheat she needs, and ships are so few that she cannot import it from many of the usual sources. ”

“ To keep wheat constantly going over to our Allies and sufficient stores in the United States at the same time, is one of the big problems of the Food Administration. Production has had to be increased and consumption decreased. The price has had to be kept down, for in a time of shortage prices always tend to go up. It is true that high prices furnish one method of decreasing the consumption of food, but it is a method that means enforced conservation by the poor and no conservation by the rich. ”

“ The milk we have should be used as effectively as possible. The most economical way for a nation to use its milk so as to get the benefit of all the food in it, is, of course, as whole milk, or evaporated or dried whole milk. The next most economical way is in the form of whole-milk cheese, since all but the whey is used in it. ”

“ In Belgium the devastation is so complete that the women, children, and old people left there would die of famine if food were not sent to them. Two and a half million Belgians daily stand in line waiting for food to be doled out to them. The United States must supply three-fourths of the wheat contained in their meagre bread ration. In Italy, too, the condition is serious, for she produces far less than she needs, despite every effort of her Government to stimulate production. ”

“ In England the situation is not much better. Unlike France, England has always imported far more wheat than she raised. But now through vigorous effort she alone of all the European countries has increased her cereal production so that it has actually been doubled. Being free from the devastation of war at home, she has been able to convert the great lawns of her parks and country estates into grain-fields. English women of all classes, an army of half a million, are working on the land. At the same time the consumption of wheat has been reduced. ”

“ One of the most serious limitations in the diet of many of the very poor is the lack of vegetables as well as milk and the unduly large proportion of meat and bread. In a community in New York City with high mortality rate, 75 mothers whose diet was observed, ate vegetables on the average only twice a week, and fruit about the same number of times.
It is not difficult to understand why vegetables and fruits are so important. Only a few are especially valuable as fuel or as a source of protein, but almost all are high in mineral salts and can supply the "roughage" desirable in the diet. ”

“ Sugar and foods rich in starch like flour and corn meal are fuel foods. This is one of the reasons why they are chosen to be shipped abroad. The cereals always supply an important part of the fuel of the diet. Watery foods, like many vegetables and fruits, normally give less fuel. A person could not live on lettuce any better than a house could be heated with tissue paper.
If the food does not supply enough energy, a person will burn up part of his own body for fuel and will grow emaciated. Far too often we find children of the very poor who are undernourished because of lack of food fuel. ”

“ For example, when grain is fed to a cow, only 31⁄2 per cent of the energy of the grain is turned into meat or fat, and 96 per cent is burned up by the cow in its own daily living. When a man eats the grain directly, he uses at least 85 per cent of its energy. Thus 811⁄2 per cent more of the grain is actually used for human food. So Europe to-day has to sacrifice her herds, and uses grain for bread instead of turning it into meat.
Alongside this shortage has come an increased demand for meat for the great armies. ”

“ Cereals are therefore important for their fuel since they are rich in starch, and for their protein, and, if we eat the entire kernel, for their mineral matter and vitamines. They also have the pleasant flavor and texture which we have grown to like.
Wheat is no better than any of the other cereals. It possesses absolutely no nutritional advantage for man or beast over oats, corn, and rye. It has no more protein, and no better protein. It has no more fat and no better fat. It has no better mineral salts and in no larger amounts. It has no more fuel or better fuel. ”

“ A shortage is always extremely serious.
Not only is an abundance important, but an abundance of the accustomed kind. In parts of India, the inhabitants use rice as almost the only cereal. When the rice-crop failed some years ago, thousands of people died of starvation with a supply of wheat available. They did not know the use of wheat as food.
Countries like France, which use their cereals chiefly for bread, are the most dependent on wheat, since wheat is the most easily made into bread.
In the United States cereals make up almost one-third of our food. ”

“ The warring nations in Europe fully realize the value of milk. In the face of a serious shortage they are making every effort to get to the children as much milk as can be produced or imported. Until children, mothers, and invalids are supplied, no one else may buy any. For adults, milk is an almost unknown luxury.
All the countries have definite milk rations for their children. These rations would be adequate if they could be obtained, but many times they fall short. Every effort is made to treat all children, rich and poor, alike. ”

“ In Germany the fat shortage, has been so severe that, combined with the bread shortage, it has been the greatest cause of food riots. Before the war the Germans imported about half their supply, most of which is now cut off. Of course, the vegetable oils from the United States and the tropics are not available. The neutrals have had to lessen their exports because of their own shortage, and the embargo which the United States laid on its exports of fats to neutrals. Germany's inability to feed her animals has greatly curtailed her supply of animal fats. ”

“ The long war has brought hunger to Europe; some of her peoples stand constantly face to face with starvation.
All agriculture has been seriously interfered with. Food production has been lessened to the point of danger. Millions of men who had given all their time and energy to raising food have been killed; more millions are still fighting; other millions have gone from the farms into the great war-factories. Women, too, have been drafted from the fields and home gardens into the factories and to replace the absent men in a host of occupations. ”

“ Meat is a valuable protein food, but so are plenty of others—fish, cheese, eggs, milk, dried beans, dried peas, nuts, cereals. Cottage-cheese is the most nearly pure protein of anything that we eat. We can get protein just as satisfactorily from cheese and the other animal protein foods as from meat, and almost as satisfactorily from the vegetable protein foods. The old idea that meat is especially "strengthening" has no foundation. Neither is one kind of meat less thoroughly digested than another. ”

“ No other food has nearly as much. A pint has almost enough calcium for one entire day's supply. It takes 21⁄4 pounds of carrots to give the same amount, or 7 pounds of white bread or the impossible quantity of 21 pounds of beef! A diet without milk (or cheese) is in great danger of being too low in calcium, especially a meat-and-bread diet without vegetables.
Among the most necessary constituents of milk are the two vitamines. One is present chiefly in the fat and the other in the watery part of the milk. ”

“ This past winter the Food Administration and the Dairy Division of the Department of Agriculture have assisted many local commissions in determining fair milk prices and pointing out economies all along the line of the milk business.
It is most unfortunate that ignorance of the value of milk makes people particularly sensitive to a change in its price. When it goes up even a cent a quart, many cut down their consumption, while a considerably larger advance in the price of meat will make little difference in the amount bought. ”

“ We have sent abroad six times the wheat that we had believed was in the country for export. We have exported vastly increased shipments of the other cereals, of beef and pork, of fats and condensed milk. With Canada, we are supplying 50 per cent of the Allies' food, instead of barely 5 per cent, as before the war. Meanwhile our own population has been taken care of. No one has gone hungry because of the shipments of food out of the country. The price of the most important food, bread, has been kept stable—a new experience in time of war. ”