Mary Swartz Rose

“ The cereal may furnish half the fuel value of the diet, partly bread-stuffs and partly in some of the other ways as suggested, without any danger of undernutrition. Remember the fable of the farmer who told his sons he had left them a fortune and bade them dig on his farm for it after his death, and how they found wealth not as buried treasure but through thorough tillage of the soil. So one might leave a message to woman to look in the cereal pot, for there is a key to health and wealth, and a weapon to win the greatest war the world has ever seen. ”

“ There is imperative need for saving of food materials; at best there will not be enough to go around, and all the world, ourselves included, will suffer in proportion as we neglect the duty of food conservation. To be economical in the use of food materials according to the program of the Food Administration may, probably will, demand the spending of more money, time, and thought upon food. If we have the money and time to spend, well and good; but if we have not, how shall we do our share in sending more “wheat, meat, sugar and fats to our soldiers, sailors and allies”? ”

“ The demand for flavor grows and grows with pampering, till nothing but humming-birds’ tongues and miniature geese floating in a sea of aspic jelly will satisfy the palate of him who eats solely for flavor—who never knows the sauce of hunger, or the deliciousness of a plain crust of bread. ”

“ The world needs milk today as badly as wheat. All that we can possibly spare is needed in Europe for starving little ones. In any shortage the slogan must be “children first.” But in any limited diet milk is such a safeguard that we should bend our energies to saving it from waste and producing more, rather than learning to do without it. Skim milk from creameries is too valuable to be thrown away. Everyone should be on the alert to condemn any use of milk except as food and to encourage condensation and drying of skim milk to be used as a substitute for fresh milk. ”

“ Changing our food customs is difficult because it means also changing our cooking customs. But many dishes can be made with less fat than we are accustomed to put in or with different kinds from those we have hitherto preferred. Often the fat from frying is left in the pan to be washed out and thrown away. If every cook could say to herself, “Every two drops of fat make a calorie and every calorie counts in the world today,” it might seem more worth while to hold the pan a minute and drain out the fat for further use. ”

“ No program either of economy or food conservation can cater to individual likes and dislikes in the same way that an unrestricted choice of food can. If one does not like cereals it is hard to consume them just to save money, especially to the extent of ten to fifteen ounces of grain products in a day. Yet one might as well recognize that in this direction the lowering of the cost of the diet inevitably lies. If one does not like corn, it is hard to substitute corn bread for wheat bread. ”

“ For the sustenance of the body we must recognize that fat is fat, whatever its flavor. A calorie from butter yields neither more nor less energy than a calorie from lard or bacon, olive oil or cottonseed oil. The common food fats are all very well digested if judiciously used—not in too large quantities, nor over-heated in cooking, and not “cooked into” things too much as in pastries, rich sauces, and fried foods. Whether we spread our bread with butter or beef drippings amounts to the same thing in the long run; the main point is which we are willing to eat. ”

“ In the case of fats, practical economy consists in paying for fuel value and not for flavor. The score values for butter, lard, olive oil, and cottonseed oil are about the same. The cheapest fat is the one whose face value per pound (or market cost) is the lowest. Fats are not as cheap as milk and cereals if they cost over ten cents per pound. The best way to economize is by saving the fat bought with meat, using other fats without much flavor, and cutting the total fat in the diet to a very small amount, not over two ounces per person per day. ”

“ The knowledge that a banana is equivalent in calories to a large slice of bread or a small pat of butter becomes tremendously significant; that an apple, an orange, four prunes, four dates, or a cup of peas, may not only take the place of bread but actually add something which the bread does not contain, means that we may be the gainers from our own sacrifices, without embarrassment thereat. ”

“ Meat is undeniably popular. In spite of the rising price and the patriotic spirit of conservation, meat consumption goes on in many quarters at much the usual rate. There is probably no other one food so generally liked. It has a decided and agreeable flavor, a satisfactory “chew,” and leaves an after-sense of being well fed that many take as the sign of whether they are well nourished or not. ”

“ A chocolate layer cake that takes two hours out of a day is no more nourishing than the same materials served as poached eggs, bread and butter, and a cup of chocolate. It is worth while to train a family to enjoy the flavor of simply prepared foods, and to realize that the food is the thing which counts and not the way it is dressed up. ”

“ We have had, hitherto, a great deal of wheat in our diet. Fully one-third of our calories have come from wheat flour. To ask us to do without wheat is to shake the very foundation of our daily living. How shall we be able to do without it? What shall we substitute for it? These are questions which every housewife must ask and answer before she can take her place in the Amazon Army of Food Conservers. ”

“ The thought that fat is fuel wherever we find it in food will stiffen our resolution to take a little pains with the fats which we have been wont to discard. Anyone can get from the Department of Agriculture suggestions for the practical use of chicken, mutton, beef, and other kinds of meat fats. The main points are to free them from flavor, by melting them with milk or water, possibly using some special absorbent like potato or charcoal too, and then mixing hard and soft together, just as the oleomargarine-makers do, to get such a degree of hardness as suits one’s purpose. ”

“ Some people discriminate against canned and dried vegetables because they do not taste like fresh ones. This seems rather unreasonable, as we want a variety of flavors in our diet and might welcome the change which comes from this way of treating food as well as that which comes from different methods of cooking. Nobody expects a stew to taste like a roast, and yet both may be good and we would not want either one all the time. Instead of regretting that canned peas do not taste like those fresh from the garden (incomparable ones!) let us be glad that they taste as good as they do. ”

“ A good dish of oatmeal is as creditable a product as a good loaf of bread. It cannot be made without taking pains to get the right proportions of meal, water, and salt, and to cook thoroughly, which means at least four hours in a double boiler, over night in a fireless cooker, or half an hour at twenty pounds in a pressure cooker. Half-cooked oatmeal is most unwholesome, as well as unpalatable. It is part of our patriotic duty not to give so useful a food a bad reputation. ”

“ The world is facing a meat famine. The famine was on the way before the war began but it has approached with tremendous speed this last year. Every cow killed and eaten means not only so much less meat available but so much less of an adequate substitute. Lean meat contributes to the diet chiefly protein and iron. We eat it primarily for the protein. Hence in comparing meat and milk we think first of their protein content. One and one-fourth cups of milk will supply as much protein as two ounces of lean beef. The protein of milk is largely the part which makes cottage cheese. ”

“ Even when meat and eggs are not prohibitive in price, fruit and green vegetables are an important source of iron in the diet. And when war conditions make the free consumption of meat unpatriotic, it is reassuring to think that we really can get along without meat very well if we know how. Two ounces of lean beef will furnish no more iron than a quarter of a cup of cooked spinach or half a cup of cooked string beans or dried beans, or one-sixth of a cup of raisins, or half a dozen good-sized prunes. ”

“ One man may be a little taller, a little heavier, have a different tilt to his nose, but any two men are more alike than a man and a dog. So corn has a little less protein than wheat and considerably less lime, yet corn and wheat are, nutritionally, more alike than either is like sugar.
None of the cereals will make a complete diet by itself. If we take white bread as the foundation, we must add to it something containing lime, such as milk or cheese; something containing iron, such as spinach, egg yolk, meat, or other iron-rich food ”

“ On the other hand, if one has to use a few food materials over and over, as one must in many places when the money that can be spent for food is very little, it is by slight changes in their form and flavor that one keeps them from palling on the appetite. If one has to use beans every day, it is a good thing to know a dozen different ways of preparing beans. One may have the plain bean flavor, properly toned up by a suitable amount of salt; the added flavor of onions, of tomatoes, of fat pork, of molasses, or a combination of two or three. ”

“ A tablespoonful of bacon fat or beef drippings has the same fuel value as a tablespoonful of butter or lard, or as the lamb chop mentioned above. The man who insists that he has to have meat for working strength judges by how he feels after a meal and not by the scientific facts. While in the long run appetite serves as a measure of food requirement, we can find plenty of instances where it does not make a perfect measure. Some people have too large appetites for their body needs and get too fat from sheer surplus of fuel stored in the body for future needs as fat. ”

“ Certainly the first duty of everyone is to secure sufficient nourishment to avoid the undermining of health and strength which is sure to follow inadequate food. But we must all remember that it is possible to make a great many changes in diet without altering food value, and that there are few diets which cannot be so rearranged as to give a better nutritive return on the money spent than is usually secured by our haphazard methods of planning meals. ”

“ There is a limit to the capacity of the human stomach to hold food. People who live on a diet largely of rice, which has almost no fat in its make-up, develop characteristically distended abdomens, because they have to eat such a great quantity of food to get fuel enough for their day’s work. When people are for any reason put on a milk diet for a considerable time it is customary to put something into the milk to make it more concentrated, for otherwise they would drink and drink and then hardly get fuel enough. ”

“ Because a food is good is no reason for unlimited quantities; an ounce of sugar a day is wholesome—a pound is likely to result in both indigestion and a badly balanced diet. A quarter of a pound of meat a day is not undesirable for an adult, but a pound a day may result in general overeating or in the special ills which are related directly to a large quantity of meat. One of these is an upsetting of a proper balance of food elements in the diet. Diets high in meat are apt to be low in milk and consequently low in calcium. ”

“ But the magic table of the fairy tale is not for a nation at war; food is not going to come at the pressing of a button during this conflict. If we are to escape bankruptcy and win the war we must eat to be nourished and not to be entertained. ”

“ We cannot live exclusively upon foods which furnish nothing but fuel, though fuel is the largest item in the diet and one which in an effort to economize is apt to fall short; hence a food which furnishes nothing but fuel will not have as high a “score” as a food which will at the same time supply certain amounts of other essentials, such as protein, calcium (lime) , iron, and the like. ”

“ We must save meat for our soldiers and sailors, because they need it more than we do. It is not only easily transported, but one of the few things to give zest to their necessarily limited fare. Fresh fruits and green vegetables, which may serve us as appetizers, are not to be found on the war fields. Dainty concoctions from cheese and nuts may provide for us flavor as well as nutriment, but meat is the alternative to the dull monotony of bread and beans for the soldier—the tonic of appetite, the stimulant to good digestion. ”

“ Besides the saving of wheat for our country’s sake, we shall do well to economize in it for our own. Compared with other cereals, wheat is expensive. We can get more food, in every sense of the word, from half a pound of oatmeal than we can from a twelve-ounce loaf of white bread, and the oatmeal will not cost one-half as much as the bread. A loaf of Boston brown bread made with one cupful each of cornmeal, oatmeal (finely ground) , rye flour, molasses, and skim milk will have two and one-half times the food value of a twelve-ounce loaf of white bread and will cost little more. ”