In war-time there is constant danger of letting down the health standard. Food is high in price, demands on incomes are many and insistent, worst of all, life is being expended so freely abroad that we become careless about it at home. But while we are fighting to make the world a decent place to live in, we must keep up our health and vigor at home.
Milk is vital to national health and efficiency.We can conserve wheat and meat, sugar and fats, and be none the worse for it, butwe must use milk. The children of to-day must have it for the sake of a vigorous, hardy manhood to-morrow. A quart for every child, a pint for every adult is not too high an ideal.
There is no lack of evidence that children suffer if they do not have enough. In New York in this past winter, two things were observed which are undoubtedly closely connected—increased undernutrition among school children, and decreased use of milk. The Mayor's Milk Committee in the fall of 1917 reported that the city as a whole had cut down its milk consumption 25 per cent, and certain tenement districts 50 per cent. The majority of the families who had reduced the milk to little or none were giving their children tea and coffee instead—substituting drinks actually harmful to children for the most valuable food they could have.
About the same time as the milk investigation, a count was made of the number of New York children who were seriouslyundernourished—half-starved. Twelve were found in every 100 children, twice as many as the year before.
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. The price of milk is regulated, but parents who cannot afford to buy it are given it free or at cost. Dried and condensed milk are used where they can be obtained and fresh milk cannot. Thousands of tons of condensed milk have been sent over from America. There has been scarcely a child born in the north of France and none in Belgium whose continued life during all that period has not been dependent upon American condensed milk. At one time the Ministry of Food in Great Britain, anticipating a milk shortage in the winter bought large quantities of dried milk for distribution by local health committees and infant welfare societies.
In Belgium, in spite of the misery of the people, fewer young children are dying than before the war, because of the milk and bread and care that they get at the "soupes" and children's canteens. But in Poland, Roumania, and Serbia, thousands and tens of thousands of babies and young children have died since the war for lack of milk and other food.
Grown people should use milk and appreciate that it is far more than a beverage. Comparing it with tea and coffee is not sensible. The idea that food is "something to chew" breaksdown completely when milk is considered. "Milk is both meat and drink."
What gives milk its unique value? It must contain especially valuable substances, since it is an adequate food for the young for several months after birth and is one of the most important constituents of a grown person's diet.
It contains protein of a kind more valuable, especially for growing children, than that of most other foods. Milk protein separates out when milk sours and is the familiar cottage-cheese. Because of it, milk, whole or skim, is a valuable meat substitute. When we drink milk, therefore, we need less meat.
It contains fat. A pint of milk has a little more than half an ounce—the same amount as an ordinary serving of butter. By drinking milk we can save fat as well as meat.
Milk-sugar is also present, more or less like ordinary sugar, but not so sweet. The sugar, the fat, and part of the protein burn in the body, giving the energy needed for the body's activities. A pint gives as much fuel as 4 eggs, or half a pound of meat, or 3 or 4 large slices of bread. Although bread is cheaper fuel than milk, its economy compared with meat or eggs is obvious. The pint of milk costs usually about 7 cents, while the eggs and meat cost at least two or three times as much. The economy of substituting milk for at least part of the meat in the diet is plain. It is the advice of an expert to "let no family of 5 buy meat till it has bought 3 quarts of milk."
But this is not the whole story of milk. Milk is extraordinarily rich in calcium, commonly called lime, necessary for the growth of the bones and teeth and also important in the diet of adults,even though they have stopped growing. No other food has nearly as much. A pint has almost enough calcium for one entire day's supply. It takes 2¼ 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. Without milk fat, in whole milk or in butter, we run considerable risk of having too little of the fat-soluble vitamine. The other vitamine is more widely distributed in our foods, so that with our varied diet there is little danger of not getting enough.
Milk, therefore, fills all the needs of the child, except, perhaps, for iron, and is one of the best foods in the diet of grown people.There is no other food that has all the virtues of milk; it therefore has no substitute. "The regular use of milk is the greatest single factor of safety in the human diet."
We have not nearly enough milk in the United States to give every child the quart and every adult the pint which they should have. Although we actually produce about a quart per person, more than half of this is used for butter, cheese, and cream, and only about two-thirds of a pint is drunk directly as milk or used in cooking. This spring we have slightly more than this amount because of the dairymen's response to the patriotic appeal to maintain production, but our supply and consumption of milk are still far below what they should be.
To increase the quantity in the country the price of milk must be low enough for people to afford it, but high enough to keep the producer and distributer in the business. The question of a fair price is a difficult one. The cost of feed has gone up, labor is scarce and dear, but further economies in both production and distribution are still possible. 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.
If diminished use of milk continues, dairymen may go out of business and permanent harm be done, both to us and to those dependent on us abroad. A factory may close down and when the need comes reopen immediately, but if a cow is killed it takes practically three years to replace her.
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.
Cream and butter are much less economical unless all the skim milk is used. As 41 per cent of our milk-supply goes to make butter, we have large quantities of skim milk containing as much protein, it is estimated, as all the beef we eat.
At present we feed the largest part of this to animals or actuallythrow it away. Since the cottage-cheese drive of the Department of Agriculture, an increasing amount of it is being made into cottage-cheese—a palatable and useful meat substitute. It can, of course, be used as a beverage or in cooking. Whey also has many food uses. Buttermilk, too, is justly popular and healthful. Skim milk is not a substitute for whole milk for children.
Cream, valuable food though it is, is also extravagant in its use of milk. It takes five quarts of milk to produce a quart of cream. Buying whole milk is, therefore, better policy than buying cream and no milk. The sale of cream is now forbidden in Great Britain for this reason.
It is our supply of milk that is helping to meet the milk shortage abroad. Before the war we exported very little. By 1917 our export of evaporated, condensed, and dried milk had gone up twentyfold. In the spring of 1918 we sent over the equivalent in whole milk of almost 50,000,000 pounds a month, and should probably have sent much more were it not for the lack of ships. After the war, when ships are released, the demand for it will be enormous. It will take years to build up the dairy-herds of Europe again, so we shall continue to be their main source of supply.
Learn and teach the unique value and economy of milk. Do everything to prevent in this country the tragic results which are following the cutting down of milk consumption abroad.
Vegetables and fruits represent a different and happier phase of the food situation than our short supplies of wheat and meat. The vegetables especially are a great potential reserve of food, for they can be produced in quantity in three or four months on unused land by labor that otherwise might not be used.
Abroad every resource for vegetable-raising is being utilized to the utmost. France and Belgium have long made the most of all their land. Now England has made it compulsory to leave no ground uncultivated. Golf-courses are now potato-patches. Parks and every bit of back yard all grow their quota of vegetables. The boys in the old English public schools work with the hoe where before they played football.
We in America have no more than touched our capacity for raising gardens. What we have done is merely a beginning. As the war goes on we shall realize more and more the necessity for seizing every opportunity for active service. The accomplishments of the summer of 1917 showed the possibilities of the work, and placed it beyond the purely experimental stage. They have given experience and emphasized the value of expert advice and the economy of community efforts.
Not only is the "plant a garden" a civilian movement, but it has taken hold in the armies as well. The American Army Garden service is planning truck-gardens in France to supply our troops. The Woman's Auxiliary Army Corps of England plantsgardens back of the British lines. Last summer the French fed 20,000 of their men from similar gardens.
Every pound of food grown in these home and community gardens relieves the railroad congestion and gives more space for transporting munitions and coal. Every pound of food grown releases staples for Europe.Extra production of food of any kind, anywhere, takes on a new significance in the presence of half a world hungry.
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. All will improve the health and therefore increase human energies for winning the war.
To Save Meat. Beans and peas and peanuts are the only vegetables with much protein, so that they are the ones thought of primarily as meat substitutes. There are many kinds of them, fresh or dried, more than most of us realize. It is worth while to add to the diet not only the ordinary white or navy beans, but kidney, lima, black or soy beans, cow-peas, the many colored beans such as the pinto, frijoles, and the California pinks. It is these latter kinds that are used by the Mexicans as their chief standby. The Army and Navy use hugequantities of the white beans, and the Allied Governments are also buying tons of the pintos.
The 1917 bean-crop, in response to the patriotic appeal, was 50 per cent higher than the normal. Nearly all this increase was in the colored beans, chiefly pintos. The Food Administration, fearing that some of this unusual surplus might be wasted and the farmer discouraged from producing a large output in 1918, bought up the extra crop and distributed it for sale at the different markets.
Though soy beans and peanuts at least are exceptions, the protein in beans and peas is not so satisfactory as a bodybuilder as that in animal foods, so that a diet in which they are a large part should contain also some milk or eggs or a little meat. Two cups (half a pound) of shelled green peas or beans, or one cup with a cup of skim milk gives as much protein as a quarter of a pound of beef. Dried beans and peas are, of course, cheaper than the canned with their larger amount of water. At the usual market prices as much fuel can be bought for 5 cents spent for dried peas as for 25 cents for canned peas.
Meat-savers do not all have to be high-protein foods, since the diet of most of us contains considerably more protein than is necessary. Any vegetable can be a "meat extender." The pleasant flavor of meat can be obtained in meat stews, such as the delicious French "pot-au-feu." Stews can easily be made with less meat and more vegetables than usual. The meat allowance is now so very small in France and the vegetables so scarce in the cities, that the ingenuity of even the French woman is taxed to get a meal.
To Save Wheat. Potatoes to save wheat! The great potato drive to utilize the surplus of our huge 1917 potato-crop, 100,000,000 bushels above normal, has fixed in every one's mind theinterchangeableness of these two foods. Potatoes are one-fifth starch—almost the same quantity as in cooked breakfast cereals. Because of this starch, they give as satisfactory a fuel as wheat or corn or any other cereal. One medium-sized potato supplies the same number of calories as a large slice of bread, and contains more mineral salts than white bread. Europe has learned to eat potatoes instead of wheat. When bread has been short potatoes have been the mainstay in every country. They are to-day the largest single element, in terms of energy, in the German war ration.
Sweet potatoes are also first-class wheat-savers. So to a lesser extent are most vegetables and fruits. Very few except white and sweet potatoes contain much starch, but many of them have considerable sugar, which serves as fuel just as starch does—carrots, beets, onions, parsnips, and practically all fruits such as bananas, oranges, and grapes.
To Save Sugar. We want sugar, of course, both for fuel and flavor. The vegetables and some fruits have their sugar so covered up by other tastes that it does not help to make the food sweet. It does, of course, serve for fuel. Bananas especially are fuel foods, containing much starch when green, which changes to sugar as the fruit ripens. The sweetest fruits are the dried ones—dates, figs, raisins, prunes. They have so much sugar that they can well be used in place of candy.
To Save Fat, Although few common fruits and vegetables contain fat, jam is a real fat-saver. It is of high fuel value, and has the advantage of being a "spreading material" so that it can replace butter with bread and cereals. Jam is of great importance in Europe to-day and all the Governments have taken steps to keep up the supply. It is a regular part of the English army ration.
To Keep the Nation Well. An increase in the use of vegetablesand fruits is practically sure to mean an increase in health. Many of us, especially city-dwellers, do not eat enough of them. Many a young girl who "does not like vegetables" probably owes part of her languor to inadequate diet. The old-fashioned "touch of scurvy" formerly noticed at the end of the winter and even now not an unknown thing, was probably due to lack of vegetables in the winter diet. The constipation which is so disturbingly prevalent can usually be cured or prevented by eating vegetables and fruits in sufficient quantities. 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. Some also contain the vitamines, the leafy vegetables being especially valuable because, like milk, they contain the two kinds. The "greens," leafy vegetables like spinach, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, asparagus, and lettuce, are the ones that help most in these last ways—"protective foods," they have been called. They are rich in the iron, calcium, and other minerals that some of the other foods lack. The use of plenty of these vegetables should go far toward keeping up health.
The value of these foods both for the nation's health and for saving staples applies just as much in winter as in summer. Inwar-time, a winter supply, either stored, dried, or canned, takes on special significance because of their substitute value if the supply of staples runs critically low.
The canning industry, because it makes vegetables obtainable at all times and places, has been of great importance in the health and development of the country. Smith, in his "Commercial Geography," says that "canning, more than any other invention since the introduction of steam, has made possible the building up of towns and communities beyond the bounds of varied production." A century or two ago, sailors after a voyage of a year or two, almost always came home with scurvy. Recently Nansen and his men drifted in the Arctic ice for years and remained in good health, because of their supply of canned vegetables, fruits, and meats.
The Government has not been slow in appreciating the need of canned vegetables for the Army and Navy. It has commandeered about 25 per cent of the canned beans, 12 per cent of the corn, and 18 per cent of the tomatoes of the 1917 pack. Large amounts will be needed this year also. Much of the 1918-19 supply for our troops in France is to be canned in France, by arrangement with the French Government, thus saving valuable shipping space.
Drying, or dehydrating, has long been known for beans, peas, and corn, and for dates, prunes, figs, and raisins. But dried potatoes, beets, carrots, and "soup mixtures" are more or less new. The drying, of course, merely removes most of the water from the vegetable, and if the process is properly carried out, soaking the vegetable in water restores its original freshness.
The war, with the need for every ounce of food and the increasing transportation difficulties, has brought the process into prominence. The dehydrated products, if properly stored, seem tokeep a long time. Their saving in freight and shipping is plain, when it is remembered that the fresh vegetables and fruits often contain over 90 per cent water, and the dried from 8 per cent to 10 per cent. Ships are too precious to be used for carrying unnecessary water. Our Government has placed orders for several thousand tons of dehydrated potatoes for the Army and may use other dried products as they can be obtained.
Canada has sent abroad within the past 3 years over 50 million pounds of dehydrated vegetables, about two-thirds of which was the vegetable-soup mixture and one-third dried sliced potatoes. When reconstituted this would make about 400,000,000 pounds of vegetables. Germany has been drying her vegetables and fruits far more than we. In 1917 she had over 2,000 commercial plants, and an elaborate system of distributing all the available fresh material to the different plants to avoid waste.
Individuals and communities with gardens or wherever fresh products can be obtained should not be dependent upon commercial agencies.As far as possible every family and every neighborhood should be self-supporting. Home and community canning and drying are important duties. Can and dry the surplus. Store up enough to carry through the next winter. Follow expert advice as to methods. Use the greatest care to prevent spoilage. Wherever possible unite with your neighbors in community canneries and dryers so that every one can have the benefit of the best equipment and the most skilled supervision.
A great deal was done in 1917; millions of cans were put up and great waste prevented. But in 1918 more must be done. More vegetables must be raised and more must be canned. A great reserve for the winter is more necessary than ever.
Almost a year of food control in this country has passed and the great new experiment in democratic administration of the nation's food is succeeding. The method of well-directed voluntary co-operation, much more characteristic of our food control than of any other country's, can be judged by its results to date. 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.
These and others are great accomplishments, brought about through the co-operation of the nation,but they are slight in comparison with what must still be done.The huge resources for extra food production and conservation have hardly been touched. The imagination is just beginning to be stirred by the immensity of the whole undertaking and the sacrifice required to win the war. Men, ammunition and food, in a steadily increasing stream, must go across.
"Our duty, if we are to do this great thing and show America to be what we believe her to be—the greatest hope and energy of the world—is to stand together night and day until the job is finished."—PRESIDENT WILSON.
American Academy of Political and Social Science. "World's Food." Philadelphia, 1917. (Annals of the American Academy, November, 1917.)
Carter, Howe and Mason. "Nutrition and Clinical Dietetics." Philadelphia, Lea & Febiger, 1918.
Holmes, A.D., and Lang, H.L. "Fats and Their Economical Use in the Home." Washington, 1916. (Department of Agriculture Bulletin 469.)
Kellogg, Vernon, and Taylor, Alonzo E. "Food Problems." New York, Macmillan, 1917.
Langworthy, C.F. "Potatoes, Sweet Potatoes, and Other Starchy Roots as Food." Washington, 1917. (Department of Agriculture Bulletin 468.)
Langworthy, C.F. "Eggs and Their Value as Food." Washington, 1917. (Department of Agriculture Bulletin 471.)
Lusk, Graham. "Food in War Time." Philadelphia, Saunders, 1917.
Lusk, Graham. "Fundamental Basis of Nutrition." New Haven, Yale University Press, 1915.
Mendel, Lafayette B. "Changes in Food Supply and Their Relation to Nutrition." New Haven, Yale University Press, 1916.
Mendenhall, Dorothy R. "Milk." Washington, 1918. (Children's Bureau, Publication 35.)
Rose, Mary Swartz. "Everyday Foods in War Time." New York, Macmillan, 1918.
Rose, Mary Swartz. "Feeding the Family." New York, Macmillan, 1917.
Sherman, Henry C. "Chemistry of Food and Nutrition." New York, Macmillan, 1918.
Sherman, Henry C. "Food Products." New York, Macmillan, 1917.
Taylor, Alonzo E. "War Bread." New York, Macmillan, 1918.
The publications of the United States Department of Agriculture and the United States Food Administration.
The United States Food Leaflets.
United States Department of Agriculture: Farmers' Bulletin 487. "Cheese and Its Economical Uses in the Diet." C.F. Langworthy and Caroline L. Hunt. 1917.
Farmers' Bulletin 565. "Corn as a Food and Ways of Using It." C.F. Langworthy and Caroline L. Hunt, 1917.
Farmers' Bulletin 717. "Food for Young Children." Caroline L. Hunt, 1917.
Farmers' Bulletin 808. "What the Body Needs." Caroline L. Hunt and Helen W. Atwater, 1917.
Farmers' Bulletin 817. "Cereal Foods." Caroline L. Hunt and Helen W. Atwater, 1917.
Farmers' Bulletin 824. "Foods Rich in Protein." Caroline L. Hunt and Helen W. Atwater, 1917.
Farmers' Bulletin 839. "Home Canning by the One-Period Cold-Pack Method." O.H. Benson, 1917.
Farmers' Bulletin 841. "Drying Fruits and Vegetables in the Home."
Farmers' Bulletin 853. "Home Canning of Fruits and Vegetables." M.E. Cresswell and Ola Powell, 1917.
Farmers' Bulletin 871. "Fresh Fruits and Vegetables as Conservers of Other Staple Foods." Caroline L. Hunt, 1917.
Farmers' Bulletin 881. "Preservation of Vegetables by Fermentation and Salting." L.A. Round and H.L. Lang, 1917.
Agriculture, Department of.—Aids wheat production,8; campaign for increased use of milk,53.
Austria.—Wheat-supply,4; meat-supply,20-30; sugar-supply,45.
Banana flour as wheat substitute,20.
Barley as wheat substitute,19.
Beans.—Varieties,56; as meat substitute,57.
Belgium.—Wheat-supply,2; meat-supply,29; sugar-supply,44; milk supplied to children,50.
Bread.—Advantages of wheat loaf,22-23; bakers' bread regulated,23; conservation of, by housewives,24-25; restrictions on use in Europe,25-26; rationing not necessary in United States,27.
Buckwheat as wheat substitute,20.
Butter.—Consumption in England,39; uneconomical way to use milk,53.
Calorie defined,10.
Candy.—Manufacturers restricted in use of sugar,46.
Canning.—Sugar allowed for,45-46; importance of industry,60; urged upon housewives for conservation,61.
Cereals.—Defined,10; food value,12,17; wide consumption of,12-13.
Cheese.—Valuable protein food,34; as meat substitute,35-36; a use for skim milk,54.
Corn as wheat substitute,17-18; why Allies can not use,26-27.
Corn-syrup as sugar substitute,46.
Cottonseed meal as wheat substitute,20.
Cream.—Extravagant use of milk,54.
Drying.—Process,60; importance of,61.
Eggs as meat substitute,35.
England.—Wheat-supply,2; restrictions concerning bread,25-26; meat-supply,29; meat restrictions,30-31; fat shortage,39; sugar-supply,44; milk regulations,50,54; cultivation of soil,55-56.
Fats.—Food value,37-38; shortage in Europe,39; resources and exports of United States,40-41; necessity for conservation,41.
Feterita as wheat substitute,20.
Fifty-fifty rule,16-17.
Fish as meat substitute,35.
Flour.—Manufacture of,14-15; 74 per cent extraction allowed,15; consumption cut by licensing millers,15; by fifty-fifty rule,16-17.
Food Administration.—Takes control of wheat business,6,8; licenses millers,15; licenses bakers,23-24; regulates sugar prices,46-47; aids increased use of milk,53; achievements in year of existence,62.
Foods.—Importance of different kinds,10-11.
France.—Wheat-supply,1-2; bread regulations,26; meat-supply,29; meat regulations,31-32; sugar-supply,44; sugar restrictions,45; production of fruit and vegetables,56.
Fruit.—As sugar substitute,46,58; food value,58-59; conservation of, by canning and drying,59-61.
Garbage conservation,41.
Gardens.—See Production.
Germany.—Wheat-supply,3-4; meat-supply,20-30; meat restrictions,32; fat shortage,40; sugar restrictions,45; conservation of food by drying,61.
Gluten.—Importance in bread,22-23.
Graham flour.—Manufacture,14; inferiority to wheat,15.
Grain corporation, controls wheat trade,6,8.
Honey as sugar substitute,46.
Hotels and restaurants.—Regulations in use of bread,24.