USE FEWER SWEETS OF ANY KIND AND USE SUGAR SUBSt.i.tUTES. Sugar does serve a desirable purpose in making certain of our foods more palatable, but the quant.i.ty necessary for this is small, and for much of it other sweets can be used instead. The household consumption uses by far the largest percentage of the sugar-supply. Its economical use also helps to provide a reserve for preserving surplus fruits. SUCH "EXTRAS" AS CANDY AND CAKES CAN BE ENTIRELY DISPENSED WITH.
Of course, sugar is a food, as it is burned in the body for fuel.
But there are two good physiological reasons for avoiding excessive amounts. If we eat a large quant.i.ty in candy after already sufficient meals, we are overeating and may suffer from digestive disturbances in consequence. Eating sweets instead of other food is also bad and a cause of undernourishment. Sugar is pure carbohydrate, and although we may eat enough to satisfy the feeling of hunger the body will lack minerals, protein, and other substances absolutely necessary for its well-being. The person may feel satisfied, but he will be undernourished nevertheless.
The conservation of sugar will not only permit a fair distribution to our a.s.sociates in the war, but insure a sufficient amount for our own men. It is especially valuable for them because it burns so rapidly in the body that it gives energy more quickly than other foods.
CHAPTER VII
MILK--FOR THE NATION"S HEALTH
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, but WE 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--subst.i.tuting 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 seriously undernourished-- 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, antic.i.p.ating a milk shortage in the winter bought large quant.i.ties 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" breaks down completely when milk is considered. "Milk is both meat and drink."
THE VALUABLE CONSt.i.tUENTS OF MILK
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 const.i.tuents 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 subst.i.tute. 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 b.u.t.ter. 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 subst.i.tuting 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 2 pounds of carrots to give the same amount, or 7 pounds of white bread or the impossible quant.i.ty 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 const.i.tuents 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 b.u.t.ter, 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 SUBSt.i.tUTE. "THE REGULAR USE OF MILK IS THE GREATEST SINGLE FACTOR OF SAFETY IN THE HUMAN DIET."
OUR MILK PROBLEM
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 b.u.t.ter, 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 quant.i.ty 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 a.s.sisted 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 b.u.t.ter are much less economical unless all the skim milk is used. As 41 per cent of our milk-supply goes to make b.u.t.ter, we have large quant.i.ties 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 actually throw 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 subst.i.tute. It can, of course, be used as a beverage or in cooking. Whey also has many food uses. b.u.t.termilk, too, is justly popular and healthful. Skim milk is not a subst.i.tute 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.
OUR MILK ABROAD
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.
CHAPTER VIII
VEGETABLES AND FRUITS
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 quant.i.ty 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 plants gardens back of the British lines. Last summer the French fed 20,000 of their men from similar gardens.