pleasant and (in moderation) wholesome. We must save meat that the babies of the world may have milk to drink. Nowhere in Europe is there enough milk for babies today. A conservative request for one European city alone was a shipment of one million pounds of condensed milk per month! If cattle are killed for food there will be little milk to send and the babies will perish. 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. We can scarcely send him anything to take its place.

We must save meat, too, as a general food economy. Meat is produced at the expense of grain, which we might eat ourselves. And the production of meat is a very wasteful process. Grains have a fuel value for man approximating 1,600 calories per pound. A pound of meat in the form of beef will require the consumption by the animal of some fourteen pounds of grain. The pound of beef will furnish perhaps 1,200 calories, while the grain consumed will represent over 20,000 calories. The production of milk from grain is only about one-third as expensive, so the purchase of three quarts of milk to one pound of meat is an economy in more ways than one.

Saving for the rest of the world will not be without some physical advantage to ourselves, if we have been accustomed to indulge in meat freely. Among the well-to-do meat eating is apt to be overdone to the extent of affecting the kidneys and the arteries, and some enforced restriction would be a real advantage to health, as has been demonstrated in other than war times. 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. If the income is limited this is almost sure to be the case, since there will not be enough money to provide meat freely and at the same time satisfy other nutritive requirements. Such diets are also likely to be low in fuel value and not provide enough working force even while men are declaring that they must have meat to give them strength. They would have more strength and a better diet from every point of view if part of the meat money were spent for milk. So the injunction to buy three quarts of milk to one pound of meat is a good rule for securing a well balanced and ample diet at the lowest cost.

Another good rule is to spend no more for meat, fish, and eggs than for milk, and as much for fruits and vegetables as for meat, fish, and eggs. Families very commonly spend as much as one-third of the food money for meat; and, while they may secure a full third of their protein, iron, and phosphorus in this way, they may not get more than a sixth of their fuel and almost no calcium. Three quarts of milk at fourteen cents a quart will yield about 2,000 calories. For an expenditure of forty-two cents for beef as free from waste as milk, we would pay perhaps thirty-two cents per pound. A pound and a quarter of lean beef would yield about 1,000 calories. So as fuel alone the milk would be twice as cheap as the meat. Three quarts of milk would yield almost if not quite as much protein as the meat and a liberal supply of calcium to offset the iron furnished by the meat. Everything considered, then, milk is a better investment than meat. The same is true of some of the other foods which supply protein in the diet such as dry peas and beans; cheese and peanut butter are at least twice as valuable nutritionally as beef. The domestic problem is to make palatable dishes from these foods. This requires time and patience. The cook must not get discouraged if the first trial does not bring marked success. The rest of the family should count it their “bit” to eat valiantly until they can eat joyfully.

CHAPTER IV

THE POTATO AND ITS SUBSTITUTES

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Never did it seem truer that “blessings brighten as they take their flight” than when the potato went off the market or soaring prices put it out of reach in the winter of 1917. “How shall I plan my meals without it?” was the housewife’s cry. “How shall I enjoy my meals without it?” said all the millions of potato eaters who immediately forgot that there was still a large number of foods from which they might extract some modicum of enjoyment.

And so the Nutrition Expert was asked to talk about “potato substitutes” and expected to exercise some necromancy whereby that which was not a potato might become a potato. Now, the Nutrition Expert was very imperturbable—not at all disturbed by the calamity which had befallen our tables. That unfeeling person saw potatoes, not in terms of their hot mealiness and spicy mildness, but in terms of that elusive thing called “DIET.” The vanishing tuber was bidden to answer the dietary roll-call:

“This is a good showing for any single food material. The potato, as truly as bread, may be called a ‘staff of life.’ Men have lived in health upon it for many months without any other food save oleomargarine. Its protein, though small in amount, is most efficient in body-building, its salts are varied in kind and liberal in amount, and it furnishes a large amount of very easily digested fuel besides. It is at its best when cooked in the simplest possible way—baked or boiled in its skin. Nevertheless we are not absolutely dependent upon the potato.”

“Alas,” said the housewife, “this doesn’t tell me what to cook for dinner!” “Patience, Madam, we shall see about that.” The fact that starch is present is what makes the potato seem so substantial. But bread, rice, hominy, in fact, all cereal foods can supply starch just as well. Pick out the one you fancy and serve it for your dinner. One good-sized roll or a two-inch cube of corn bread, or three-fourths of a cup of boiled rice will sustain you just as well as a medium-sized potato. A banana, baked or fried, makes an excellent substitute for a potato. An apple is also a very palatable potato equivalent, if you want something more spicy than hominy or corn bread. Why mourn over the lost potato?

But how about those mineral salts? Well, the potato has no monopoly on those, either, though it is ordinarily a very valuable contributor. Milk has already been mentioned as one of the great safeguarding sources of so-called ash constituents. Others are vegetables and fruits of different kinds. These have been a neglected and sometimes a despised part of the diet: