New-York tribune., 1903-04-07
I'LL FED HUMANS.
Something About Home Cooking and Home
Cooks

light sumner a good nights sleep and a fine
6fpqR in3geon naI restless night and rainy morning,
would have proved coward-(Chesterfield-
with all this time, labor and expense given 10
the feeding of humanity what are the results!
asks Charlotte Perkins Gilman in success HOW
are we educa ted in knowledge and taste as to right
eating? What are general food habits! 10
these questions it may be promptly answered that
no other animal is depraved IN Its feeding habits
as man; no other animal has so many diseases
of the alimentary system. The dog ranks next TO
us in diseases-and shares our home cooking. The
hog which we most highly recommend is corn
sed-not reared on our remnants OF the table The
long and arduous labors of public SPIRITED men
have lifted our standards of living In many ways
Public sanitation beginning outside ana SLOWLY
driven in on the reluctant home. has lowered our
death rate from the great filth diseases which used
~ tacinate the world. But the food diseases are
not lessened. Wrong eating and wrong drinking
are responsible for enormous proportion Oh our
diseases and our crimes. to say nothing OF the
sttu larger average of unhealthness and unhap-
niness in which we live. Can we get at the causes
~ This department of human trouble, and, when
found do they bear any relation to our peioVeo
custom of home cooking and home eating! we
can-and they do. The trouble springs from TWO
main features: bad food-insuffcient' oversu1clent
Ill chosen I'll prepared-ahu our OWN ieii'4
and lack of sef-control
Consider the bad food first. Food IS produced
all over the earth, passes through many hahus'
nd finally selected by the housewife cAo -
not a trained expert and never be Whlle she
confines herself to serving one house she does not
handle quantities sufficient, cater 10 consumers
aanougb to gain large knowledge or her business
Sbe Is in nine cases out OF ten. limited
- 80 hI,ving pOwer These conditions make the
TODD market particularly open to adulteration ana
t0 the offering of inferior materials ne lhui- IL.
,n,;5,aI housewife cannot herself discriminate IN
ii The subtIeties of aduterated food. nor has she
sm1nIies Moreover her separate purchasing
oPter Is so small that II cannot intimdate the
seller; he has ignorance and smal purse 10 oedi
ith and ne deals with them accordingly.
itTbe nurchase of food in quantities oy trained
buyers would lift the grade or our suppnes az
IN sduIter1tion subject TO daily analysis. or In
fferine stale inferior articles whicn VIII not a-
no- ELAINE 10 the trained eye. The wholesale
p;sonin Of babies BY bad milk IS an evil our city
ppovernments are seeking to combat, put the heIp-
Iess anarchy of a million ignorant homes uhor- u,,
aan,zed unframed and obliged TO get the fnilk
st once renders governmental eliorts aliosl
ra,r Insutficient food is owing in part 10 eco
,ornir causes and in part to ignorance OF what
he body needs on the economic size comes IN
ah9 aSt fmporfant view OF the home food pur-
tst,nr The private purchase and preparation OF
sS ara the most expensive method. IL Is WONDER
fI re see how people cling TO their notion OF the
anarorv of nome cooking. BY the simplest ousi,
ness laws, OF worldwide appicaItion' t' 'ne s'i"ii
.Inrchaser has to pay the largest price :
.aThe EXPENSES incident TO the re-retalnng, OF
food from the apples rotting on tne glounu ~ ia ~
Nauycrk State to the apples we purchase az ~
'. a cra,, for New-York City tables, form q
,arsa na n If the cost OF living. Ihousahus OF
Iatss ss,ar p thrive like leeches on the long and
.Iou current of food material as II pours IN
dribhing streams from the great souISes pt
dnrtjnn far away into our innumerapie Asehen
6oorH."