Staunton spectator and vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1896-1916, 1911-04-14
untersd at the Postoffice at Staunton.
Va, ~ second class mail matter.
Friday. April "A 1911
ONE REASON.

aQVaUCtS Ouc NCly pAouSADiS SAPAAAsN
ton to account for the high cost of
living. He is DR.. Joseph Lawrence
Henderson, professor of biological
chemistry at the Harvard Medical
school and he attributes the present
high cost Of necessities to the high
prices paid for glass jars and tins and
paper boxes in which foods are put up
and not to the Administration and the
tariff.
ssThe average person spends about
one-third of his income for food" says
DR.. Henderson. "One-half this amount
goes to pay for the glass, tin and paper
boxes which although not alb. olutely
necessary are very convenient. Igno-
rant buying, also, has great dea! to
do with the high cost Of living.
"It is important, however, to hunt
around to get safe foods and pay the
price. But what we eat depends on
our pocketbook much less than we
think. You may pay fancy prices for
flavor, quality and variety of food if
you like, but the actual foodstuff nee
essary to the body can be purchased by
all grades of people. 1t can be obtain
ed in its common form for much
lower price than after il has been
treated by some process which really
has no effect as to its value.
"Macaroni, cheese and olive oil, the
diet Of the italian peasant, contain all
the necessary food elements in album
dance, as do pork, beans and brown
bread. One pays much for apparent
conveniences in buying foods today, but
is it worth while to pay twice as much
as foodstuff is worth merely for some
apparent convenience? A large part of
the increase in the cost of living can be
laid at the door of the housewives who
pay for conveniences IN the shape of
prepared foodstuffs and the like.
81 noted on the street car the other
day six advertisements in which each
was trying to make the public buy
something for more than it was worth.
"Granulated sugar at 81 cents per
pound is just as good as that for which
we pay 10 cents. The same is true with
other foods, bacon, flour, cereals, crack
ers, olive oil, &c. No breakfast food is
worth more than three cents pound,
except as one cares to pay for the con
venience. In packages you pay and 7
cents pound for it. Olive oil can be
bought at IS cents quart, if bought
in gallon quantities. Yet you pay at
the rate of " cents a quart when you
buy it in half pint containers. Bacon
is sold by the butcher at 80 cents
pound, while the housewife buys it in
neat little glass jars at so cents
pound. All this is taking money out
Of the pockets of the poor. 1t is no
deceit, however.
"Another form of advertisements and
which is wrong, is that in which the
attempt is made to convince the peo-
pie that they are getting what they
are not. Such advertising is often
fraud and very often directly lies.
"For instance, there is no brain food
except food. If an advertisement says
anything to the effect that any par
ticular food is brain food especially
it lies. Wheat is as good Is anything
that you get of its nature, and cereal
Is cereal and nothing else, no matter
how you may prepare it or no matter
the package in which it is put up.
"If you are willing to pay, well and
good, but remember that all foodstuf
have definite value at so many cents
a pound, and when you pay more than
that you are paying for form and
flavor. When it is realized that from
one to two-thirds Of the yearly budget
of an average American family is for
the cost of food, then it is necessary to
halt and consider how much of that
money is going to pay for packages
and flavor and not for what is any
good tor any one of us.