The Morgan City daily review. (Morgan City, La.) 1916-1920, 1916-11-15
Do You Know About Food Values =?

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| ell, meat prices higher than ever be
fore, nearly all other foods cores
pondingly high, and no signs of low
er prices, the average housewife ha
a hard time keeping the grocery bill
within the limit allowed by the fam
lily income. For the benefit of those
worried wives, the government ha!
set to work corps of men who are
experts in food vaules. They are is
suing bulletins telling how to gel
more out of food than cooks usually
get, and how to save in the kitchen
) and what the food values are OF
things we eat.
| There is great public ignorance
about this question of food values.
The average woman has some sort of
notion that meat is more strength
ening" than any other kind Of food,
that eggs are almost if not quite as
good, and beyond that she knows
little that is definite.
And she ought to be an expert in
this very line of food values, for it
is one Of the most important things
in life both from the standpoints of
economy and health.
A woman knows linens and silks
and dress goods, and the best brands
of shoes and hosiery. She has studied
these things out, and she will spend
a whole half day shopping around to
get the most linen in tablecloth
for the money, and yet, if you ask
her about the food values and the
"calories" in the food she is to set
upon that cloth, she will look at you
in blank astonishment.
If you should tell the average
housewife that a pound of crackers
has nearly twice as much food value
as pound of the best roast beef,
she would think you were joking;
but the government says it is ture.
The Philadelphia North American,
discussing this subject recently,
pointed out that if one of its readers
should see a family of four sharing
a dinner Of one pound Of milk and
a pound of popcorn, he would be
moved to sympathy. The same person
observing family Of four eating a
meal of parsnip soup, pork spareribs
with onions, apple sauce, Drowned
sweet potatoes, rolls and butter, gel
attn with whipped cream and coffee,
would call such dinners fortunate.
He would say the popcorn eaters
were ''half starved and the other
four amply nourished.
Yet the milk-and-popcorn group
would be getting two-thirds as much
nutriment as the other group with
its elaborate meal, and milk and pop
corn would be more wholesome and
digestible, too.
The point is,. as the government
bulletins are pointing out, house.
wife who knows nothing of the "fuel
value" of different foods will,
through that ignorance, pay for some
fod with "fuel value" of 200 calor-
les twice or even four times as much
as would buy a similar quantity of
another food with six times as much
"fuel value"
There is not room here to tell
what the government experts say in
their bulletins about how to save
money by buying cheaper cuts of
meats and then cooking them long
enough to make them just as tender
and toothsome as the higher-priced
cuts; how to cook meats so as to re-
tain all their inherent nutriments,
and so on.
Just one item that ought to be of
interest in the problem of household
economy: Rice is today the same
price it was this day year ago, and
rice has higher good value. Rice
is the good staple Of nearly one-third
of the human race. There is no food,
not even wheat flour, that lends it.
self to more varied ways of prepara-
ton of food. Look in almost any
cook book and find the many fiffer-
ent appetizing ways in which rice
may be cooked and served.
Of course, if every one went to
eating rice its price would advance,
too, for the rice crop of this country
is only 100000 bushels year,
while the wheat crop was 607,00Q,-
900 bushels, but while rice is the
same price today, wheat is twice as
high as it was a year ago, and it is
so largely because so many families
think they must have wheat pro-
ducts as their principal food. The
government experts are trying to