Mountain Home Republican. [volume] (Mountain Home, Idaho) 1915-1946, 1918-07-20
DEPARTMENT OF FOOD CONSERVATION
Conducted By Mrs Bertha su Green Chairman Food Conservation
Committee womans' Council Of Defense

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mixed with from 8 to 80 per cent of
-four made from other cereals, corn,
barley, or rice usually. When this
mixed -four is baked into bread, the
bread Is doled out TO the people on
ration, by means of bread cards. The
ration adopted in March OF this year
Is about two-thirds the amount the
people have been accustomed to. The
price OF this bread is kept low by
government subsidy, SO that all may
be able to buy the permitted ration,
but the price of meat and other foods
is so high that 1t Is practically i'm
possible for large part OF the peo-
pie to make up the bread deficiency
in their diet by Increasing the use of
other foods. The bread situation in
France Is truly one of sacrifice, of
patriotic sacrifice.
Now, we Of America have a direct
relation to this French sacrifice; we
play an important part in connection
with 1t; we play this part whether
we wish to or not; we are unavoid-
ably associated with 1t. We can
ameliorate 1t or make it more severe.
We have before us inescapably the
question of whether to make 1t a
greater sacrifice or lesser one.
Theoretically hear the loud an
swer of all of us: We will make it a
lesser one; we will help those noble
French, those wonderful French,
those sublime French who are to-
/ day carrying the torch of patriotism
before the world.
| Practically, our answer is less
loud, though it is not shameful an
wer, it is not wholly discouraging.
But it is less loud; the reason of this
is that the proper practical answer
sails for a little sacrifice.
The situation is simply this
France has sent her men from the
farms to the battle fronts. She has
had little fertilizer. She has lost
several million acres of agricultural
land to the Germans. She had bad
weather for her crops last year. AL
together she is SO reduced in food pro-
ductive power that this reduction
and the bad weather let her have
last year As per cent of a normal
wheat crop. Even in peace time
France produces less wheat than she
eats. Always she must get wheat
from outside; now she must import
it on wholly unusual scale; and 1t
Is just now that 1t Is especially diftis
cult to import.
Australia is simply too far away;
1t Is impossibly expensive In tonn-
age, because of the time element, to
get the Australian wheat. Some can
come from the Argentine, little
from India, but the great bulk OF
the imports come from America.
| The situation Is almost indentical
for England, Italy, and Belgium.
This makes great wheat demand
on us--a demand far greater than
can be met from our normal surplus.
What to do? Nothing simpler than
to point this out; but doing it-well,
there is where our opportunity for
a little sacrifice comes in. We must
simply eat less wheat. What do we
not eat can go to France and the
other allies In the next three
months, that is, until the next har-
ct, we should restrict our eating of
wheat-not of cereals generally, but
| Just of wheat-to one-half our usual
use of 1t. If we reduce the wheat
consumption of the whole country
to a weekly per capita average of a
pound and half of wheat -four, we
can still send overseas that minimum
amount indispensable for their
carrying on" If we eat more, we
can't.
But there is a considerable group
of people in this country who simply
must have more than pound and a
half of wheat -four week. Bread
is the most convenient and the cheap
est of foods, hence the man who must
make his money go farthest in an
attempt to get even enough to eat
must buy bread or the wherewithal
to make 1t. The corollary is that
some others must get along without
any bread-that is, wheat bread-at
all. Those of us who can buy other
foods to take Its place, as meat, fresh
vegetables, and other cereals to be
used as breakfast foods, quick
breads and the like, must do 1t SO as
to keep the national per capita
average down to six pounds of wheat
-four a month.
We may call this sacrifice II we
like. If we do then here Ia a
beautiful chance not only to be pa
triotic but to sacrifice something
our taste, perhaps, certainly not