Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1918-07-11
Wheat Essential
Or On-ESSentiaL?

There is a need of deciding what
are essentials and what are less or
nonessentials in foodstuffs during
the war. 1t is the work of the Unit
cd States Food Administration to !ay
before the public a safe and sane
food program. The very thing that
may be nonessential for us, if we
could but be convinced of it, may be
for the time being essential for the
Allies and our soldiers abroad.
Now habit and tradition have long
since fixed wheat, and especially
wheat in the form of bread, as an Cs-
sential in the worlds diet. We have
been taught to pray for our daily
bread. We have learned from the
cradle up that bread is the staff of
life.
Not only the loaf, but the actual
wheat in the loaf, has become a
symbol of bodily sustenance.
But wheat is not indispensable to
the human diet. 1t is an acquired
luxury. It's use is solely a matter
of taste, of comfort and convenience.
Until the latter part, of the seven
teenth century barley was in great
est use and it was a half century
more before even fifty per cent of
wheat flour was used.
There is no denying the fact that
bread made from all wheat is finer
and softer and perhaps more palat-
able. But the fact also remains that
1t possesses no nutritional quality
not contained in the substitute
cereals such as oats, corn and rice
contains neither more nor better
protein, fat or mineral salts.
Although it is more difficult to
give up luxurIes than to acquire the
taste for them, the American people
are gradually cutting off luxuries. or
nonessentials, whether they be food
or something else so that the win
ming of this war may not be un-
necessarily delayed.
That is the one question we should
ask oursely es before our every act:
VIII it help or hinder the winning
of the war;
Upon the answer shall depend
whether a certain commodity be
A'i'h III ioNhdi Gu VI lOl, "H6IneT q GER
tain food shall be eaten or its con-
sumption curtailed or cut off en-
tirely.
The American people are now fac
ing the wheat question. 1t is essen
tial to us? Is it nonessential 20 us
and essential to the Allies?
We have already shown that from
nutritonal standpoint it is not vital
to the diet. Let us now consider in
what measure it is essential to those
to whom we are asked to send it.
They are only people, like our
selves you say, "and if we can cX-
list without it, so can they" This
would be true if they had an equal
chance at the wheat substitutes. But
there is the rub. In the first place,
they use infinitely more bread IN
their diet than we do, and thew
haven't the facilities for home bak
ing that we have. Wheat is the
most convenient grain for us to ship
and for them to handle. They are
too exhausted and spent with four
years of war to make radical change
in their food habits and methods Cf
preparing food, and we should not
ask them to.
Americans have scarcely begun
their sacrifices. They still have
plenty of time and strength to re-
adjust their food habits, let them.
then, be proud and happy to class
wheat as nonessential for themselves
and gladly empty their national
bins for those TO whom wheat is still
an essential for military strength
and civilian morale.