Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1918-07-03
WHY WE SEND WHEAT TO EUROPE.

No question is more frequently ask
ed than why we send wheat to Europe
and stint our own people. The. first
answer is that we send wheat to fur
nish a foundation for the mixed GER
cal bread that the Allies have eaten
for three years and. half, and not
to supply them with a straight wheat
bread. We are now eating Victory
bread, a bread that calls for only 20
per cent wheat substitute, while Eu-
rope since the outbreak of the war
has eaten a war bread which contains
from 25 to so per cent substitute.
They are asking us for wheat enough
to make this war bread.
Wheat flour is the only known foun-
dation for bakery loaf. Corn meal
and buckwheat can be used in max
ing cornbread and batter cakes but
these breads cannot be looked on as
bakery products as they will not
stand "a hours handling between the
oven and the table. American women
who do their own baking can make
good use of cornmeal, rice and oat-
meal, but wherever women work in
factories or long hours in the field,
whether in America or Europe, bak-
cry bread must be within their reach.
DR.. Alonzo Taylor, repres entative
from the United States Food Admin
istration to the recent Allied confer
ence in Paris, and an expert on the
food needs of the world answers the
question in this way:
1--WE receive many letters at Wash
ington as to why we want to send so
much wheat to Europe when we are
told that corn, oatmeal, rice and bar
ley and rye are just as good. Then
ask, why don't we keep the wheat
and send them the corn and rye and
barley and rice? I will answer that:
We want to send wheat to Europe be-
cause you can make bread of wheat,
and you can't make bread out Of rice
and oats and corn. And nobody bakes
domestic bread in Europe. You can
go to any town in France and you will
find that there are no individual bak-
ers there. There will be employed
place, who will have one large hearth,
who will be able to bake 1000 loaves
Of bread together, with minimum
amount of coal.
''The bread is delivered to the home;
and this is one-half of the diet Of that
home. 1t was in peace times and it is
now. In peace times there was con-
siderable sugar, and dairy products
were plentiful. Now these things are
scarce and the bread largely takes the
place of these foods. So the bread be-
comes of added Importance from every
point of view. Now just visualize this
peasant home. Remember that the
peasantry of France live in villages,
not on farms, and they subsist on the
small local store and bakeshop.
please remember that the coal in
France is $110 and $135 per ton, and
they have good coal supply this year
"Just visualize an American woman
saying If the corn, rye, oatmeal and
barley are just as good, I will accept
the wheat and send the wheat substi-
tute to Europe Remember that
bread is made from wheat.
How much work is it for her to
prepare rice or oatmeal or make corn
bread? How much of burden does
it impose upon the overtime of the
American woman today, either with
or without servants? Very little. But
it is burden to French woman, who
is working sixteen hours a day and
taking care of MANNED soldier, or a
tubercular person, to deliberately put
an hour or an hour and half on her
a day at boiling rice or making corn
bread. Shall we put this burden up
on her? This is the concrete situa-
ton. "-Wallace's Farmer.