Evening star., 1945-04-16
Letters to The Star
Readers Discuss Food Problems
From Different Angles
To the Editor OF The Star:

To the Editor OF The Star:
From current radio broadcasts or
perusal of any respectable journal like
The Star, stranger dropped suddenly
down from Mars might imagine we
were all pious worshipers of the god,
Hotel whom the Japs depict as bullet
headed little man, squatting upon a
sheaf of grain and fondly patting a
prodigious belly that grotesquely dis
torts his torso. For you editors and
radio news directors do devote a deal
of space and time to food, food, food.
Night after night the casualty lists
stab us to the quick; day after day
we learn of the agony of life and death
and filth and stencil that Is the lot Of
millions of our youth. Everywhere men
are longing and praying for a leader
ship in wisdom and spiritual stamina
that may point us to the dawn of last
ing peace. Yet amidst all this you gen.
tlemen find time to editorialiZe about
food, you make food first-page stuff,
your commentators devote whole COL
umns to food. BY actual count within
the last 48 hours we've been warned
six times by radio that the rice crop is
off 80 per cent. Being one of those
who can take his rice or leave it alone,
l assume that to most listeners this will
come as a very minor tragedy. Then
congressional committee reports that
there will be little less sugar. Fine!
Thatll be good news in the home Of
fees Of the life insurance companies
where the underwriters have been in a
other for the past five years over the
steady increase in diabetes There's an
overall shortage of IL per cent in meat
So what? just north of town there
is a fouriShing religious community
Of several thousand individuals who
never in their lives have let a morsel
of meat pass their lips. incidentally,
they conduct a thriving sanitarium to
which yearly several hundreds of us
meat eaters retreat and embrace their
religion long enough to get our digestive
systems back into keller. So I protest.
gentlemen, you are allowing snivelers
to tempt you into accentuating the
negative when it comes to food
Wasn't it Sir William Osler who said
Most men dig their graves with their
teeth? Anyway, the vast majority of
Americans are. AS the President said:
Decent people, willing to share what
we have Under any circumstance
more of us are going to shuttle off this
mortal coil from hardening of the
arteries, sclerosis of the liver or fatty
degeneration of the heart than from
malnutrltion. To be sure you gentle
men of the press have the faculty of
getting news out Of focus
Let's forget our tummies and get on
with the war. DWIGHT T. SCOTT.
To the Editor OF The Star:
Recent Government reports advise us
there will have to be reduction for the
/ civilian In the amount Of sugar allotted
each Of us for l945. There is only
enough sugar to supply each person
with 83 pounds for the entire year.
To the American housewife this
Shortage would mean an increase of
over 300 per cent in the allotment Of
20 pounds year which the OPA is now
handing out. Less than one ounce
per day. Starvation rations
If these official reports are true. pres
sure should be put where it belongs
to give the American people that which
is allotted them by their Government.
1t would be interesting to have the
OPA explain what happens to the
other 63 pounds of sugar allotted each of
us, and for which they are not issuing
coupons. J.L.