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Show i I ! U r 1 a I ? ;a i foil isliidl Hi til.- ill 1 v 1 P 1 LJjt')t 1 i A7 SO MUCH, Advises Science, and Study Nutritive Values ! Codfish at a Tenth the Price Is as Nourishing as Oysters, Round Steak Equals Tenderloin and, if " ' Properly Prepared, Tastes as Good i ; f i""j-2"vtIirsiCIANTS, dietitians ! ir "Y and cnemIsts are :'ust ff "Tl Vf waking up to the fact 4v thnt 010 higl1 cost o llT" jRa JL ffi, ing, that , bugaboo and is Jibberwock of modern ' CjCJC??.'? man caQ be fuSbt best by scientifically figuring out just what foods produce the best results; re-sults; by probing deep into the question of i what foods we ought to eat. '. Instead of telling ihe housekeeper to buy I cheaper things the authorities are advising ' her to learn new things about cooking, about cooking things differently so that new food values will go into the stomachs of the feeders, taking the place of vast quantities of ignorantly , prepared stuff which now is put upon i tho table. f Furthermore, we as a people axe finding out that we have been eating' far more than is necessary and that food bills can be cut without any sacrifice sac-rifice of delicacy and with a better- i ment of health. We must study foods and consider our eating from a scientific standpoint before we can hope to cut the II. C. of Ij. Many of the things we like the best have the least power to produce energy when digested. Many of the things we pass by have tremendous fuel-making power, and it is this fuel-making food that the human body demands. Minna C. Denton of Ohio State University, an expert on dietetics, discusses this point In a recent issue of the i, "Crisp" bacon, which most of us demand, de-mand, has had practically S3 per cent of its food value cooked away. Scientific Monthly, saying: "The flavor substances which stimulate the olfactory and gustatory nerves and thus give rise to appetite are not ordinarily the substances upon which the body depends for its fuel, nor for the great bulk of its building materials." ma-terials." Building Foods Nearly Tasteless. These building materials, she points out, j arc the various substances in food known by ihe names of proteins, fats or oils, and j carbohydrates that is, sugars and starches I and nutritious articles that our best hopes for cheapening the cost of food lie. For instance, we like beef broth better than the plain boiled meat from which it has been skimmed, and yet the boiled meat contains 96 per cent of the food value and have little or no taste when chemically chem-ically pure. To meet this lack of taste we season and spice food until we have it suitable to our likes. But in so doing we are apt to neglect many solid necessities and to cultivate our tastes for trivial, unproductive sorts of food. It is In selecting some of these cheap Grapefruit costs on the average 60 cents per thousand calories, while apples cost but 12 cents per thousand thou-sand calories, and yet how many people today deign to eat apples at breakfast when the grapefruit may be had? Which is merely another instance of why we have a High Cost of Living and how we can overcome part of it. in the "piece, the broth but 4. Furthermore,, when we eat this broth we skim off it most of the fat, which is a splendid food and one that builds up the body. When we ask a waiter, "Will you bring my bacon crisp?" we illustrate the same point. Crisp bacon has had practically 93 per cent of its fuel value cooked away. A very thin slice of bacon weighing three-fourths three-fourths of an ounce contains on the average 129 calories (a calory is the measure of fuel values of different foods in heat units, each calory being the amount of heat necessary neces-sary to raise a quart of water to l.S degrees Fahrenheit). When this has been crisped over the flre only nine calories remain, 120 calories having been cooked away. If this bacon were wisely cooked it would be eaten with a large part of this Datural fat still in it and much less of it would have to be purchased pur-chased for the meal. Dried Fruits More Nourishing. The taste for crisp bacon is largely a fad and a habit, its qualities of taste when cooked less thoroughly being in no way deficient de-ficient once the individual becomes accustomed accus-tomed to it. Another example of poor economy and one that presents to the consumer a chance for a very considerable saving is found in the matter of dried fruits. People today eat fresh fruit rather than dried fruits, al- What we eat and what we ought to eat between 4,000 and 5,000 ; the I ' eats 3,425, while he should eat 3,01 though the latter have greater fuel value for the human body. Fresh stuff is more delicate, yet it does not in similar amounts nourish the body as do the dried materials. "Dried peas and beans," says Miss Denton, "as ordinarily cooked will have from two to three times the food value of young green ones. In a general way the same thing is true of most vegetable foods and meats." Most people prefer the filler textured meats to the tougher cuts that is, they like tenderloin better than round steak, and yet round steak is more highly flavored. The tougher cuts of meat are every bit as nutritious nutri-tious to the human body as are the higher priced cuts, and they can be cooked as tender and have just as fine a flavor with , no loss of fuel value if care and close study be put upon the matter by the housewife. Consider the oyster and the codfish. The former is sold as an estimate at 50 cents a quart and the codfish at 10 cents a pound. A thousand calories of fuel value of oysters costs $2.25 and a thousand calories in codfish cod-fish costs 20 cents. The saving, as illustrated illus-trated here, is scarcely believable and yet it can be effected easily in any home. Compare grapefruit and apples. Grapefruit Grape-fruit cost, say, 10 cents a pound, or 60 cents per thousand calories. Apples at 30 cents a peck cost 12 cents a thousand calories. Need Balanced Ration. The body demands a well-balanced ration, ra-tion, a variety of fats, proteins and carbohydrates. car-bohydrates. Carbohydrates include sugars and starches. Fats include such compounds as butter, lard, suet, olive oil, etc. Proteins are found chiefly in eggs, milk, cheese, meat, fish, poultry and to a less extent in vege- . - "-w , 1 . ' f Grapefruit costs on the average 60 ? C cents per thousand calories, while 1 v 7fi t apples cost but 12 cents per thou- X1 't s sand calories, and yet how many . V X f people today deign to eat apples at j y breakfast when the grapefruit may 3? 4 (, V--r-...N be had? Which is merely another 'V , instance of why we have a High " ZJZ-" i C T ' " J 1 tables, especially cereals, peas, beans and nuts. One ounce of carbohydrates will produce pro-duce 123 calories. One ounce of fat will produce 2S3.5 calories. One ounce of protein will produce 169.5 calories. Knowing these values, the housewife may select and vary the food she puts before be-fore her family and know that wheii she limits food to any one of the three classes she is not adding to the health of her family fam-ily and is adding to the cost, since she is tilling them with unproductive food which does not satisfy their appetite :, although it may "fill them up"' for the time being. Miss Denton points out still other reasons rea-sons why we should cut the cost of living. In the first place we eat more than is necessary. neces-sary. In nature, where animals exist in the wild state, we find none of them overfat They are forced to struggle too keenly for the survival of the unwieklly, cumbersome creature of flesh. Modern social conditions, which have led men and women into sedentary occupations, have produced a change in our body demands, de-mands, and yet the majority of us persist in eating almost as much us (fur pioneer ancestors. an-cestors. Miss Denton says: "The voluntary volun-tary muscles, which in the activities of the human animal iu a 'state of nature' use probably 75 per cent of the fuel which the body requires, have in this last century had :at for instance, the man at hard manual labor, like the steel mill hand, eats usiness man eats 3,235 calories on the average, while he ought to eat 2,445; the )0; the woman at very light labor, like reading or knitting, eats 2,600, while she yTRODVCING an old fish to the American puMio un.ler a new name, the United States bureau of fisheries, Department of Commerce, in a late bulletin says: THE CRAYFISH. TRY IT! It Knocks H. Oat of the H. C. of L. CRAYFISH is excellent eaten fresh, but it is as a preserved product that it will -find its largest use. It can be prepared in a number of ways: Salted and dried like cod, smoked and canned in a variety of styles. The smoked fish is excelled by few, if any, products of similar nature, and it is probable that it will be available to the consumer during 1917. At present the fish is obtainable canned plain like salmon, and a can containing con-taining fourteen ounces of solid meat is purchasable for about 10 cents, making it one of the lowest priced fishery products on the market. It must not be inferred in-ferred from this, however, that it is a low-grade commodity, for it is rich, wholesome whole-some and generally excellent, and the variety of ways in which it may be served will make it an important addition to the country's diet. It has been used as a fresh food on the shores of the 'Mediterranean from times immemorial and of late it has come into consumption in the countries of northern Europe. The officials of the bureau of fisheries have been testing it and having others pass on it for years, and some of them are now using it in their own households. They urge the public to try it. The name grayfish was coined by the bureau of fisheries. The fish is a pirate and a marauder, and it not only eats and drives away other food fishes but it cuts to pieces with its teeth the fisherman's gear. No name was too bad to apply to it and the mildest one in common use was "dogfish." Adult grayfish weigh from five to fifteen pounds, seven pounds being a common weight. They feed on fish, crabs, shrimps and even lobsters. In this exclusive animal diet they are like bluefish, cod, haddock and most other of our important food fishes. I their activities suppressed and curtailed as never before. This is true not only in sedentary (business or professional) but also in large sections of the industrial classes. We should expect, then, that the traditions, customs and 'instincts' of the frontiersman, the hard-working peasant, the soldier, who uses from 4.000 to 6.000 calories' cal-ories' worth a day when he can get it, and needs it all, may not necessarily prove a wise guide in the matter of food consumption consump-tion for their descendants, the bookkeeper, the broker, the skilled artisan, the factory hand, whose requirements are 2,500 to 3,000 calories a day. Nerves May Increase Appetite. "Hunger may be diminished by lessening lessen-ing muscular work, but appetite is not necessarily nec-essarily so. Indeed, it seems that nerve ' poisoning and heightened irritability resulting result-ing from overstrain and unhygienic indoor living may sometimes unduly heighten (instead (in-stead of interfering with) the appetite for food." Some veTy interesting things in connection connec-tion with this matter of how much we should eat have been discovered by Martha Tracy, M. D., who has published in the New York Medical Journal a t::blc showing how much more people eat thsn is necessary. For instance, the man at exceptionally hard work, like the pioneer or soldier, needs on the average 4,150 calories of food every By skimming the fat off our broths and soups we destroy a large part of their food value. twenty-four Lours. Tt:e business man sitting sit-ting at bis desk requires 2 445 calories. The farmer needs '3,000 calories. The woman doing light housework uetds 2,450 calories. These figures are generally accepted as standards ; they indicate I lie amount of food upon which the man indicated would do his best work. , I But what do we find when we torn to the figures which show how much people do eat? The useless food put into man's stomach is appalling whn considered scientifically, scien-tifically, for Langworthy's statistics, regarded re-garded as authoritative, show the following follow-ing : The man at very hard work eats 6,000 calories In food ; the business man consumes 3,285; the farmer, 3,425; the woman doing little or no work, 2,600. All Classes Ea Too Much. In every walk of life too much food is taken into the stomach. We eat much more than our bodies require. Experiments have been made, says Dr. Tracy, which show that the average adult human being requires for maintenance of body weight only that is, for the performance perform-ance of the duties of the body's internal organs or-gans when the human being is lying down all day 1,650 calories each day. If a mail is sitting up in a chair he will need 2,168 calories. If he walks two hours during the day he will need 2.4S8 calories. "Scientific experiments." Dr. Tracy says, "have shown that about 2,500 calories a day represent the amount of fuel necessary and desirable for normal, moderate activity. With every increase in '-.h work done more fuel is burned, more energy is discharged, more heat produced, moie carbon dioxide and other waste products are excreted and a corresponding amount of food is needed to supply the demands of this activity. 6,000 calories a day when he ought to man at moderate labor, like the farmer, 3ught to stop at 2,450 calories. "The idea at once suggests itself, however, how-ever, that men and womou of different size and weight must differ from one another iu food requirement. The greater or less extent ex-tent of body service in i.roportion to the weight is also of significance. Thus for the average individual of 40 years of age weighing 154 pounds, with moderate exercise exer-cise the requirement would be 2,520 calories." cal-ories." There seems to be no reason, then, for the average human being iiersisting in loading load-ing up his stomach with a great excess of high-priced food. He corjd cut off from TOO to 800 calories every twenty-four hours and still keep his strength and better his health, providing he arranged his diet according ac-cording to standards. Health and pocket-book pocket-book will be benefited by restrictions in the amount of food eaten. Children require in proportion much more fuel supply than do adults, owing to their demand for tissue-building foods to supply their growing cells From 1 to 2 years the child needs from 900 to 1,200 calories; from 2 to 5 it needs 1,200 to 1,500; from 6 to 9 it needs 1,400 to 2,000; from 10 to 13 it needs 1.S00 to 2,200. Girls of from 14 to 17 need from 2,200 to 2,600 calories and boys of similar age need from 2,500 to 3.000. Final Test Is Chemical. The whole question of how to cut the H. C. of L. comes down to the fact that it is not bulk but chemical composition which determines the amount of nutrition we get from a meal. We are likely to think that because we have eaten a large amount of some foods wo have done our duty by our stomachs. Miss Denton illustrates this fact by citing cit-ing our attitude toward breakfast cereals: "In an ordinary two or three course meal most persons would perhaps agree that an ounce and a half of any dry, granular, ready-to-serve breakfast food (two or three generous tablespoonf uls ) would constitute a reasonable portion, whereas in the case of dry flaked cereal the same weight would go far toward filling a pint measure could hardly be served in the bowl which would be suitable for most cereals without refilling, refill-ing, and would probably be rejected by most people as being an unduly large portion. Indeed, half that weight would be a more acceptable serving to most. "In the case of cooked breakfast foods we have a similar contrast with the more concentrated cereal served in its dry granular form. Although the serving of mush and porridge may weigh from three to five ounces or more, most of that weight is due to water taken up in the cooking, and the amount of dry cereal represented in a serving is perhaps from one-half to three-quarters three-quarters of an ounce." What we need, then. Is to use our heads in selecting foods rather than our eyes. Copyright, 1916, by J. Keeley.J |
