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Show Kathleen Norris Says: Our Daily Bread Bell Syndicate. WNU Features. "There is hardly a household in America whose mistress could not cut down ood waste." THE STAFF OF LIFE We have all been requested, in the strongest terms, to save all the bread ive can. This is to conserve wheat so that there will be enough to ship to the starving peoples of Europe and Asia. Wheat is the most satisfactory food to feed the hungry, so the emphasis is on this grain. Of course, we should avoid wasting any food at this time, for many other products besides wheat are scarce, especially meat and butter. One woman who successful' ly did all this wrote of her experiences ex-periences to Miss iS'orris, who is passing it along to her read-ers. read-ers. It is a simple, cheerful st(fryt of how a busy mother trimmed down the waste in her household, and set served better meals than ever. She also uas able to reduce food bills by about a third. Miss Norris commends this woman for her unselfish desire de-sire to help others. At the same time she was rewarded by a substantial montetarv saving, sav-ing, no little item in these days of high living costs. Every family, says Miss Morris, could save a good deal of food, even if not as much as this woman did. It is every housewife's obligation to be as economical as she can in this time of crisis. a day. The family is deeply interested interest-ed in tliis experiment of food saving, sav-ing, and claims that it never has lived hetter. In fractions this means that we save about one-third in cost and bulk of food, and throw . out almost nothing that is edible. I don't cut on my vegetable or j fruit bill, and haven't calculated in here the help that homemade small breads give me. cornbread, mulllns. and so on. brcause Uiat ratio remains re-mains nbout the same. Itemarkable Itrcord. "Hut Isn't a saving of one-third encouraging and Ilium Inn ting?" concludes this cheerful and helpful letter. "Klmer and 1 say that no matter what the food situation gets to bo in the future, we never want to waste again." Everyone, I suppose, cannot follow fol-low this brilliant example, and reduce re-duce food consumption so renin rk-nbly rk-nbly and with such success. Uut there is hardly a household in America Amer-ica whose mistress could not cut down food waste in some such proportion pro-portion as that accomplished by Mrs. Hlllgrnss. Apart from the national na-tional food demand, and international internation-al food demand, there will bo immediate im-mediate financial sa vhitf, nnd perhaps per-haps a lesson to the younger members mem-bers of the family that will stand them In good stead In their own homes some day. Scrimping and par.iirnony and squeeitiK pennies is ugly business, but to live more simply sim-ply and at the same time Interest nnd satisfy the family; to serve not only nur own government and help to end the suffering nf the world (ho.'ie are objects wm th any worn-an's worn-an's time nnd cfTort, those nre as Important today as was the actual winning of the war. Shell llccmiie Hell Thrcn hundred K ore mi churches whose in Ms were conl!r;card din lug the war have been equipped with si i hst 11 utn chiines made f i mn .lap. ane'jp ?)() nun. mortar shells urifi-natly urifi-natly earmarked by American military mili-tary nut hnrii ics be dumped inln the sea, ( hutch author it ips nc-Hnnwlediir nc-Hnnwlediir an Ihelr henefaelnr MaJ. Hoy H, Sou Ih w in th. oi (him ice uf-(leer, uf-(leer, who Intel copied a carln.-id if Hvo shells eai marled for cll-tp, bad them rendered harm lens and presented them In the chinches. By KATHLEEN NORRIS ""X TO WOMAN knows how far she can cut down the food waste in her house, until she tries," writes Mrs. Elmer Hillgrass of Santa San-ta Barbara. "I've never thought of myself as wasteful, waste-ful, but I've always set a generous gen-erous table, as my mother 1 did before me. "My family includes a good husband, a brother just back from four years' service, my mother and her ten-year-old son, and my own two babies. Milk, meat and grocery bills have run around $170 a month; that is, averaging $24 a month per person not high, considering the cost of everything nowadays. "However, when the call went out for food economy. I determined to see what I could do. took the whole, family Into my confidence, and set to work. Brother Chester approved, because in Europe he saw the bitter bit-ter need of food shipments to the starving; Elmer approved because our bills were worrying him a little and he saw this plan killing two birds with one stone, and Mother approved because she thinks we haven't character enough and hoped this would help. "Bread was one of our weak spots ; do what I would, we threw out what amounted to a loaf or two every week. ' Cut slices, cold toast, the end of a french loaf all grew stale and sometimes mouldy, and when my jar of crumbs was full there seemed nothing to do with it but throw it away. Saved It AM. "That I stopped. While conceding conced-ing to my family that fresh bread is much more tempting than stale. I determined that no bread should ever be thrown out again. Housewives House-wives know a hundred uses for old bread, I employed them all. Odd bits, crisped In a little margarine, went into soups; old slices were freshened and put under asparagus, scrambled eggs, creamed things. "Once a week every last scrap was toasted, buttered, put into a tureen and covered with hot salted milk and that, with dessert, was our supper. Everyone liked It, and ft was finished to the last ladleful and my bread box was washed, aired, and ready for fresh supplies. "Once the bread problem was conquered, the rest came easy. Every Ev-ery saucer of tomato sauce, every chicken or steak bone, every ha If-Dnlon If-Dnlon or spoonful of the babies' uneaten carrots or spinach went into the soup pot. Dounhnuts, grapefruit, grape-fruit, chops weren't bought by the dozen any more, but on a strict ratio ra-tio of five, for my five adults. I Bay 'chops' but we rarely have chops; the proportion of bone weight nnd fat makes them a wasteful meat. Pot-roasts, slews. ground beef, lamb shoulders, nil these are varied by the cheaper foods, frankfurters, tongires, pigs feet, beef short-ribs, tripe, fish, curries nf nil sorts. "These are my figures. In March ft year np.o we used 70 loaves of bread. HO ounds of meat and 17 pounds of fbtli. In March this year wo bought 41 pounds of meat, H loaves of bread and Ifi pounds of Flab. The? money saving Is very noticeable. Our milk still stands tit 4 quarts a day; egtfi we get from our own chickens, nbout one dozen Unn I ii ntr it! |