Show 1 kathleen norris says our daily bread bell features feature V there is hardly a household in america whose mistress could not cut down tood food waste by KATHLEEN NORRIS X 0 WOMAN knows how N j far she can cut down L 1 the food waste in her house until she tries writes mrs elmer gillgrass Hill grass of santa barbara ive never thought of myself as wasteful but ive always set a generous table as my mother did before me my family includes a good huab husband and a brother just back from four years service my mother mothe r and her ten year old son and my own two babies milk meat and grocery bills have run around a month that is averaging 24 a month per person not high considering the cost of everything eve thing nowadays however when the call went out for or food economy I 1 determined to see what I 1 could do took tooh the whole family into my confidence and set to work brother chester approved because to in europe he saw the bitter 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 character enough and hoped this would help bread was one of our weak spots do what I 1 would we threw out what amounted to a loaf or two every week cut slices cold toast the endom end of a trench french loaf all grew stale and sometimes mouldy bouldy and when my jar of crumbs was full there seemed nothing to do with it but throw it away saved it all AH that I 1 stopped while conceding to my family that fresh bread Is much more tempting than stale I 1 determined that no bread should ever be thrown out again housewives know a hundred uses for old bread I 1 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 it was finished to the last and my bread box was washed aired and ready for fresh supplies once the bread problem was conquered the rest came easy every saucer of tomato sauce every chicken or steak bone every half onion or spoonful of the babies uneaten carrots or spinach went into the soup pot doughnuts grapefruit chops bought by the dozen any more but on a strict ratio of five tor for my five adults I 1 say chops but we rarely have chops the proportion of bone weight and fat makes them a wasteful meat pot roasts stews ground beef lamb shoulders an all these are varied by the cheaper foods frankfurters tongues pigs feet beef short ribs tripe fish curries of all sorts these are my figures in march a year ago we used 70 loaves of bread 80 pounds of meat and 17 pounds of fish in march this year we bought 41 pounds of meat 44 loaves of bread and 15 pounds ol of fish the money saving is very noticeable our milk still stands at 4 quartz quarts a day eggs we get from our own chickens about one ona dozen iun 1 waste ill THE STAFF OF LIFE we have all been requested in in the strongest terms to save all the bread we can this is to conserve wheat so that th there ere 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 especial especially ily meat and butter one woman who successfully did all this wrote of her experiences perien ces to miss norris who is is passing it along to her ter readers it is a simple cheerful story of how a busy mother trimmed down the waste in her household and yet served better meals than ever she also was able to reduce food bills by about a third miss norris commends this woman for her unselfish desire to help others at the same time she was rewarded by a substantial monte tary saving no little item in t these hese days of high living costs every family says miss norris could save a good deal of food even t if not as much as this woman did it is every housewives obligation to be as economical as she can in this time me of crisis a day the family is deeply interested la in this experiment ot of food saving and claims that it never has lived better in fractions this M means eans that we save about one third in cost and bulk of food and throw out almost nothing that Is edible I 1 dont cut on my vegetable or fruit bill and calculated in here the help that homemade small breads give me cornbread muffins and so on because that ratio remains about the same I 1 remarkable record but a saving ot of one third encouraging and illuminating conc concludes ludes this cheerful and helpful letter elmer and I 1 say that no ma matter ater what the food situation gets to be in the future we never want to waste again everyone I 1 suppose cannot follow this brilliant example and reduce food consumption so remarks remark ably and with such success but there Is hardly a household in amer lea ica whose mistress could not cut down food waste in some such proportion as ai that accomplished b by mrs gillgrass Hlll Hill grass apart from the national food demand and Inter international nati on food demand there will be immediate financial saving biving and perhaps a lesson to the younger members of the family that will stand them in good stead in their own homes some day scrimping and parsimony and squeezing pennies Is ugly business but to live more simply and at the same time interest and satisfy the family to serve not only our own government and help to end the suffering of the world those are objects worth any wo wom M ans time and effort those ar are a as important today as was the actual winning of the war |