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Show ECONOMICAL YS. POOR LIVING. mistakes made by Many Writers When Treating of Kltcken Economies. This is the season of the year when almost al-most every paper has some" advice, more or less senseless, upon the subject of economical living, addressed to those whose small incomes are supposed to require re-quire special care in administration. The trouble with most of these articles--and they seem to be unusually common this fall is that in general the writer confounds con-founds economical, or cheap, living with poor, and most of the bills of fare that are formulated upon such an idea, simply detestable. Within certain limits the best is the cheapest, and, per contra, the poorest is never the most economical. Writers on cheap living lay down as one of the fundamental rules that vegetables vege-tables should not be omitted from the bill of fare of any person, however moderate mod-erate his income, and usually proceed to put in cabbage and turnips as such vegetables, vege-tables, when all the world knows that they are about as indigestable and unnu-tritious unnu-tritious as any thing that grows. Why these table economists do not go one step further and recommend hay and cut straw instead of cabbages and turnips is a mystery known only to themselves. Cabbage contains seventy-three parts of nutriment in each 1,000, and turnips forty-two, : while potatoes contain 120, oats 148, beans 800, peas (dry) 930, and parsnips, squash, apples and onions rank high as nutritious, easily digested, and wholesome vegetables for the table. The truth is that cabbages and turnips are the most expensive articles of common vegetable food a poor man can put upon his table. They , are grown for. beasts, and their proper place is the barnyard. The same rule . applies to meats. The poor-food economist advises the purchase of beef shins, neck pieces, fore quarter veal, spareribs, and other cuts made up of seventh- tenths bone and two-tenths gristle to one of meat. The theory is that a poor man can take out the nine-tenths bone and gristle, supply its place with water, and make a soup with the one-tenth one-tenth meat. When he has thrown away his bone and refuse he will find the meat has cost him double Drice. however cheaD the water may be. It is a waste of money to buy such stuff. A fair roast of beef, a good boiling piece, or a supply of corn beef costs only a trifle more than shins and rumps, but they are far more economical. econ-omical. Fish is better and cheaper than veal, and mutton is better than pork. Poor living is not by any means economical econom-ical living. Chicago News. |