Food in War Time Part 1

Food in War Time.

by Graham Lusk.

FOOD IN WAR TIME

I

A BALANCED DIET

There is no doubt that under the conditions existing before the war the American people lived in a higher degree of comfort than that enjoyed in Europe. Hard times in America have always been better times than the best times in Europe. As a student in Munich in 1890 I remember paying three dollars a month for my room, five cents daily for my breakfast, consisting of coffee and a roll without b.u.t.ter, and thirty-five cents for a four-course dinner at a fas.h.i.+onable restaurant. This does not sound extravagant, but it represents luxury when compared with the diet of the poorest Italian peasants of southern Italy. Two Italian scientists describe how this cla.s.s of people live mainly on cornmeal, olive oil, and green stuffs and have done so for generations. There is no milk, cheese, or eggs in their dietary. Meat in the form of fat pork is taken three or four times a year. Cornmeal is taken as "polenta," or is mixed with beans and oil, or is made into corn bread. Cabbage or the leaves of beets are boiled in water and then eaten with oil flavored with garlic or Spanish pepper. One of the families investigated consisted of eight individuals, of whom two were children. The annual income was 424 francs, or $84. Of this, three cents per day per adult was spent for food and the remaining three-fifths of a cent was spent for other purposes. Little wonder that such people have migrated to America, but it may strike some as astonis.h.i.+ng that a race so nourished should have become the man power in the construction of our railways, our subways, and our great buildings.

Dr. McCollum will tell you that the secret of it all lies in the green leaves. The quality of the protein in corn is poor, but the protein in the leaves supplements that of corn, so that a good result is obtained.

Olive oil when taken alone is a poor fat in a nutritive sense, but when taken with green leaves, these furnish that one of the peculiar accessory substances, commonly known as vitamines, which is present most abundantly in b.u.t.ter-fat, and gives to b.u.t.ter-fat and to the fat in whole milk its dominant nutritive value. The green leaves likewise furnish another accessory substance, also present in milk, a substance which is soluble in water and which is necessary for normal life.

Furthermore, the green leaves contain mineral matter in considerable quant.i.ty and in about the same proportions as they exist in milk.

Here then is the message of economy in diet, corn the cheapest of all the cereals, a vegetable oil cheaper by far than animal fat, which two materials taken together would bring disaster upon the human race, but if taken with the addition of cabbage or beet-tops they become capable of maintaining mankind from generation to generation. One can safely refer to such a diet as a balanced diet. Just as in the case of the modern experimental biological a.n.a.lysis of a balanced ration in which such a ration is given to rats and its efficiency as a diet is tested by its capacity to support normal growth and reproduction of the species, so here the experimental evidence is presented that corn and olive oil may become a sustaining diet when green leaves are a supplementary factor.

This preliminary sketch shows several important fundamentals of food and nutrition. If one gives an animal a mixture of purified food-stuffs, pure protein, pure starch, purified fat, and a mixture of salts like the salts of milk, the animal will surely die. But if one subst.i.tutes b.u.t.ter-fat for purified fat, and adds a water solution of the natural salts of milk, the animal lives and thrives.

Again, the ill.u.s.tration shows how corn may be so supplemented with other food-stuffs as to become extremely valuable in nutrition. It is especially valuable at the present time because corn is comparatively cheap and plentiful. But one asks how about pellagra? It must be here definitely stated that the use of cornmeal is not the cause of pellagra, provided the right kind of other foods be taken with it. Pellagra occurs in the "corn belt" of the United States, and especially among the poorer cla.s.ses in the south. The disease has developed since the introduction in 1880 of highly perfected milling machinery which furnishes corn and wheat completely freed from their outer coverings. In Italy, where the milling of corn is still primitive, pellagra is not so severe as with us, because the corn offal is not completely removed and this contains the accessory food substances or vitamines which are essential to life.

Pellagra is generally believed to be produced by a too exclusive use of highly milled corn and wheat flour in a.s.sociation with salt meats and canned goods, all of which are deficient in vitamines. The administration of fresh milk is naturally indicated. Goldberger states that after the addition of milk to the diet of a pellagrin, the typical clinical picture of pellagra no longer persists. The poor in the mill towns of the South lived too exclusively upon a corn diet without admixture of milk or fresh animal food or even of cabbage, and pellagra has been the consequence.

The Food Administrator asks us to eat corn bread and save the wheat for export. It is a very small sacrifice to eat corn bread at one meal or more a day. Indian corn saved our New England ancestors from starvation, and we can in part subst.i.tute it for our wheat and send the latter abroad to spare others from starvation. The simplest elements of patriotism demand that we do this. Therefore let us cry, "Eat corn bread and save the wheat for France, the home of Lafayette!"

The United States Department of Agriculture has estimated that only 6.6 per cent. of our corn crop is used for human food, and of this, 3.4 per cent. is consumed by the farmers and their families.

The subst.i.tution of foods is no new thing. We find that an English contemporary author thus described the food habits of the English people during the "golden days of Good Queen Bess," three hundred and fifty years ago:

"The gentilitie commonly provide themselves sufficiently of wheat for their own tables, whylest their household and poore neighbours in some s.h.i.+res are forced to content themselves with rye or barleie; yea and in time of dearth many with bread made eyther of beanes, peason[1] or otes, or of altogether and some acornes among."

[1] An obsolete plural of pease.

A difference between those days and ours is that the "gentilitie" and the "poore neighbours" are now asked to unite in reducing the consumption of wheat and to do this for the safety and welfare of all mankind.

Another point in war economy is the use of whole milk in greater quant.i.ty, and the diminution of the use of b.u.t.ter and cream. Cream is bought only by the wealthy, but in sufficient volume to largely reduce the amount of whole milk available. In Germany before the war 15 per cent. of the milk supply of that country was used for the production of cream. The consequent restriction of the milk supply was distinctly to the detriment of the health of the peasant farmers of Bavaria. Regarding the use of b.u.t.ter, a Swiss professor, himself an expert in nutrition, complains that whereas in his youth children were never given b.u.t.ter on their bread for breakfast, not even when there was no jam in the house, yet to-day absence of b.u.t.ter from the table is held to be indicative of direst poverty.

If one takes a pint of whole milk daily, or even, as we have seen, cabbage or beet-tops in its stead, one may take fat in the forms of olive oil or cottonseed oil, corn oil, cocoanut oil, peanut b.u.t.ter, or in other vegetable oils, without possible prejudice to health.

Osborne and Mendel, and more recently Halliburton, have pointed out that oleomargarine as prepared from beef-fat contains the fat-soluble growth-promoting accessory substance or vitamine which is present in b.u.t.ter-fat, but which is not contained in vegetable oils or in lard.

Halliburton and Drummond summarize the practical results of their work as follows:

But when we approach the subject of the dietary of the poorer cla.s.ses, the question is a more serious one. In ordinary times the consumption of beef dripping, which is considerable among the poor, would to a large extent supply the lacking properties of a vegetable-oil margarine. But at the present time beef itself is expensive, and the opportunities of obtaining dripping are therefore minimized. At the same time the three important foods for children already enumerated (milk, b.u.t.ter, eggs) have risen in cost, so as to be almost prohibitive to those with slender incomes. The vegetable-oil margarines still remain comparatively cheap, and the danger is that unless measures are taken to insure a proper milk supply for infants at a reasonable charge, these infants may run the risk of being fed, so far as fat is concerned, entirely upon an inferior brand of margarine, dest.i.tute of the growth-promoting accessory substance. It would be truer economy even for the poor to purchase smaller quant.i.ties of an oleo-oil margarine if they cannot afford the luxury of real b.u.t.ter.

The legal restrictions placed upon the sale of oleomargarine and the taxes enhancing its cost, now in operation in many of our states, are without warrant in morals or common sense and should be entirely abolished in times like these. A well-made brand of oleomargarine is much more palatable than b.u.t.ter of the second grade, and certainly for cooking purposes is just as valuable.

Whole milk contains everything necessary for growth and maintenance, protein, fat, milk-sugar, salts, water, and the unknown but invaluable accessory substances. It is of such prime importance that each family should have this admirable food that I have suggested that no family of five should ever buy meat until they have bought three quarts of milk.

The insistence by scientific men upon the prime importance of milk has probably had something to do with its rapid enhancement in price. This latter factor is greatly to be regretted. I have often wondered why it was that a quart bottle of a fancy brand of milk in New York should cost about as much as a quart of _vin ordinaire_ on the streets of Paris, and a quart bottle of cream as much as a quart of good champagne in Paris.

Despite much denial it appears to me that milk is not sold as cheaply as it ought to be. Everything should be done to conserve our herds of cows for the increased supply of whole milk and incidentally for the manufacture of cheese and of milk powder or of condensed milk.

If one takes milk with other foods, meat may be dispensed with. Thus Hindhede advocates as ideal a diet consisting of bread, potatoes, fruit, and a pint of milk. Splendid health, both of body and mind, the peasants' comparative immunity to indigestion, kidney and liver disease, as well as an absolute immunity to gout, is the alluring prospect held out by the following dietary:

Graham bread 1 pound Potatoes 2 pounds Vegetable fat pound Apples 1 pounds Milk 1 pint

This bread-potato-fruit diet gives a very excellent basis of wholesome nutrition. The potatoes yield an alkaline ash which has a highly solvent power over uric acid, and, therefore, a good supply of these valuable tubers is needed by the nation.

To most Americans the dietary factors here described will appear to be merely attenuated hypotheses, fit only for philosophic contemplation.

For, in real life, it is the roast beef of Old England, or some other famed equivalent, that makes its appeal. Far be it from me to disparage the feast following a hunt of the wild boar or other feasts famed in song and story, but that is not the question. The question is, is meat necessary? The description of the Italian dietary answers this in the negative.

But is meat desirable? The Italian experimenters believed that the addition of four or eight ounces of meat to the dietaries of some of their subjects increased their physical and also their mental powers.

The increase in mental power due to change in diet has always seemed to me to be a figment of the imagination and not susceptible of demonstration. Thomas lived for twenty-four days on a diet of starch and cream, during four days of which time the very small quant.i.ty of three ounces of meat was taken daily, and he found his mental and muscular power unchanged.

A remarkable experiment on the effect of a potato diet has been reported by Hindhede. An individual partook of a diet of between four and one-half and nine pounds of potatoes daily, with some vegetable margarine, during a period of nearly three hundred days. The rule was to eat only when hungry and then the potatoes could be taken at the rate of an ounce a minute. During the last three months (ninety-five days) of the experiment severe mechanical work was performed and the total food intake for the latter period amounted to 770 pounds of potatoes and 48 pounds of margarine. What could be more simple than stocking the cellar with coal, potatoes, and a tub of margarine! Who then would worry about the complexities of modern life?

Of course, vegetarianism is no new thing. Its princ.i.p.al exponent was Sylvester Graham. It so happens that he was the brother of my great grandmother, and of him my father wrote in 1861, "long lanky Sylvester Vegetable Graham, leanest of men." Graham in 1829 began the advocacy of moderation in the use of a diet consisting of vegetables, Graham bread, fruits, nuts, salts and pure water, and excluding meat, sauces, salads, tea, coffee, alcohol, pepper, and mustard. The first effect of this diet, which largely eliminated the flavors, was to reduce the weight through lowering the intake of food, but the health of many followers of the diet appears to have been benefited. The "Graham System" of dieting suffered from withering criticism at the time. He published in 1837 a little book ent.i.tled, "Bread and Bread Making," bearing on its cover the scriptural quotation "Bread strengtheneth man's heart." He says in this volume:

But while the people of our country are entirely given up as they are at present, to gross and promiscuous feeding on the dead carca.s.ses of animals and to the untiring pursuit of wealth, it is perhaps wholly vain for a single individual to raise his voice on a subject of this kind.

The well-known work of Chittenden has shown that when the protein intake is reduced by one half or less of that which the average American appet.i.te suggests, professional men, soldiers and athletes may be maintained in the best physical condition. One of Yale's champion intercollegiate athletes won all the events of the year in which he was entered while living on a reduced protein or Chittenden diet. Upon such a diet, or less than that, the people of Germany are now living to-day.

The principle involves eating meat very sparingly, taking half a piece where one would have formerly been taken, and using it only for its flavor. The wing of a chicken has little meat on it and yet if eaten together with vegetables it gives the meal a different quality than it would have had without it, and to this extent its use is warranted. The muscles are active when hard labor is done, but the muscles do not need meat for the performance of their work. A fasting man may have considerable power. The popular idea of the necessity of meat for a laboring man may be epitomized in the statement: a strong man can eat more meat than a weak one, hence meat makes a man strong. The proposition is evidently absurd.

Not only is the taking of meat without beneficial relation to the capacity for muscular work, but, in fact, an exclusive meat diet results in the sensation that work is being accomplished with difficulty. When meat is metabolized it stimulates the body to a higher heat production, as great an increase as 55 per cent. having been observed in a resting man. No other food-stuff will accomplish so great an increase. It is especially worthy of note that this increase in the heat production, due to the _specific dynamic action_ of protein, as it is called, cannot be utilized in the execution of mechanical work. When the organism of a laborer at work in a hot environment is called upon to eliminate extra heat, due to the work he is performing, he must also eliminate the quota of heat which is derived from any large ingestion of meat. Hence, the American farmer in the hot weather can eat little meat.

So far as is known, taking meat even in large excess is not harmful, but it represents luxury and waste. According to an oral statement by A. E.

Taylor, the results of many thousand urinary a.n.a.lyses in Germany during the second year of the war showed about 7 grams of nitrogen excreted, which would correspond to a dietary containing about 45 grams of protein. As a matter of fact, this is the equivalent of the reduced protein dietary of Chittenden, and it is reported that no ill effects can be attributed to it. The flavor of meat is such that it lends itself to the easy preparation of a palatable meal, but this flavor could undoubtedly be as well obtained if the present consumption of meat were cut in two. It is a question of habit, but with the present reduced supply of meat one must adopt new habits. It would be highly desirable if the grain now fed to fatten beef were given to maintain herds of milch cows.

Indulgence in meat is due to the desire for strong flavor. With the increased distribution of wealth, the demand for meat grows. Its consumption by all cla.s.ses had vastly increased in all prosperous countries prior to the war. It is well, however, to remember that its use has been excessive and unnecessary, and its price can be cut by wholesale voluntary abstinence. The British people have suffered no hards.h.i.+p in the recent reduction of their meat ration.

A British Commission has reported to Parliament that it takes three times as much fodder to produce beef as it does to produce milk or pork of the same food value. Since cows eat chiefly hay and gra.s.s and pigs eat grain the cost of the production of a unit value of milk is much less than the cost of the same value in the form of pork. It takes only fifty per cent. more fodder to produce veal than to produce pork. Milk, pork, and veal have long been the established protein-containing foods of nations on the continent of Europe. According to these figures beef should cost in the market twice what veal costs, and yet the butcher charges nearly the same for the two. It would save food for milk production if steers were eaten as veal and not fed up into beef cattle.

A suitable tax on all steers over a year old would accomplish this result. If all heifers were developed into milch cows and no cow capable of giving milk in quant.i.ty were slaughtered, the country would be placed on a much better basis than at present. It might make beef expensive, but there is every reason why it should be expensive. It would increase the dairy business, which is evidently a need of the times, something for the protection of the welfare of mankind. For it must be remembered that a well-nourished cow during a single year will give in the form of milk as much protein and two and a half times the number of calories as are contained in her own body.

This was written before the publication of the following words of Armsby, the foremost authority on animal nutrition:[2]

Roast pig, to those who like it, is not only a delicacy but a valuable article of diet, but nevertheless, it is possible to pay too high a price for it, and while a proposal to restrict rather than to promote meat production in the present crisis may appear both irrational and unpatriotic it may nevertheless be in the interest of true food economy....

It may be roughly estimated that about 24 per cent. of the energy of grain is recovered for human consumption in pork, about 18 per cent. in milk and only about 3.5 per cent. in beef and mutton. In other words, the farmer who feeds bread grains to his stock is burning up 75 to 97 per cent. of them in order to produce for us a small residue of roast pig, and so is diminis.h.i.+ng the total stock of human food....

The task of the stock feeder must be to utilize through his skill and knowledge the inedible products of the farm and factory, such as hay, corn stalks, straw, bran, brewers' and distillers' grains, gluten feed, and the like, and to make at least a fraction of them available for man's use. In so doing he will be really adding to the food supply and will be rendering a great public service. Rather than seek to stimulate live stock husbandry the ideal should be to adjust it to the limits set by the available supply of forage crops and by-product feeding stuffs while, on the other hand, utilizing these to the greatest practicable extent, because in this way we save some of what would otherwise be a total loss....

The hog is the great compet.i.tor of man for the higher grades of food, and in swine husbandry as ordinarily conducted we are in danger of paying too much for our roast pig. Cattle and sheep, on the other hand, although less efficient as converters, can utilize products which man can not use and save some of their potential value as human food. From this point of view, as well as on account of the importance of milk to infants and invalids, the high economy of food production by the dairy cow deserves careful consideration, although of course the large labor requirement is a counterbalancing factor.

At any rate, it is clear that at the present time enthusiastic but ill-considered "booming" of live stock production may do more harm than good. If it is desirable to restrict or prohibit the production of alcohol from grain or potatoes on the ground that it involves a waste of food value, the same reason calls for restriction of the burning-up of these materials to produce roast pig. This means, of course, a limited meat supply. To some of us this may seem a hards.h.i.+p.

Meat, however, is by no means the essential that we have been wont to suppose and partial deprivation of it is not inconsistent with high bodily efficiency. Certainly no patriotic citizen would wish to insist on his customary allowance of roast pig at the cost of the food supply of his brothers in the trenches.

[2] "Roast Pig," _Science_, 1917, xlvi, 160.

The United States Department of Agriculture has estimated that a pig that has reached the weight of 150 pounds should be slaughtered, because beyond that weight the cost of the quant.i.ty of feed required to maintain the animal is out of proportion to the gain in food value of the pig.

One might, therefore, call a pig weighing 150 pounds a _maximal economic hog_.