and one-tenth ounces. The government is asking us to reduce this total by one ounce, and, if possible, to further reduce one ounce more by substituting other foods, as indicated above.

If each one of the twenty million homes in the United States would reduce the consumption of meat one ounce daily it would mean a saving of one million two hundred and fifty thousand pounds of meat a day, or four hundred and sixty-five million pounds annually. Save two ounces daily and it will mean nearly a billion pounds for our Allies.

HOW TO SAVE OUR SUGAR

Use less sugar with cereals.

Select recipes requiring less sugar.

Use sirups, as corn sirup, or glucose, in place of sugar. Leave the "frosting" off the cake.

Use evaporated fruits more freely.

Honey is cheap and takes the place of sugar.

Sweeten with molasses and other sirups.

Maple sugar is a good sweetener.

Use sugar in coffee and tea less freely.

Leave no sugar in the cup.

Eat very little candy.

We use daily in this country, on an average, four ounces of sugar per capita. Our Allies in Europe are using one ounce, or less, daily. Mr. Hoover desires us to save an ounce a day. If we do this (and we can) it means a saving of six million two hundred and fifty thousand pounds every day in the year, or the enormous sum of two billion two hundred and eighty-one million two hundred and fifty thousand pounds annually.

A WELL-BALANCED RATION

A ration is the amount of food necessary to maintain the health of an individual for one day. The soldier requires a larger ration than the citizen because the soldier is doing harder work or leading a more strenuous life. A man doing hard labor requires more food or a larger ration, than the office man, and the average man requires more food than the average woman.

Foods are ignorantly wasted because the diet is not properly "balanced," as dietitians say. A well-balanced ration must include foods which supply the demands for growth and repair, maintenance of body functions and energy. It is possible for good food to be unsatisfactory in different ways. The combination should be made with reference to the needs of the body, but the selection of proper foods is not always easy. Price, preference for certain foods, and even the fact that hunger is satisfied after a meal, are not safe guides. The appetite should be educated. Tomatoes at ten cents apiece in winter are no more nutritious than they are at thirty cents a bushel in summer.

Foods, according to their properties, are usually classified as follows: Proteins, carbohydrates, fats, ash and water. Scientists have recently added another called "vitamines." Proteins

Proteins are the most important of all the foods, being the class of substances containing nitrogen. They are valuable because they build up the tissues and repair the waste, and, to some degree, furnish energy. The foods having the highest protein content are cheese, legumes, meat, fish, eggs, milk and cereals.

Carbohydrates:

The carbohydrates are a class of vegetable foods composed of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, and commonly referred to as starches and sugars. They are the source of energy. This class is most familiar in potatoes, rice, corn and other vegetables in the form of starch; and in cane, beets, milk and fruits, in the form of sugar.

Fats:

Fats are also composed of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, and like carbohydrates, are "heat producing foods," but in a more concentrated form. Fats and oils are found in animal foods like meat, fish, eggs, milk, butter, cheese, and they also occur in fruits and vegetables.

Ash:

Ash usually occurs in foods as acids and salts in combination with organic substances. In the body it is found in the teeth and bones and appears, also, in the tissues, and, in solution, in the fluids. This food ingredient is essential in digestion, assimilation and all vital processes.

Water:

Water is essential to life and is largely taken into the body as a drink, although a considerable amount is taken with the food, most foods being composed of more than fifty per cent. of water. It softens the food, makes it easier to swallow, aids digestion, promotes circulation, distributes heat over the body, and, through perspiration, regulates the temperature of the body.

Vitamines:

Vitamines are elements of the food about which little is known, but which have recently been found to be essential food factors. They are called by McCollum, an eminent scientist, "Fat-Soluble A" and "Water-Soluble B" and are held by him to be necessary to growth. The most important of these little known substances is found in the fats of milk and egg yolk, and in other foods nature provides for feeding the young. This substance, "Fat-Soluble A," is sometimes called "growing body" because without it there is no growth. Children must have it in abundance. That is why milk, the normal food of the infant, is an absolutely necessary food. And after the milk-drinking age is over, children should have plenty of butter which is rich in "growing bodies."

Stunted, undersized children have not had enough milk, butter or eggs. Often a generous diet of these important foods will start rapid growth. No matter how scarce or high-priced food is, children must have these foods.

The other necessary food constituent, "Water Soluble B,” is found in the leaves of plants. The cereals, like wheat or oats, are not perfect or complete foods for they lack this necessary substance. That is why the green vegetables like cabbage and spinach are such wholesome foods, and why, after a long winter without green foods, we crave the early greens in spring.

Calories:

Just as a foot is a unit of measure of length, a calorie is a standard unit of measure employed to determine the heat or energy generated by burning coal in a stove, or by digesting and assimilating food in the body. The amount of work

in the form of heat and energy in a pound of beef, or bread or sugar is expressed in terms of calories. The scientist thinks of calories as the amount of heat necessary to raise one pound of water four degrees Fahrenheit. If we could use hydrogen gas as a food to produce work just as it is used as a fuel to produce heat in the hydrogen blow-pipe, we would find it the most nutritious of all foods for it burns at the rate of sixteen thousand calories to the pound. The richest food is pure fat or oil, either animal or vegetable, and furnishes about four thousand two hundred twenty calories to the pound. Sugar develops one thousand eight hundred sixty calories to the pound, but water has no fuel value whatever. Between the high fuel value of the fats and oils at one end of our dietary and water at the other, all foods easily fall. Anything which is largely water is naturally low in food value. Tea and coffee, unless used with sugar and cream, and beef extracts, are practically without food value. No matter how much straight coffee is drunk, not an ounce of energy is developed.