Food Guide for War Service at Home / Prepared under the direction of the United States Food Administration in co-operation with the United States Department of Agriculture and the Bureau of Education, with a preface by Herbert Hoover

by United States Food Administration; Katharine Blunt; Florence Powdermaker; Frances Lucy Swain

IN THE WAR DIET

To Save Meat. Beans and peas and peanuts are the only vegetables with much protein, so that they are the ones thought of primarily as meat substitutes. There are many kinds of them, fresh or dried, more than most of us realize. It is worth while to add to the diet not only the ordinary white or navy beans, but kidney, lima, black or soy beans, cow-peas, the many colored beans such as the pinto, frijoles, and the California pinks. It is these latter kinds that are used by the Mexicans as their chief standby. The Army and Navy use huge quantities of the white beans, and the Allied Governments are also buying tons of the pintos.

The 1917 bean-crop, in response to the patriotic appeal, was 50 per cent higher than the normal. Nearly all this increase was in the colored beans, chiefly pintos. The Food Administration, fearing that some of this unusual surplus might be wasted and the farmer discouraged from producing a large output in 1918, bought up the extra crop and distributed it for sale at the different markets.

Though soy beans and peanuts at least are exceptions, the protein in beans and peas is not so satisfactory as a bodybuilder as that in animal foods, so that a diet in which they are a large part should contain also some milk or eggs or a little meat. Two cups (half a pound) of shelled green peas or beans, or one cup with a cup of skim milk gives as much protein as a quarter of a pound of beef. Dried beans and peas are, of course, cheaper than the canned with their larger amount of water. At the usual market prices as much fuel can be bought for 5 cents spent for dried peas as for 25 cents for canned peas.

Meat-savers do not all have to be high-protein foods, since the diet of most of us contains considerably more protein than is necessary. Any vegetable can be a "meat extender." The pleasant flavor of meat can be obtained in meat stews, such as the delicious French "pot-au-feu." Stews can easily be made with less meat and more vegetables than usual. The meat allowance is now so very small in France and the vegetables so scarce in the cities, that the ingenuity of even the French woman is taxed to get a meal.

To Save Wheat. Potatoes to save wheat! The great potato drive to utilize the surplus of our huge 1917 potato-crop, 100,000,000 bushels above normal, has fixed in every one's mind the interchangeableness of these two foods. Potatoes are one-fifth starch—almost the same quantity as in cooked breakfast cereals. Because of this starch, they give as satisfactory a fuel as wheat or corn or any other cereal. One medium-sized potato supplies the same number of calories as a large slice of bread, and contains more mineral salts than white bread. Europe has learned to eat potatoes instead of wheat. When bread has been short potatoes have been the mainstay in every country. They are to-day the largest single element, in terms of energy, in the German war ration.

Sweet potatoes are also first-class wheat-savers. So to a lesser extent are most vegetables and fruits. Very few except white and sweet potatoes contain much starch, but many of them have considerable sugar, which serves as fuel just as starch does—carrots, beets, onions, parsnips, and practically all fruits such as bananas, oranges, and grapes.

To Save Sugar. We want sugar, of course, both for fuel and flavor. The vegetables and some fruits have their sugar so covered up by other tastes that it does not help to make the food sweet. It does, of course, serve for fuel. Bananas especially are fuel foods, containing much starch when green, which changes to sugar as the fruit ripens. The sweetest fruits are the dried ones—dates, figs, raisins, prunes. They have so much sugar that they can well be used in place of candy.

To Save Fat, Although few common fruits and vegetables contain fat, jam is a real fat-saver. It is of high fuel value, and has the advantage of being a "spreading material" so that it can replace butter with bread and cereals. Jam is of great importance in Europe to-day and all the Governments have taken steps to keep up the supply. It is a regular part of the English army ration.

To Keep the Nation Well. An increase in the use of vegetables and fruits is practically sure to mean an increase in health. Many of us, especially city-dwellers, do not eat enough of them. Many a young girl who "does not like vegetables" probably owes part of her languor to inadequate diet. The old-fashioned "touch of scurvy" formerly noticed at the end of the winter and even now not an unknown thing, was probably due to lack of vegetables in the winter diet. The constipation which is so disturbingly prevalent can usually be cured or prevented by eating vegetables and fruits in sufficient quantities. One of the most serious limitations in the diet of many of the very poor is the lack of vegetables as well as milk and the unduly large proportion of meat and bread. In a community in New York City with high mortality rate, 75 mothers whose diet was observed, ate vegetables on the average only twice a week, and fruit about the same number of times.

It is not difficult to understand why vegetables and fruits are so important. Only a few are especially valuable as fuel or as a source of protein, but almost all are high in mineral salts and can supply the "roughage" desirable in the diet. Some also contain the vitamines, the leafy vegetables being especially valuable because, like milk, they contain the two kinds. The "greens," leafy vegetables like spinach, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, asparagus, and lettuce, are the ones that help most in these last ways—"protective foods," they have been called. They are rich in the iron, calcium, and other minerals that some of the other foods lack. The use of plenty of these vegetables should go far toward keeping up health.