| Meat and fish | Score value per pound |
| Beef, lean round | 1,664 |
| Beef, medium fat rump | 1,221 |
| Beef, porterhouse steak | 1,609 |
| Veal, lean leg | 1,539 |
| Lamb, medium fat leg | 1,320 |
| Fowl | 1,453 |
| Codfish, salt | 1,710 |
| Codfish, fresh22. The low score of fresh cod is due chiefly to the absence of fat and the presence of water. | 519 |
| Salmon, canned | 1,074 |
The great value of milk in the diet has already been discussed. The “score” of milk is about the same as that for sugar (milk, 761; sugar, 725); hence, if sugar is ten cents a pound and milk eighteen-cents a quart (about nine cents per pound), milk is cheaper than sugar. Yet there are people cutting down their milk supply when the cost is only thirteen or fourteen cents per quart on the ground that milk is too expensive! The economical housewife should have no compunctions in spending from one-fifth to one-fourth of her food money for this almost indispensable food. Whether the free use of milk will be good food conservation as well as good economy depends upon the supply. If there is not enough to go around, babies and the poor should have the first claim upon it and the rest of the world should try to get along with something less economical.
A pound of eggs (eight or nine eggs) gives about the same nutritive return as a pound of medium fat beef, but to be as cheap as beef at thirty cents a pound, eggs must not cost over forty-five cents a dozen. Eggs must be counted among the expensive foods, to be used very sparingly indeed in the economical diet. Nevertheless the use of eggs as a means of saving meat is a rational food conservation movement, to be encouraged where means permit.
The saving of sugar, while a necessary conservation measure, is contrary to general food economy, since sugar is a comparatively cheap fuel food and has the great additional value of popularity. Sugar substitutes are not all as cheap as sugar by any means, but molasses, on account of its large amount of mineral salts, especially of calcium, has a score value of 2,315 as against 725 for granulated sugar, and may be regarded with favor by those both economically and patriotically inclined.
In the case of fats, practical economy consists in paying for fuel value and not for flavor. The score values for butter, lard, olive oil, and cottonseed oil are about the same. The cheapest fat is the one whose face value per pound (or market cost) is the lowest. Fats are not as cheap as milk and cereals if they cost over ten cents per pound. The best way to economize is by saving the fat bought with meat, using other fats without much flavor, and cutting the total fat in the diet to a very small amount, not over two ounces per person per day. This is also good food conservation, since fats are almost invaluable in rationing an army, and those with decidedly agreeable flavor are needed to make a limited diet palatable.
No program either of economy or food conservation can cater to individual likes and dislikes in the same way that an unrestricted choice of food can. If one does not like cereals it is hard to consume them just to save money, especially to the extent of ten to fifteen ounces of grain products in a day. Yet one might as well recognize that in this direction the lowering of the cost of the diet inevitably lies. If one does not like corn, it is hard to substitute corn bread for wheat bread. But one might as well open one’s mind to the fact that the only way to put off the day when there will be no white bread to eat is to begin eating cornmeal now. Most of us want to eat our cake and keep it too—to enjoy our food and not pay for our pleasure; to do our duty towards our country and not feel any personal inconvenience. But the magic table of the fairy tale is not for a nation at war; food is not going to come at the pressing of a button during this conflict. If we are to escape bankruptcy and win the war we must eat to be nourished and not to be entertained.