Then, too, the housewife should work out carefully which she can use to greater advantage, prepared or unprepared cereals. If she finds that unprepared cereals are the more economical and if she can depend on their food value as being as high as that of the prepared ones, she should by all means give them the preference. Of course, she may use prepared cereals for convenience or for varying the diet, but the more economical ones should be used with greater regularity.
25. Canned goods should be carefully observed. A certain brand of tomatoes, for instance, may have 16 ounces to the can, whereas another brand that can be bought for the same price may have 24 ounces. There may be, however, and there probably is, a great difference in the quality of the tomatoes. The 24-ounce can may have a much greater proportion of water than the 16-ounce can, and for this reason will not serve to the same advantage. As it is with canned tomatoes, so is it with canned corn, peas, and other canned vegetables, for the price depends altogether on the quality. Therefore, several brands should be compared and the one should be purchased which seems to furnish the most food or the best quality of food for the least money, provided the quality continues.
26. In the preparation of meat, there is always some waste, and as waste is a factor that has much to do with the increasing of costs, it should be taken into consideration each time a piece of meat is purchased. If there is time for some experimenting, it makes an interesting study to weigh the meat before and after preparation, for then the amount of shrinkage in cookery, as well as the waste in bone, skin, and other inedible material, can be determined.
An actual experiment made with a 4-pound chicken showed that there was a loss of 2-3/4 pounds; that is, the weight of the edible meat after deducting the waste was only 1-1/4 pounds. The following shows how this weight was determined:
| POUNDS | |
| Weight of chicken, including head, feet, and entrails | 4 |
| Weight of head, feet, and entrails | 1-1/4 |
| Weight of bones after cooking | 7/8 |
| Weight of skin after cooking | 1/4 |
| Shrinkage in cooking | 3/8 |
| ----- | |
| Total amount of waste | 2-3/4 |
| ----- | |
| Actual weight of edible meat | 1-1/4 |
It will readily be seen that chicken at 40 cents a pound would make the cost per pound of edible meat amount to exactly $1.28, a rather startling result. It is true, of course, that the busy housewife with a family can hardly spare the time for the extra labor such experiments require; still the greater the number of persons to be fed, the more essential is the need for economy and the greater are the possibilities for waste and loss.
27. The home production of foods does not belong strictly to economical buying, still it is a matter that offers so many advantages to the economical housewife that she cannot afford to overlook it. A small garden carefully prepared and well cultivated will often produce the summer's supply of fresh vegetables, with sufficient overproduction to permit much to be canned for winter. Not only do foods produced in a home garden keep down the cost of both summer and winter foods, but they add considerably to the variety of menus.