Foods and Household Management Part 45

Congress has pa.s.sed an even more stringent law for meat inspection supplementary to the Pure Food Law with ample appropriation for its enforcement. Moreover, in 1913, the Secretary of Agriculture appointed outside experts to inspect meat-packing establishments throughout the country. This inspection is to check up the regular work being done by the Bureau of Animal Industry.

The enforcing of federal and state laws has already largely stopped the misbranding of package foods as to weight or measure, cheap subst.i.tutions, the removal of valuable ingredients, and the sale of decomposed or tainted food derived from diseased animals. Remember that abuses can be kept down to any extent that we are willing to pay for. Taxpayers must appropriate money to pay for inspection, for laws, no matter how good, will not insure pure food unless carried out faithfully by an adequate number of specially trained inspectors.

In the face of all these difficulties we must not be frightened into that state of mind where danger seems to lurk in every mouthful. We must use caution and common sense in our buying, and earnestly support every good movement for bettering conditions.

There is a certain difference in quality even at a first cla.s.s dealer's that one must learn to distinguish. One can of peaches will cost more than another, because the peaches are larger. If it is only this, and there is only a slight difference in flavor in favor of the more costly, buy the cheaper by all means. A fancy brand of imported preserves brings a fancy price which it is not worth while to pay. We have to learn to distinguish between poor and good quality, on the one hand, and between good and what may be called "fancy," on the other. We should demand the good, but most of us cannot afford the "fancy."

=Ready-cooked foods.=--More and more cooked food, canned or otherwise, is taking its place in the market. When canned goods were first manufactured on a large scale they comprised fruits, vegetables, meats, and fish, but we are now accustomed to a miscellaneous variety, including soups, baked beans, puddings, and pudding sauces, spaghetti, hashed meat, and sh.e.l.lfish. Bakery products have a larger sale than ever, and are found in small towns, and even in country districts carried there by bakers'

wagons. In our large cities we find the "delicatessen shop" very common, where small portions of cooked meats and fowl may be purchased after the custom of Europe, and these stores are open even on Sunday.

How shall we decide what is best for us in our buying? We must not condemn entirely the buying of cooked food without a careful study of the situation. The custom has grown with changes in our mode of living, especially in cities, where the small apartment is common, and where gas is the fuel. Under these conditions it is difficult to prepare foods that need long and slow cooking, and these processes are more expensive when gas is used. The long slow cooking of soup and beans, the even baking of bread, are difficult to accomplish. The odors from these processes fill the small apartment, and scent it for some time, and this is unpleasant at all seasons.

Take another example, the canning and preserving of fruits. The first cost of the fruit is usually high in the city, and this plus the sugar and the gas, and the labor and the lack of storage s.p.a.ce make it seem impracticable in these conditions, and many people decide in favor of buying goods already canned. Such housekeeping is simplified by buying cooked products to some extent. The fireless cooker helps here, but not for all processes. Counting in fuel, the cost is not so much greater as we might suppose; and comfort and convenience are increased. Under other conditions, even in the city, a different conclusion is reached. If coal is the fuel, and a steady fire is kept, perhaps in winter for heating purposes, then it is economy to cook most food materials at home.

In the country and small village different conditions prevail. Here the abundance of certain fruits in season makes it economical to can and dry, even counting fuel and labor. In some sections many people can their own vegetables also. However, even in the country in the summer, it is a decided relief to the farmer's wife, probably short of "help," to win a little leisure by buying staple bakery products. Here if strict economy is not necessary, is it not better to save strength rather than money? Each housekeeper must work out these problems for herself.

EXERCISES

1. What are the more permanent factors in the cost of food material?

2. Why is vegetable food usually cheaper than animal food?

3. Explain the effect of season upon the cost.

4. Why does transportation affect the cost of food?

5. Why is clean milk more costly than unclean?

6. How do business conditions affect the cost?

7. Why is wheat bread a truly cheap food?

8. How can we estimate the cost of the actual nutrients in food?

9. Describe the working of the pure food law.

10. Why are such laws necessary?

11. How may we all aid in the pa.s.sage and enforcement of pure food laws?

CHAPTER XVIII

MENUS AND DIETARIES[18]

When we have learned to choose and cook wholesome and appetizing food we have not solved the whole problem of successful feeding. It is possible to make people sick with good food, if it is badly selected and fed at wrong times or in unsuitable amounts. Whether children grow to their full size and strength depends more upon the choice of their food than upon any other one thing. The effect of food is strikingly shown in the case of the white rats in Fig. 74. The two upper ones are the same age. Both had the same mother, lived in the same kind of clean cages, and had plenty of food, but the diet of the upper was good for growth, while that for the middle one was not. It remained perfectly well, but became stunted because of the character of its food. You can see that it resembles the lowest one in the ill.u.s.tration, which is only one fourth as old. In this chapter we shall consider how and when and in what amounts to serve food so that every one may get from it the fullest benefit in both health and happiness.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 74.--The effect of food on growth. Reprinted from publication of the Carnegie Inst.i.tution. _Courtesy Professor Lafayette B.

Mendel._]

In Chapter I we learned that the body is a working machine whose first requirement is fuel. Hence the first consideration in the diet is to have the proper amount of fuel for each day, to provide energy for the constant internal work that keeps the body alive, and for the variable external work which may be so light as to consist of the few movements that one makes lying in bed, or sitting quietly; or so hard as to exercise many muscles, as playing tennis, bicycling, or swimming.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 75.--Respiration calorimeter, open. From the "Journal of Biological Chemistry." _Courtesy of Professor Graham Lusk._]

=Energy requirements of adults.=--We have also learned something about the foods which supply this energy; we must now find out how much fuel (in the form of food) it takes to do different amounts of work, just as the owner of an automobile wants to know how much gasoline per mile or per hour is required to run his machine under different conditions. Very careful experiments have been made on many men in different ways to measure their energy output, the most accurate and interesting being those made in a respiration calorimeter, a device so delicate as to be able to measure the extra heat given off when one changes from lying perfectly quiet to sitting up equally still, thus adding the work of holding the upper part of the body upright. A respiration calorimeter large enough to hold a child is shown in Figs. 75 and 76. You can see that it consists of a chamber with thick walls to prevent loss of heat. In Fig. 75 the door is open. When an experiment is going on the door is closed, as in Fig. 76, air being furnished through special tubes. The walls are fitted with delicate thermometers and every device which will help to get the exact amount of heat given off from the body is employed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 76.--Respiration calorimeter, closed. From the "Journal of Biological Chemistry." _Courtesy of Professor Graham Lusk._]

Just as it takes more fuel to run a big machine than a little one, so it takes more energy for a large person than a small one; therefore we must know the weight of the one whose food requirements we wish to calculate, as well as the amount of energy required to do different kinds and amounts of work. The following table will help in calculating the approximate fuel requirements of any grown person. The food needs of children and young people under twenty-five will be discussed later.

APPROXIMATE ENERGY REQUIREMENTS OF AVERAGE-SIZED MAN

Occupation Calories per pound per hour Sleeping 0.4 Sitting quietly 0.6 At light muscular exercise 1.0 At active muscular exercise 2.0 At severe muscular exercise 3.0

Light exercise may be understood to include work equivalent to standing and working with the hands, as at a desk in chemistry or cookery; or work involving the feet like walking or running a sewing machine. Many persons, as students, stenographers, seamstresses, bookkeepers, teachers, and tailors do little or no work heavier than this.

Active exercise involves more muscles, as in bicycling compared with walking, or exercise with dumb-bells as compared with typewriting.

Carpenters, general houseworkers, and mail carriers do about this grade of work while on duty.

Severe exercise not only involves a good many muscles, but causes enough strain to harden and enlarge them. Bicycling up grade, swimming, and other active sports would be included in this kind of exercise. Lumbermen, excavators, and a few others do even heavier work than this.

Knowing the weight of a grown man or woman, and something of the daily occupation, as in the case of a professional man, we can estimate the probable energy requirement somewhat as follows:

Sleeping, 8 hours; 8 0.4 Calories = 3.2 Calories per pound.

Sitting quietly (at meals, reading, etc.), 8 hours; 8 0.6 Calories = 4.8 per pound.

At light muscular exercise (dressing, standing, walking, etc.), 6 1.0 Calories = 6.0 Calories per pound.

At active muscular exercise 2 hours, 2 2.0 Calories = 4 Calories per pound.

Total Calories per pound for 24 hours, 18; 18 154 pounds (the weight of the average man) = 2772, or approximately 2680, Calories per day required.

Calculate in this way the energy requirement for various grown persons whom you know.

=Energy requirements during growth.=--In estimating food requirements of those who are under twenty-five years old, we must bear in mind that the same materials which serve for fuel serve in part for building material.

Protein is used for muscle building as well as for supplying energy, and the larger one grows, the greater the reserves of carbohydrate and fat which he can carry. Furthermore, internal activity is greater in the young than the middle aged or very old, and external activity is apt also to be greater. Think, for instance, how much running children do compared with their parents. For all these reasons, we cannot use the table for adults in calculating the energy requirement of young people. In the following table an attempt has been made to take account of their greater needs, but the estimates include only moderate exercise; with hard work more will be required. Notice that the highest allowance per pound of body weight is for the youngest children.

ENERGY REQUIREMENTS DURING GROWTH

Age in Years Calories per pound per day Under 1 45 1-2 45-40 2-5 40-36 6-9 36-30 10-13 30-27 14-17 27-20 17-25 not less than 18

With these two tables for calculating energy requirement we can determine about how much will be needed by each member of the family. A group consisting of a professional man, his wife, and three children under 16 will require about 10,000 Calories per day; a workingman's family with the same number of children from 12,000 to 14,000, because of the harder work which both parents and possibly the children will do.

=Protein requirement.=--Since few of our foods consist of a single foodstuff, and we are not likely to make even a single meal on pure fat, or pure protein, or pure carbohydrate alone, we are sure to get some building material in any diet, but we must see to it that we are getting amounts which furnish the best possible conditions for growth and repair.