Food and health

Members of Family Man Woman Girl Boy Boy Total requirements Age Weight, Pounds no Total Calories 2,680 2,160 2,200 2,250 1,600 10,890 Using cream and butter. Mrs. Allen gives an extra amount of cream and butter to the little girl who is under weight. She makes the cream so appetizing by whipping it and sweetening it with a little honey that Alice eats a few spoonfuls gladly with a piece of bread for her dessert. Do you think that it is extravagant to use these materials 1 On the farm, if you sell dairy products, you have a way of disposing of both the cream and butter at a good price. If, however, the milk of one cow is kept for home use, part of the milk can be set for cream to be used on the morning cereal or with some dessert. The skimmed milk can be used for cooking, and, if need be, beef fat or even chicken fat added, when these have been nicely tried out. Cream is a digestible form of fat for children and for older people who cannot eat fat pork. You can see that cream a mw iff ^* isi ^^ A. Fowler, Photographer. Fig. 124. — r loocalorie portions of milk and cream. No. Kind ' Weight of Portion, Ounces I. Cream (18.5 %) 1.8 3. Whole milk 5.x 3. Skim milk 9.6 4. Buttermilk 9.9 is cheaper than butter, because the butter requires labor ; and yoii must never make the mistake of thinking that a woman's time does not count. It is sometimes a high price to pay. More about the cost of food. It is very difficult when we use food raised on our own place to calculate how much it costs. There are some facts about food economy that we all ought to learn, because it is true that some kinds of food are always cheaper than others. Bread and cereals give us more nutriment for the money than meat, because the supply is larger and less labor is used in producing them. Here is a table that shows you the relation of money and food value received in a few common foods : AMOUNTS OF PROTEIN AKD ENERGY OBTAINED FOR lO CENTS EX- PENDED FOR BREAD AND OTHER FOODS AT CERTAIN ASSUMED PRICES PER POUND ^ Food Matbrxais Wheat bread Cheese. . . . Beef, average . Porterhouse steak Dried beef . . Eggs .... Milk .... Potatoes . . . Apples .... Puce 5 cents 22 cents 20 cents 25 cents 25 cents 24 cents 9 cents 60 cents i^ cents per lb. per lb. per lb. per lb. per lb. per lb. per qt. per bu. per lb. xo Cents WILL Buy Ounces 32.0 8.0 6.4 •6.4 lO.O 38.3 160.0 106.7 10 Cents' Worts WILL Contain Protein Ounces 2.9 1.9 1.2 1-3 .1 1-3 1.2 A Fuel Value of Calories 31S In a general way we can say that the more labor needed, the more the food costs. If there is a small supply of some food material and many people want it, then the price is high ; and when the season is bad or some dis- U. S. Department of Agriculture, Farmers' Bulletin 487. ease attacks the food, the supply becomes short and the price goes up. Here is another table that shows how the calories may be divided among the foods served at the three meals : Food igo-Calgrie Portions Milk 20 (6 for each child, the rest for the adults) Cereal 5 Eggs (for children) 2 (counting f portion per egg) Fruit S Green vegetables 2 Meat or meat substitute 5 Bread 15 Butter IS Suppose now that each one of you study her own family. Take the three meals a day that you are likely to have, using very simple dishes. From the tables given, see if you can decide if your family is having about the right amount. This is a hard problem indeed, but your teacher may use it for an arithmetic lesson just as Miss James did.^