Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 January 1914 — VARIOUS FOOD VALUES [ARTICLE]

VARIOUS FOOD VALUES

IMPORTANT MATTER UNDERESTIMATED BY HOUBEKEEPER.

Dishes Served at Family Table Should, Be Constitution Builders ss Well j: as Palatable—Sweets Have a Definite Purpose.

The average housekeeper selects her food in t very careiess manner. She buys coal and wood for the heat they provide and fabrics for their durability, but she gives very little thought to the efficiency of foodstuffs. She merely gets what is liked and .what happens to be the market and is easily prepared. It is certain that in years to come, when housekeeping, or "domestic science,*’ has taken the high position toward which it is gradually moving, each housekeeper will be compelled to have her little volume on “Food Values” on the shelf with her book of recipes, and she will consult it even more frequently than she does the other books, because Bhe will have been taught that the importance of food lies in its energy-giving properties. But until that time comes we mußt struggle along ourselves and look at the buying and cooking of foods from a readjusted point of view—one which Includes the value they have as con stitution builders as well as their palatable qualifications. We must teach ourselves to choose foods wisely, regarding rather the essentials than the nonessentials, and to use discrimination in the processes of preparing theih. Say that we need so many thousand units to live and work. Well, then, our food, properly chosen and prepared, should help to supply the necessary units. You cannot make bricks without straw or bread without flour or energy without the fuel to provide VL It would be impossible to go deeply into the food-value question in a short talk, but there is one essential which must be mentioned because of the change of view regarding It. When we were all children we were given sweets only as a sort of reward for having eaten the plainer foods. Sweets were not looked, upon'as necessary, but rather as verging on the injurious. Now we have learned that sweets, far from being harmful, are beneficial and productive of energy. There are so many health-giving constituents In the ordinary pudding that it is far more advisable for the dessert of the average child than rich pies or pastries. Almost all puddings require eggs and milk, and these add a goodly number of units to the 00l umn.

There are also many delicious fruit puddings which contain many more strengthening elements than the plain fruit itself. Agd yet a decade of years ago the pudding would have been dealt out to the younger members of the family with a sparing and grudging hand, while they might have partaken freely of the fruit itself. Mothers are now beginning to realize the possibilities of desserts as Strength-giving factors in their children’s lives.