Evening Republican, Volume 59, Number 97, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 May 1917 — We Can Lower food Costs by Drying Vegetables [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

We Can Lower food Costs by Drying Vegetables

nIFTY THOUSAND DOLLARS was cast into the Atlantic the other day by officials o.Lthe . New York department of health. To be specific, something like 2,000,000 overripe oranges were destroyed because they were not fit for sale. Thus 250 tons of foodstuff from Porto Rico and Jamaica were lost after having been brought a long distance at a considerable outlay, says the New York Sun. Again, not long ago, 3,300 bags of onions were thrown into San Francisco bay because they bad deteriorated in the warehouses and could not be sold. These instances are but two among many thousands of similar cases of market losses. They give an Inkling of the enormous wastage in produce that goes on in the United States annually, and all because green vegetables and fresh fruits will remain edible so long and no longer. The loss could be prevented if part of the moistifre in the fruits and vegetables could be eliminated without injuring them. The average citizen does not realize it, but his watered foodstuffs are levying toll upon him all along the line. It is that moisture content that invites deterioration and decay. Trace the story a step back. The marketman has to contend with the same conditions; a goodly percentage of his stock wilts and deteriorates upon his hands because.of the troublebreeding moisture; and what he sells must bring a higher price in order to fetch a general profit. The wholesaler is confronted by the same problem, because he has to pay charges for transportation, cover depreciation in transit, and sell at prices that will insure a balance on the right side of his ledger. Again, the farmer must*ship only the very best of his produce in order that his perishable wares may stand reasonably well their journey to the markets. As a result, where his fruits and vegetables ripen overabundantly he must count broadly as a loss that part of his harvest which remains on his hands. He must get enough from his sales to pay for this wastage and the ultimate consumer sighs at the price thus made necessary. A possible remedy for this state of things lies in the process recently perfected In this country that makes it practicable to dry fruits and vegetables without impairing their palata>>loooßß and their natural riutritive values; “The hard pressed Germans . Save already been doing something in this direction. The beet and the potato were the two vegetables that the Germans ■worked with on a large scale originally. Later they took up the drying of beet tops, potato tops, peas and grains for the feeding of domestic cattle. Before this, it was the common practice to pack away the beet tops* in silos, and quite two-thirds of the crop was used in this fashion, but a good part of the ensilage was commonly spoiled by fermentation. It was to avoid this loss that the Germans resorted to drying. The result was a green, tender fodder containing a starchy content of 35 per cent. A ton of fresh leaves made 200 pounds of the dried foodstuff for cattle. The nutritive value was found to be as high as the more expensive meadow hay. It was only natural that the Germans should elaborate their factories for

this work, and give particular attention to the drying of vegetables for household use. The industry was widespread and thriving before the outbreak of the war. Indeed, it was generally recognized that the Germans were the masters of the art. The vegetables dried are carrots, cabbages, kale, potatoes, spinach, turnips, etc. They represent, the market surplus which would otherwise rot, and which, by being dried and packed, can be kept without fear of spoiling for a long time. The dried vegetables keep simply because the better part of their moisture content has been removed. The thing sounds simple; hut the actual process presents difficulties. The process of drying vegetables refolded to as having been developed in this country is the work of Waldron Williams, Woodford Brooks and Dr. F. G. Wiechmann. Mr. Williams tells the story of the work of himself and his associates. “I never realized how little was known about the art of drying until my attention was attracted to it as a field of commercial effort,” he said. “I turned to my fellow alumni at Columbia university and hunted high and low in the technical libraries, but when it came to practical details none of these sources of Information was of material aid. "Finally we decided to make our own experiments, and something ’ like two years ago we hit upon the working principles of our method. “Our patents_have notyet been issued, although they have been allowed, and therefore I do hot feel warranfetT In going into particulars. Broadly, however, the_ process consists in utilizing air currents at relatively low temperature, which serve to draw out and carry off the moisture in the cut-up vegetables while leaving them unimpaired h> flavor and nutritive value.Please observe that the vegetables'are raw and not parboiled or in any way cooked at the time they are subjected to the moisture extracting process. “We are able to control the volume of the air currents and their temperature to a nicety. The time required to dry the products depends essentially upon the fruits and vegetables dealt with. The period of treatment ranges between two hours and something short of five hours. This can be appreciated if one will stop to think how the watery content of various vegetables differs. "For instance, fresh beets contain 87 per cent of water, cabbages 91.5 per cent, onions 87.9 per cent, potatoes 78 per cent, and tomatoes as much as 94.3 per cent The larger the volume of water the longer the drying operation must be maintained in order to reduce the moisture content to the desired minimum. By our system we kept the percentage of moisture well inside of 12 per cent. This prevents the development of the microorganisms that promote fermentation and therefore the chemical actions are checked or avoided which would start deterioration and possibly lead to decay. “Before our plants were working for the market at Middle River, CaU Bound Brook, N. J., and Webster, N. Y., it occurred to me that it might be well to visit Germany for the purpose of seeing how our products compared with those turned out by the factories there. I was fortified with letters of introduction to the foremost of those* establishments, and logically I chose to make my first call upon the managing director of the most noted of the vegetable drying companies. “He received me in a very handsomely appointed office, bearing all the hallmarks of commercial success, and courteously asked me to explain the object of my visit. I did this briefly. At once Herr Dlrektor waved his hand deprecatingly and expressed his sincere regret that I should have come so far to lay before him anything that pertained to the art of drying. I could have saved ! you the trip, Mr. Williams, because we know all there is to know about drying and lihprove-

Some species of lizards are seven feet long. . One of the newer electric irons is made to retain much of its heat after the current is shuVoft and thus save elects «<Aty. Flour casts more in Venezuela than, for many years past, butjepmpetitlon among the bakers has reduced the cost of bread, iA. fan that resembles the . familiar., electric Is driven by a hot-air engine In its base, gas or denatured alcohol being the fuel used... . .....

and to show us something new is quite impossible,’ he said. “Naturally I was not disposed to linger, neither was I* inclined to display my samples, but the alert Herr Direktor had seen that I had some, and more out of politeness than anything else expressed a desire to see them. It was plain that he was at once—interested, and before long he had six or seven of his- technical associates summoned to the office, and they too were impressed, “The Herr Dlrektor dismissed them, and when the room was cleared, turned to me eagerly and said: ‘Mr. Williams, name vour price. I did not believe vegetables could ever be dried to look like your samples.’ As our patents were then pending in the Germ tin patent office I was not prepared to come to terms, but I left that establishment satisfied that we Yankees had forged a long way ahead in a very difficult art and I realized that we had the solution of a vexing economic problem the utilization sand the preservation for subsequent consumption c< millions of tons of vegetables and fruits that would otherwise go to waste. ' "How well we have succeeded In retaining the natural flavor of fresh vegetables is evidenced by the testimony of a New York housekeeper, a friend of mine. Merely to satisfy her curiosity I sent her a package of our dried spinach. The next time I saw her she said: ‘Why, Mr. Williams, that spinach was actually fresher than the green stuff that I buy at my grocer’s. Naturally, because that spinach was dried inside of eight hours from the time it was picked, while the provision store was selling spinach anywhere from a week to ten days old. “We treated the vegetable when it was succulent and fresh and full flavored. The store article had been detoriorating for days before it was cooked. Upon this subject, we read something from a government report: “ ‘Only those that have been accustomed to eating green vegetables fresh from the garden realize in what poor condition are many of the vegetables sold to the city buyer. Some varieties, as green peas, are sb delicate in flavor that even a few hours’ removal from the vines brings about a change. Indeed, the market gardener has been obliged to develop the keeping qualities of vegetables and fruits at the expense of flavor. If lightly packed and transported only a short distance the deterioration In most vegetables Is not noticeable, but If closely packed for any length of time changes due to the action of enzymes or ferments normally present in the living tissue takes place, with a consequent loss of flavor.’ “Further, the same report calls attention to a very common spectacle In and about our markets: ‘The huckster In his oft hours may often be seen trimming off the wilted outside leaves of celery, cabbage and lettuce, and giving a fresh surface to the stem, and sometimes rinsing or sprinkling the lettuce with water not infrequently far from clean. The beets which are left over, after losing little by little their tops, are sold by measure to whoever will buy.’ “The department of agriculture is the authority for the statement that not less than 50 per cent of the fruits: and vegetables grown in the United reach the consumer. Of course, a large part of this is wasted or thrown away or destroyed because the price does not warrant the farmer in shipping them “Why shouldn’t these products be so conserved that they would keep Indefinitely and be welcome upon any table? It is possible by our drying process to preserve these fruits and vegetables In forms that are bound to be a boon to the housewife and a comfort to the family purse. Our dried products, for instance, can be sold at a lower price than the normal retail market price for green stuffs, and we should only find fresh vegetables formidable competitors when there is an overabundance.’’

A Spanish bell bearing the date 1247 is still in use in Oakland, Cal. German breweries are manufacturing a form of yeast to be mixed with stock foods to increase their nourishing qualities. The United States bureau of fisheries now supplies more than 4,000,000,000 fish specimens annually to differ* ent hatcheries.. * The production of apples in tha United States equals a bushel and < half for every man, woman and chlbi in the country.