Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 213, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 September 1917 — Waste in the Kitchen Not Responsible For Shortage in Food Supply [ARTICLE]

Waste in the Kitchen Not Responsible For Shortage in Food Supply

By Mrs. Henry Wade Rogers

has become the popular thing to scold women and threatjglhem with the bogey of possible starvation unless they put their fam® a bread arid/water diet. From a dutiful, inoffensive soul striving flPlftetch last year’s income over this year’s inflated cost of living the housekeeper, that "hapless creature of masculine condemnation, has been dragged from behind the shelter of the cook stove and thrust into the limelight as a reckless spendthrift-who wastes as she goes. Masculine psychology is getting all out of joint on the subject of waste. There are other avenues of waste besides the home, yet all the hue and cry continues along one line. Of course there is need for economy. This is no news to women. They have been struggling with the food problem ever since the war started, but they have been unable to get any action on it because they are without power of legislation. In the matter of economy the government might possibly learn from the housewives. Some recently let government contracts show a lack of knowledge of market conditions which would shame an amateur home maker. It has been said that in the United States only 20 per cent of the food crop ultimately reaches the kitchen: By far the greater amount is diverted to pther uses, wastes in gardens and orchards or is lost through speculation 'and inequitable distribution. Even if women saved every potato peeling and utilized every leftover this addition would not have any fundamental effect «n the food situation, whereas by a far-reaching investigation into the wap of the food manipulator and a reorganization ®f food distribution methods a vast saving could be accomplished.