Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 66, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 March 1918 — Cotton and Soy Beans Fat Producers Giving America Advantage Over Germany [ARTICLE]

Cotton and Soy Beans Fat Producers Giving America Advantage Over Germany

’•The Germans, with their colossal military preparedness, failed miserably at one point. They had soldiers and guns galore, but they were short of fat, says Milo Hastings in Physical Culture writing on “The Extravagance of Meat” No provision had been made in their domestic economy to produce home grown vegetable fats. When importations were shut off and the quantities of live stock were reduced as a matter of- economizing grain food, the Germans both industrially and dletetically suffered acutely from fat privation. "Their laboratory food scientists had told the military authorities that carbohydrates were dietetic equivalents of fat Through the means of most painful experience the Germans found out the scientists had been mistaken, and smuggling fat into Germany today is as profitable as shipping whisky the week before Christmas. “In America we have no such problem of the shortage of fats. As a byproduct of our cotton Industries we have an annual production of 150,000,000 gallons of oil, and we have the soil and climate suitable for the production of other vegetable fats. Among the most promising of such fat producing crops is the soy bean. "The soy bean is a sort of vegetable live stock. AH the arguments In favor pf live stock apply to this distinctive plant, Ito growth enriches the soil by the extraction of nitrogen from the air, hence it is a source of actual gaining In soil fertility. The soy bean In our Southern states yields thirty bushels to the acre—one-third of the product being oiland another third protein. Both elements are excellent human foods, and it la only a question of learning how to work them up into a palatable tom.*