eared originally in
_The Farmer's Wife_.

TEACHERS COLLEGE, Columbia University, New York City.

December 1, 1917.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I. THE MILK PITCHER IN THE HOME

II. CEREALS WE OUGHT TO EAT

III. THE MEAT WE OUGHT TO SAVE

IV. THE POTATO AND ITS SUBSTITUTES

V. ARE FRUITS AND VEGETABLES LUXURIES?

VI. FAT AND VITAMINES

VII. "SUGAR AND SPICE AND EVERYTHING NICE"

VIII. ON BEING ECONOMICAL AND PATRIOTIC AT THE SAME TIME

APPENDIX--SOME WAR TIME RECIPES

EVERYDAY FOODS IN WAR TIME

CHAPTER I

THE MILK PITCHER IN THE HOME

(Reprinted from _The Farmer's Wife_, by permission of the Webb
Publishing Company.)

There is a quaint old fairy tale of a friendly pitcher that came and took
up its abode in the home of an aged couple, supplying them from its magic
depths with food and drink and many other comforts. Of this tale one is
reminded in considering the place of the milk pitcher in the home. How
many housewives recognize the bit of crockery sitting quietly on the shelf
as one of their very best friends? How many know that it will cover many
of their mistakes in the choice of food for their families? That it
contains mysterious substances upon which growth depends? That it stands
ready to save them both work and worry in regard to food? That it is
really the only indispensable article on the bill of fare?

Diet is like a house, a definite thing, though built of different kinds of
material. For a house we need wall material, floor material, window,
ceiling, chimney stuffs and so forth. We may, if we like, make floors,
walls, and ceilings all of the same kind of stuff, wood for example, but
we should need glass for windows and bricks or tile for chimneys. Or,
again, we may choose brick for walls, floors, and chimneys but it would
not do any better than wood for windows, would be rather unsatisfactory
for ceilings, and impossible for doors. In other words, we could not build
a modern house from one kind of material only and we really need at least
four to carry out even a simple plan.

In a similar fashion, diet is constructed from fuel material,
body-building material and body-regulating material. No diet is perfect in
which these are not all represented. Now, foods are like sections of
houses. Some correspond to single parts, as a floor or a window or perhaps
a chimney; others to a house complete except for windows