hout embarrassment thereat.
We shall have reaped a speedy reward for doing our duty.

CHAPTER VI

FATS AND VITAMINES

In the days of the ancient Romans vegetable oils were prized for food and
butter was used for cosmetics. In America today we are asking what is to
become of us if we cannot have butter to eat! Such are the fashions in
food. "June butter" is one of our gastronomic traditions. The sample in
the restaurant may have none of the firm creamy texture and delicate
aromatic flavor of the product of the old spring house; but as long as it
is labeled butter we try to bring our sensations into line with our
imaginations. For the real butter flavor there is no more a substitute
than there is for the aroma of coffee. But these are matters of esthetic
pleasure rather than of nutrition. They depend largely upon habit. Whale
blubber and seal oil are as much appreciated in some quarters as butter is
by us. An American going inland from the Atlantic coast is often surprised
to find that olive oil, instead, of being served on every table, is
exceedingly disliked.

For the sustenance of the body we must recognize that fat is fat, whatever
its flavor. A calorie from butter yields neither more nor less energy than
a calorie from lard or bacon, olive oil or cottonseed oil. The common food
fats are all very well digested if judiciously used--not in too large
quantities, nor over-heated in cooking, and not "cooked into" things too
much as in pastries, rich sauces, and fried foods. Whether we spread our
bread with butter or beef drippings amounts to the same thing in the long
run; the main point is which we are willing to eat.

A change is rapidly coming over our food habits. The price of butter has
been soaring beyond our reach, and the market for "butterine," "nut
margarine," "oleomargarine," or whatever the substitute table fat may be
called, has expanded tremendously. It is excellent household economy to
buy milk and a butter substitute rather than cream or butter. In these
substitutes refined vegetable oils such as cottonseed, cocoanut, and
peanut, and oils derived from beef or lard are so combined or treated as
to produce the desired hardness, and churned with milk or milk and butter
to improve texture and flavor. Lard substitutes are similarly made from
one or more of these fats, but are harder in texture and no attempt is
made to give them a butter flavor by churning with milk. All the fats used
are wholesome