d when
sent to table.

There are various methods of conserving fat. First, the economical use
of table fats; second, the saving of cooking; and third, the proper
use of all types of fat.

Economy in the use of table fats may best be secured by careful
serving. One serving of butter is a little thing--there are about
sixty-four of them in a pound. In many households the butter left on
the plates probably would equal a serving or one-fourth of an ounce,
daily, which is usually scraped into the garbage pail or washed off in
the dishpan. But if everyone of our 20,000,000 households should waste
one-fourth of an ounce of butter daily, it would mean 312,500 pounds
a day, or 114,062,500 pounds a year. To make this butter would take
265,261,560 gallons of milk, or the product of over a half-million
cows, an item in national economy which should not be overlooked.

When butter is used to flavor cooked vegetables, it is more economical
to add it just before they are served rather than while they are
cooking. The flavor thus imparted is more pronounced, and, moreover,
if the butter is added before cooking, much of it will be lost in
the water unless the latter is served with the vegetables. Butter
substitutes, such as oleomargarine and nut margarine, should be more
largely used for the table, especially for adults. Conserve butter
for children, as animal fats contain vitamines necessary for growing
tissues. Butter substitutes are as digestible and as nourishing as
butter, and have a higher melting point. They keep better and cost
less.

Oleomargarine, which has been in existence for fifty years, was first
offered to the world in 1870 by a famous French chemist, Mege-Mouries,
who was in search of a butter substitute cheap enough to supply the
masses with the much-needed food element. He had noticed that the
children of the poor families were afflicted with rickets and other
diseases which could be remedied by the administration of the right
amount of fat. He combined fresh suet and milk and called the product
"oleomargarine." In the United States this product is now made of oleo
oil or soft beef fat, neutral lard, cottonseed and other oils, churned
with a small quantity of milk, and in the finer grades, cream is
sometimes used. A certain proportion of butter is usually added, and
the whole worked up with salt as in ordinary butter-making.

Owing to the fears of the butter-makers that oleomargarine would
supplant their produc