Food Guide for War Service at Home Prepared under the direction of the United States Food Administration in co-operation with the United States Department of Agriculture and the Bureau of Education, with a preface by Herbert Hoover

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FOOD GUIDE FOR WAR SERVICE AT HOME

Prepared under the Direction of the United States Food Administration
in Co-Operation with the United States Department of Agriculture and
the Bureau of Education

With a Preface by Herbert Hoover
United States Food Administrator

1918







[Illustration: Reproduced by courtesy of National Geographic Society]



ANNOUNCEMENT

In the spring of 1918 the Collegiate Section of the United States Food
Administration was called upon to prepare a simple statement of the
food situation as affected by the war, suitable for elementary and
high school teachers, high-school pupils, and the general public. The
demand arose because of the wide adoption of the three courses on
this subject then being sent out weekly to universities, colleges, and
normal schools throughout the country.

This little volume is the response to that request. It was written by
Katharine Blunt, of the University of Chicago, Frances L. Swain, of
the Chicago Normal School, and Florence Powdermaker, of the United
States Department of Agriculture.

The records of the Food Administration have been open to the writers
and they have had the advice and criticism of its officials and
specialists. No effort has been spared to secure accuracy of statement
in the text.

OLIN TEMPLIN,
Director of the Collegiate Section.
July 1, 1918.




PREFACE


The long war has brought hunger to Europe; some of her peoples stand
constantly face to face with starvation.

All agriculture has been seriously interfered with. Food production
has been lessened to the point of danger. Millions of men who had
given all their time and energy to raising food have been killed; more
millions are still fighting; other millions have gone from the farms
into the great war-factories. Women, too, have been drafted from the
fields and home gardens into the factories and to replace the absent
men in a host of occupations. Great stretches of once fertile land
have been temporarily ruined by the scourge of war; some are still
under falling shot and shell. Belgium and France have lost millions of
acres of productive land to the enemy. The fertilizers necessary for
keeping up the production of the land still available are lacking.

All this means that the Allies have to rely on the outside for the
maintenance of their food-supply. But because ships are fewer than
they were, and because many of them must carry troops and munitions
exclusively, these ships cannot be sent on voyages longer than
absolutely necessary to find and bring back the needed food. They
cannot afford to go the long time-consuming way to Australia and back;
but few of them can be let go to India and the Argentine. They must
carry food by the shortest routes. The shortest is from North America
to England and France.

Therefore by far the greater part of the food provided for the Allies
from the outside must come from us. As a matter of fact more than 50
per cent of this outside food for the Allies does now come from North
America. And that is a great deal. It is very much more than we ever
sent them before. Also we are sending more and more food overseas for
our own growing armies in France and our growing fleets in European
waters.

To meet all this great food need in Europe--and meeting it is an
imperative military necessity--we must be very careful and economical
in our food use here at home. We must eat less; we must waste nothing;
we must equalize the distribution of what food we may retain for
ourselves; we must prevent extortion and profiteering which make
prices so high that the poor cannot buy the food they actually need;
and we must try to produce more food by planting more wheat and other
grain, raising more cattle and swine and sheep, and making gardens
everywhere.

To help the people of America do all these things, and to coordinate
their efforts, the President and Congress created the United States
Food Administration. The Food Administration, therefore, asks all the
people to help feed the Allies that they may continue to fight, to
help feed the hungry in Belgium and other starving lands that they
may continue to live, and to help feed our own sailors and soldiers so
that they may want nothing. It asks help, also, in its great task of
preventing prices from going too high and of stabilizing them, and of
keeping the flow of distribution even, so that all our people, rich
and poor alike, may be able to obtain the food they need.

For all this there is needed a "food education" of all our people.
Every home in our broad land must be reached. One of the most
effective ways of accomplishing this is by getting information to the
children of the nation about food and the possibilities and methods
of its most wise and economical use.