A BALANCED DIET
There is no doubt that under the conditions existing before the war the
American people lived in a higher degree of comfort than that enjoyed in
Europe. Hard times in America have always been better times than the
best times in Europe. As a student in Munich in 1890 I remember paying
three dollars a month for my room, five cents daily for my breakfast,
consisting of coffee and a roll without butter, and thirty-five cents
for a four-course dinner at a fashionable restaurant. This does not
sound extravagant, but it represents luxury when compared with the diet
of the poorest Italian peasants of southern Italy. Two Italian
scientists describe how this class of people live mainly on cornmeal,
olive oil, and green stuffs and have done so for generations. There is
no milk, cheese, or eggs in their dietary. Meat in the form of fat pork
is taken three or four times a year. Cornmeal is taken as "polenta," or
is mixed with beans and oil, or is made into corn bread. Cabbage or the
leaves of beets are boiled in water and then eaten with oil flavored
with garlic or Spanish pepper. One of the families investigated
consisted of eight individuals, of whom two were children. The annual
income was 424 francs, or $84. Of this, three cents per day per adult
was spent for food and the remaining three-fifths of a cent was spent
for other purposes. Little wonder that such people have migrated to
America, but it may strike some as astonishing that a race so nourished
should have become the man power in the construction of our railways,
our subways, and our great buildings.
Dr. McCollum will tell you that the secret of it all lies in the green
leaves. The quality of the protein in corn is poor, but the protein in
the leaves supplements that of corn, so that a good result is obtained.
Olive oil when taken alone is a poor fat in a nutritive sense, but when
taken with green leaves, these furnish that one of the peculiar
accessory substances, commonly known as vitamines, which is present most
abundantly in butter-fat, and gives to butter-fat and to the fat in
whole milk its dominant nutritive value. The green leaves likewise
furnish another accessory substance, also present in milk, a substance
which is soluble in water and which is necessary for normal life.
Furthermore, the green leaves contain mineral matter in considerable
quantity and in about the same proportions as they exist in milk.
Here then is the message of econom
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