lusk: food economics 



389 



passed over this advice, would have consigned it to the news- 

 paper dung-hill of " highbrow" information, and starved to 

 death in consequence. 



TABLE I 

 Showing the Annual Food Requirements of 68,000,000 People in Germany 



Actual requirement 



Used before the war 



Available (unchanged habits) 



Available (under present recommendations) 



PROTEIN IN 



1000 METRIC 



TONS 



1605 

 2307 

 1543 

 2023 



CALORIES 

 IN BILLIONS 



56.75 

 90.42 

 67.86 

 81.25 



It is not unimportant to know something of the cost of these 

 great quantities of food fuel. 



If one takes the wholesale cost in the United States of food 

 purchased on account of the Commission for Relief in Belgium 

 as a basis, one can estimate, in terms of the cost of various 

 simple food-stuffs, the lowest wholesale cost of the yearly food 

 fuel requirement of the German nation, as follows: 



TABLE II 

 Wholesale Cost in America of Food Fuel for 68,000,000 People 



The wholesale cost of sufficient food fuel exclusively in the 

 form of beans to provide the United States for a period of one 

 year would call for a sum of two and a half billion dollars. Beans 

 are more costly than rice and wheat, but have a larger protein 

 content. 



Contrast the stupendous cost of food fuel for a nation with the 

 living expenses of a poor family in New York City (table III) . 



