AVAILABLE FOOD SUPPLIES 183 



of the problem of economically converting corn and similar products into 

 human food which will be palatable and nourishing. A good beginning 

 has already been made in the manufacture of starch and glucose as well 

 as breakfast flakes from corn. These and similar industries are bound to 

 grow rapidly. Nor is corn the only material which might be appro- 

 priated directly as human food and which is used at present little or not 

 at all for that purpose. Oats, barley, rye, soy beans and peanuts and 

 various by-products such as cottonseed and linseed cake might be 

 utilized more largely. Modern science will very likely devise methods 

 for extracting the valuable constituents from these products in such a 

 way that they will be available for human food in an attractive form and 

 nourish man in a state of highest efficiency. Some progress has already 

 been made along this line, but it is barely a beginning. 



Does this mean that we shall all in time turn vegetarian ? No, there 

 will always be food for domestic animals and meat and dairy and poultry 

 products will always be important items of human diet. The grasses, 

 clovers, straws, stovers, and certain by-products of the refining processes 

 of seeds, etc., will always be directly unavailable as food for man and can 

 probably best be utilized by converting them into animal products of 

 various kinds. The amount of meat consumed, doubtless, will decline 

 and a reduction in this respect may take place without danger and with- 

 out detriment to the race. 



Long ago Daniel, the prophet, and his companions demonstrated the 

 virtue of a simple vegetable diet when they refused to eat the king's meat 

 and wine, provided for the boys of the court, and chose rather pulse and 

 water. At the end of the training period, when the boys were examined, 

 the faces of the Hebrew children were found to be plumper and their 

 minds more alert and keen than those of their companions who had 

 dined more sumptuously, but who had, perhaps, studied less diligently. 



The study of human nutrition has not yet produced a simple formula 

 for man's guidance in the selection of his food. Such formulas have been 

 successfully used in the feeding of rats, and the skillful stockman in his 

 feeding operations carefully follows charts and rules provided him by 

 experts on animal nutrition. We may expect that similar rules will 

 obtain more and more in human nutrition and there will be, some time 

 in the future, such a thing as scientific feeding of men. 



