Fairchild: Testing New Foods 



27 



A similar attempt to maintain the 

 superiority of our own national food 

 appears today in the writings of some 

 of our foremost food chemists. Os- 

 borne attributes the drift of the Japan- 

 ese toward our menu to an instinctive 

 craving for a higher protein diet, but 

 just how he arrives at such a conclu- 

 sion I fail to understand, since the 

 Japanese have copied our hats, our 

 umbrellas, our shoes, our coats and 

 trousers and even our furniture, and 

 certainly there is nothing instinctive to 

 be found in these imitations on the part 

 of a smaller for the habits of a greater, 

 more powerful nationality. Even 

 McCollum, in his excellent book, makes 

 the statement, unsupported by any care- 

 fully considered evidence. I am afraid 

 that the peoples who drink milk and 

 eat butter and meats are larger than 

 those who get their "fat soluble A" 

 from green vegetables. Galton's studies 

 on the inheritance of height represents 

 the method, it seems to me, that it will 

 be necessary to follow to arrive at any 

 satisfactory conclusion on this subject, 

 and I am disposed to consider the state- 

 ment as an expression of an idle notion 

 and a neglect to consider the role played 

 by heredity. 



The pigmies of Africa live side by 

 side with the normal sized blacks — do 

 they eat different foods? The Terra 

 del Fuegans are a large race — is their 

 size determined by their food? 



As I have said, to ridicule a perfectly 

 good new food by comparing it to some 

 food stuff used for the lower animals 

 is perhaps the commonest form of ridi- 

 cule. I cannot consider it as anything 

 but foolish and short-sighted that the 

 Irish should have come to look upon 

 corn-meal as "food fit only for hogs," 

 Only the feeblest propaganda has been 

 raised against such an attitude. Our 

 wheat shortage during the war rose in 

 part at least through the inability of 

 Europeans to eat our corn, and when I 

 look for signs of any advertising to 

 teach them, I find that none worth men- 

 tioning was ever made. When the war 

 came it was perhaps too late. "Corn- 

 meal" Murphy was not financially sup- 

 ported. He was like John the Baptist, 



crying in the wilderness. He complains 

 that he had to give up because he could 

 not raise the funds, and Dr. C. V. Riley, 

 then Assistant Commissioner to the Ex- 

 position, in refusing to help him stage a 

 corn show at the Paris Exposition, 

 pleads the usual lack of appropriations. 



Ridicule of new foods has hindered 

 their proper testing, and magazines and 

 newspapers still have funny writers 

 connected with them who fail to see 

 anything great in the attempts to intro- 

 duce new food plants. They make fun 

 of the avocado as a rich man's food, 

 though it is the food of the poorest 

 cargador in Guatemala, and of the 

 dasheen as a bearded potato, though it 

 forms the food of millions where the 

 potato cannot be successfully grown. 



In Panama, the natives back from 

 the coastal ports give as an excuse to 

 Ibeir guests for not having any vege- 

 tables, the fact that they are too far 

 from the coast, where the potato is im- 

 ported. It is the fashion to eat im- 

 ported potatoes in Panama just as it is 

 the fashion to eat French bread {El 

 Frances) in Guatemala, even though 

 potatoes do not grow well in Panama 

 and wheat doesn't grow at all in Guate- 

 mala. These are serious questions, and 

 they deserve a much more serious con- 

 sideration by agriculturalists and edu- 

 cationalists. 



I have no wish to discuss with indi- 

 viduals whether they should or should 

 not eat cheese or ice cream to excess or 

 drink coft'ee — these are questions for 

 disputation and are generally fruitless 

 — but I do maintain, as the result of 

 twenty years of study and experimenta- 

 tion, that the question of testing new 

 foods must and will go on to a broader 

 basis than it hitherto has occupied. 

 When it does, I believe we will find 

 that the greatest, most progressive races 

 will reach out after all kinds of foods 

 that are good ; and with the same hospi- 

 tality of mind which has characterized 

 the Americans in their adoption of new 

 labor-saving machinery, I believe our 

 countrymen will test with interest many 

 new foods and learn to use so many 

 kinds that it will be profitable to grow 

 those best adapted to each agricultural 



