THE FOOD PROBLEM 269 



can and Allied food supplies was made with a common at- 

 tempt to place consumption at the lowest safe figure. England 

 and France and Italy intensified their food control, restricting 

 sales by dealers, using purchasing or ration cards, limiting the 

 bills of fare in public eating places, and generally putting food 

 use on a basis of governmental permission; while America, 

 following a method presumably more in harmony with the 

 spirit of our people, instituted under the stimulus and guidance 

 of Food Administrator Hoover a nation-wide campaign of 

 voluntary food-saving. This was reenforced by a considerable 

 degree of official regulation of food manufacturers and whole- 

 salers, but no attempt was authorized by Congress, in its food 

 control act, to regulate the sales by retailers or the actual 

 food use by individuals. As a result of a considerable in- 

 crease in American production and the radical food-saving of 

 the people, we were able to export to Europe during our first 

 year after entering the war (April i, 1917 to April i, 1918) 

 fifteen billion pounds of food, an increase of more than 200 

 per cent, over the annual average of late pre-war years. 



The theoretical pooling of the available Allied and Ameri- 

 can food supplies made necessary the determination of fair 

 allocations from the American surplus to each of the major Al- 

 lied countries as well as to the European neutrals needing 

 imports, the share of each to be based on the deficit between 

 native production and a fair minimum consumption. This 

 need of a proper division among needy countries led to the 

 formation of various bodies for effecting the determinations, 

 of which bodies one, known as the Inter-Allied Scientific Food 

 Commission, was composed of representative food and nutri- 

 tion experts from America, Great Britain, France, Italy, and 

 Belgium, and had the responsibility for providing the food 

 executives of America and the Allies with any scientific knowl- 

 edge that might be advantageously used in making the de- 

 termination of the food allocations. 



This Commission held meetings at various times in 1918 and 

 1919 in London, Paris, Rome, and Brussels. One of its first 



