220 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



April, 1918 



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E have 

 e a r d so 

 much of 

 late about keep- 

 ing up the morale 

 of the fighting 

 men. It seems al- 

 most incredible to 

 us here in Amer- 

 ica that the Allied 



armies could ever admit defeat; but 

 the Food Administration tells us that, 

 if we once lot the fighting men at the 

 front fear that the women and chil- 

 dren behind them are starving, the 

 war would soon be over. If we should 

 stop our exports tomorrow, in only 

 a few weeks we would find we were 

 alone in our war against Germany. 

 It needs no vivid imagination to picture what 

 would happen to us if Germany became the 

 victor. If we do not want to risk a repetition 

 of the horrors of Belgium, Poland or the in- 

 vaded portions of France, in our own loved 

 country, we must keep up the morale of the 

 fighting men with American food. 



We have already exported more than our 

 normal surplus, and the only way we can 

 keep up the exports is to save from our nor- 

 mal consumption. And our country cannot do 

 it without the co-operation of her 20,000 000 

 housekeepers. Doesn 't it give you a thrill to 

 think that we women have it in our power to 

 help keep up the morale of all the A'lied 

 fighting men? 



1918 War Gardens. 

 When you pass one of those recruiting 

 posters picturing Unci's Sam looking straight 

 at you with an accusing look, how does it 

 make you feel? I know. It makes you feel 

 that he wants you for some service, even if 

 age or sex prevents you from fighting in the 

 trenches. In my case it makes me feel like 

 this. If our soldiers can offer themselves to 

 their country to leave home and all that is 

 dear to them to engage in the horrible work 

 of trying to kill their fellow men, surely I can 

 work hard in a pleasant home to conserve the 

 food supply, and work hard in a peaceful 

 garden to increase the food supply. 

 Vitamines. 

 Perhaps there has never been a time when 

 housekeepers needed to study food values so 

 carefully in order to feed their families wise- 

 ly. For this reason I wish to talk a little 

 more about vitamines, as I promised in a re- 

 cent issue. In the first place, don't ask me 

 to pronounce the word. Until some dictionary 

 lists it you need not fear being called down 

 for mispronunciation. 



Very little is known about these interesting 

 little vitamines altho it is certain they are 

 not living organisms. But their function has 

 been well established. To quote Dr. Wiley: 

 "No matter how well foods are combined to 

 secure a nutrition of all the tissues of the 

 body equally, they fail to do this if vitamines 

 are absent." Scientists surmised the ex- 

 istence of vitamines nearly a decade ago, but 



OUR FOOD PAGE 



Stanq' Puerden 



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it was not until 

 about six years 

 ago that any real 

 work was done 

 on them. One of 

 the chief investi- 

 gators, Casimir 

 Funk, gave them 

 their name, 

 which is properlv 

 a group name, as there are two well 

 recognized types, and many scientists 

 are inclined to believe there are more 

 than two classes. 



Vitamines are abundant in the 

 outer layers of grains, especially rice; 

 also in the yolk of egg, raw milk, 

 fresh fruit, and fresh vegetables, es- 

 pecially peas and beans. Cooking is 

 an important art, but certain foods when 

 cooked lose their vitamines. The fact that 

 they are found near the skin of the grain is 

 one argument against the use of white flour 

 bread, and for the use of brown rice instead 

 of the white polished rice. 



The absence of vitamines is probably re- 

 sponsible for certain diseases such as beri- 

 beri, scurvy, pellagra, and polyneuritis, as 

 well as much ill health of a less definite sort. 

 Some raw or uncooked foods, therefore, such 

 as lettuce, tomatoes, celery, fruits, nuts, and 

 milk, should be used in order to supply these 

 minute substances which are destroyed by 

 prolonged high temperature, such as is em- 

 ployed in order to sterilize canned foods. 

 They are also diminished, if not destroyed, by 

 ordinary cooking, except in acid fruits and 

 vegetables. It is true that only clean milk 

 is entirely safe in an absolutely raw state, 

 and that heat is usually needed to kill the 

 germs. But this heat, even at the compara- 

 tively low temperature of pasteurization, has 

 been found to destroy the vitamines that pre- 

 vent scurvy. Orange juice should always be 

 given to infants over one month old who are 

 fed on pasteurized milk. 



Vitamines are sensitive to alkalies, even 

 such mild ones as baking soda, especially 

 when accompanied by heat. Do not conclude 

 from this that you should always use baking 

 powder in preference to soda, as all baking 

 powders are made by combining an acid with 

 soda. 



Vitamines are present in yeast. A company 

 selling yeast makes the most of this fact in 

 its advertising. 



Fowls or guinea pigs fed on a vitamine free 

 diet will become paralyzed in a very short 

 time. Fed on rice polishings they will speed- 

 ily recover. 



Fowls fed on boiled polished rice show 

 signs of beriberi in about 30 days. Similar- 

 ly they show symptoms similar to pellagra 

 from being fed on cooked cornmeal. But 

 cornmeal corrects the beriberi symptom.s 

 brought on by polished rice. Experiments 

 like the abo-\'e are too well authenticated and 

 too numerous to be doubted. Pigs are more 

 susceptible to beriberi than man. 



