lUNK, 1918 



G L I'] A N T N G S IN B E E CULTURE 



M 



friends, 1 



am in trou- 

 ble. Perhaps 1 

 should change 

 it, however, and 

 say I am a good 

 deal worried. 

 The thing that 

 worries me is an 

 article in the 

 magazine enti- 

 ;led Good Health 

 foi- March. I 

 think the pub- 

 lishers will ex- 

 cuse me if, un- 

 der the circum- 

 stances, I copy 

 the article en- 

 tire. It is from 

 our good friend 



Dr. J. H. Kellogg, who has been an advo- 

 cate of a vegetarian diet for lo, these 

 many years. 1 have met Dr. Kellogg once 

 or twice, and I visited the Battle Creek 

 sanitarium and wrote it up years ago in 

 these pages. Perhaps I should explain that 

 for four years of my life I was a vegetar- 

 ian. Of course I ate butter, cheese, eggs, 

 and milk, but no meat. Again, later in 

 life when my health failed on account of 

 being too much indoors, I lived on a diet of 

 lean meat — mostly beefsteak for 18 weeks 

 — not a crumb of bread nor a taste of fruit. 

 Thus having been on both sides of the fence 

 in the way of actual experience, I think I , 

 can consider the question understandingly. 

 Below is the article from Good Health : 



HOW TO MAKE FOOD PT.EXTIFUL. 



The high pricei of food stuffs is not due to food 

 scarcity. 



There is food enough in the country at the present 

 moment to feed every man, woman, and chi'.d in the 

 United States, England, and Prance for twO' years 

 or more. 



Food is plentiful. 



Then what's the matter? 



There's only one thing the matter. 



The cattle and pigs are eat'in;/ up our food stufti. 



Probably most of our readers are not awarei of the 

 fact that only ten per cent of our 3,000,000,000- 

 bushel corn crop is eaten by the peoplei of the 

 United States. 



What becomes of the rest of the great corn har- 

 vest ? 



Some hundred million bushels are made info 

 beer and whiskey. A few million bushels are ex- 

 ported, but the greater part is eaten up by fatten- 

 ing steers, sheep, and hogs. 



It is true that these animals are fed largely on 

 grass and roughage; but before being shipped to 

 market they are always fed up for three to six 

 months on a ration consisting largely of corn. Dur- 

 ing this fattening period of six months a steer eats 

 twelve to fifteen pounds of corn daily. A sheep 

 eiats one or two pounds and a liog two to four 

 pounds. 



According to Prof. Henry, dean of the Agricul- 



OUR HOMES 



A. I. ROOT 



Give us this day our daily bread. — Matt. (3:11. 



And God said, Behold I have given yolu every 

 herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all 

 the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit 

 of a treie yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. 

 — Gkn. 1V29. 



Prove thy servants, I beseech thee, ten days ; 

 and let them give us pulse to eat, and water to 

 drink. Tlien let our countenances be looked upon 

 before thee, and the countenance of the children 

 that eat of tlie portion of the king's meat; and as 

 tliou seest, deal with they servants. — Dan. 1:12, 13. 



369 



tural Department 

 of the University 

 of Wisconsin, a 

 three-year-old fat 

 steer has eaten 4,- 

 000 pounds of milk 

 and 6,000 pounds 

 of concenjtrated 

 food of which at 

 least 4,000 pounds 

 may be reckoned as 

 corn, a daily aver- 

 age of five pounds. 

 The average 

 daily ration of a 

 sheep may be esti- 

 mated as at least 

 one-half pound of 

 corn, and of a pig 

 as an average of 

 one pound for its 

 whole lifetime. 



According to the 

 U. S. Bureau of 

 Crop E.stimateis, 

 there were in the 

 United. States Janu- 

 ary 1, 1917, 40,- 

 milch cows. A simple 

 these domestic animals 



800,000 cattle other than 



calculation will show that 



consume each year corn or other equivalent grain 



in the following amounts: 



Bushels of corn 

 40,800,000 cattle consumed. . 1,000,000,000 

 48,483,000 sheep consumed. . . 147,000,000 

 67,453,000 hogs con.sumed. . . 820,000,000 

 156,936,000 animals consumed. . 1,967,000,000 

 Leit us suppose that domestic animals are put 

 upon a war ration of one-half the usual amount of 

 grain, the annual consumption will still be a billion 

 bushels of corn or 60,000,000,000 poundls, or 

 enough to supply one and one-half pounds of corn 

 daily to 109,000,000 people for a year. Such a ra- 

 tion would furnish 2,400 calories daily, sufficient for 

 the average person. 



It is evident, then, that the high price of corn, 

 and consequently the high price of meat, and we 

 may justly add the high prices of mist other foods, 

 are the result of the diverting of food to the feed- 

 ing of cattle, sheep, and hogs. 



It is true that the flesh of these animals has food 

 valuie ; but it is small compared with that of the 

 corn consumed to produce it. Accordin,g to Prof. 

 Henry, about five pounds of Torn is required to pro- 

 duce one pound of beef; and the beef, being more 

 than two-thirds water, one pound of it has only 

 about half the nutritive value of a pound of corn. 

 So, for ttn pounds of corn fed to a steei' we get 

 back only one pound of water-free food. 



Now, what is it that worries me? It is 

 the closing paragTaph in Dr. Kellogg's ar- 

 ticle given above — the closing sentence, in 

 fact, that we must feed ten pounds of corn 

 to a steer to get only one pound of meat 

 food. And according to Prof. Henry, 

 above, one pound of meat has only about 

 half the nutritive value of one pound of 

 corn. Just now, a large part of my diet is 

 a mush made of cornmeal, oatmeal, and 

 wheat ground up in a little home mill. This 

 when made into a mush, and set in the 

 oven before each meal, is eaten with butter 

 and honey, (or maple molasses for a 

 change) and is, 1 think, the most satisfying 

 and delicious food 1 ever ate. With a c-ui) 



