FOOD, PURE FOOD, AND FRESH FOOD 43 



almost essential purchase. All three of these products 

 are present in the whole-wheat flour we use, and 

 which costs us about i l /z cents a pound. When we buy 

 wheat after it has been split into three parts by our 

 milling industry, we pay about 2 cents per pound for 

 the white flour; about 13 cents per pound for the 

 middlings in the form of breakfast food, and 20 cents 

 per pound for the bran. 



What is true of wheat is also true of corn. The 

 home grist-mill makes it possible for us to grind our 

 own corn meal at a cost of about 1 1 / 4 cents per pound. 

 But this is whole corn meal and not the pale ghost of 

 the old-fashioned corn meal of our grandmothers. 

 Yet the desiccated starchy substance which is now sold 

 in our stores as corn meal costs 9 cents per pound. 

 This corn meal is made from the dregs of whole corn 

 after the best part, the germ, has been cut out of it 

 to be chemically treated and turned into glucose and 

 corn syrup. These chemical substances in turn have 

 replaced the honey, the maple sugar, the molasses, and 

 the brown sugar which were consumed in their places 

 years ago, and which it is still possible for each indi- 

 vidual family to produce for itself. Industrial produc- 

 tion of these foodstuffs, instead of representing prog- 

 ress, has resulted in furnishing us inferior food and 

 at a much higher price. 



THe American housewife tends constantly to buy 

 more prepared or partly prepared food, and to cook 

 and preserve less gnd less in her kitchen. After we 



