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cognac if there are any. It gets the Italian fruits if there are 

 any. Civilians must be grateful for whatever is left. 



Since the amount of food available for the civilians de- 

 clines faster than that for the soldiers, the civilians must 

 change their food habits. The first reduction comes in the 

 production and consumption of the highly prized "protective 

 foods/' meat, milk, eggs, and fruit. The diminishing supplies 

 of food are too precious to be fed to animals; and to avoid 

 starvation, inventories of livestock are consumed. Produc- 

 tion of hogs and hens is usually curtailed because they are a 

 type of livestock that consumes food fit for direct consump- 

 tion by man. This occurred both in England and on the Eu- 

 ropean continent. In destitute countries like Greece and 

 Poland, the slaughter of livestock merely postponed the in- 

 evitable day when the amount of food available for civilian 

 consumption dwindled below the subsistence level. Malnu- 

 trition, disease, and starvation followed. The death-rate im- 

 mediately rose. This is the harsh method by which war ad- 

 justs the number of food-consumers to the amount of food 

 available. Starvation probably kills more people than do 

 Bullets. 



Millions of consumers in a war- torn world are a good deal 

 like Lazarus at the rich man's gate. Lazarus had to be satis- 

 fied with the crumbs that fell from the rich man's table and, 

 while dying from hunger, had only the dogs to lick his sores. 

 Food is the essence of life. 



United States Fortunate 



Today the world offers illustrations of the various stages 

 of hunger wrought by the havoc of war. Of the warring coun- 

 tries, World War II has probably played the most havoc in 

 Greece and the least in Australia, Canada, and the United 

 States. The United States has a high standard of living in 

 the form of livestock products, and also has an additional re- 



