The sheet of statistics given below contains a compact résumé of the work in Detroit. The data explain themselves. The trade classes and continuation classes have been omitted in these statistics.

THE WAR AND DIETETICS

RUTH WHEELER

Department of Household Science, University of Illinois, Urbana, Ill.

With most people, dietetics is not a science. It is a habit. It takes a world war, an effective blockade, to make even a thrifty people investigate seriously the nutritive properties of what we indolently blanket as food "refuse." German scientists are, with the help of the government, doing something toward changing the dietary habits of their compatriots and perhaps stimulating the rest of the world to openmindedness in considering dietetic possibilities in animal and vegetable products now wasted. No doubt, with the forehandedness usual to that remarkably efficient nation, their chemists and physiologists are well in advance of actual dietary practices, but, at any rate, even if the results have not yet been tried out practically, the studies of substitute foods appearing in the chemical and medical journals are decidedly interesting. Changes in dietary habits are accompanied or preceded by careful studies of nutritive values. Every effort is made not only to prevent waste but to add to knowledge of foods and of food values.

The Zeitschrift der Spiritusindustrie1 reviews the uses of potatoes; the kaiserliches Gesundheitsamt2 studies the characteristics and the food value of bread made from rye with 20 per cent potato products added; the Chemische Zeitung3 reports (somewhat indefinitely) that substances may be added to potato flour which will make it sufficiently glutinous to hold the carbon dioxid and give a light loaf; 5 per cent of the grain flour of bread may be replaced by sucrose or invert sugar. Sugar beets heated with sodium carbonate and acidified are made eatable by men or by stock. A microorganism has been found which converts cellulose, even filter paper, and inorganic salts [(NH4)2SO4, MgSO4, K2HPO4, NaCl] into reducing and non-reducing carbohydrates, volatile fatty acids, iodine-binding substances and soluble proteins. The organism resembles aspergillus; it is widely distributed in the feces of man

1 The importance of potato meal as food. Lanz, Zt. Spiritusind., 38, 199. On the use of potato products in breadmaking. Arb. kais. Gesund. 48, 595. 'Baking without grain flour. Fornet, Chem. Ztg. 39, 388.

Sucrose and invert sugar as partial substitutes for flour in bread making. Jelinek, Zt. Zuckerind. Böhmen, 39, 281.

The use of sugar beets for human food and for fodder. Herzfeld and Fox, Deut. Zuckerind. 39, 885.

'On the question of cellulose digestion. Ellenberger, Zt. physiol. Chem., 96, 236.

and other animals, in organs of ruminants, pigs and horses, in earth, straw, and cheese.

After reading this, one is not surprised to find a nutritive study of straw' which is said to be digested almost without residue by the horse and the pig. The straw is heated with 2 to 4 per cent sodium hydroxide, the soluble portion washed away, and the rest mixed with 20 per cent molasses and 6.6 per cent "digested crude protein." The mixture is eaten gladly and gives an increase in body weight, a positive calcium balance, and a considerable (erheblich) retention of nitrogen. One kilogram straw plus 20 per cent of molasses gives as much energy as 2.5 kg. hay or 0.92 kg. oats.

Blood may be used in bread, increasing decidedly the food value of the product. The blood is kept on ice 24 to 35 hours, filtered, and the serum added to the dough together with hydrogen peroxide. The oxygen freed by the peroxidase in the serum bleaches and raises the dough, thus obviating any unpleasant color and at the same time avoiding the loss in food value that accompanies the decomposition of carbohydrate by yeast.

Two interesting studies of the aging of bread may be inspired by the desire to avoid any waste or may be altogether unconnected with present dietary and economic conditions. Conclusions from the first' are that light has no influence on staleness, and that aldehydes hinder its development, while ketones have no such power; from the second,10 that the question is largely one of loss of water in the colloidal system starchwater, and that aging is hindered by anything that increases the liquefaction of the starch.

A good deal of work has been done on the digestibility of war bread70 per cent wheat flour, 30 per cent rye." It is so coarse that unless well chewed it gives diarrhea. Hyperacidity and tympanites are also likely to result from its use but the former can be corrected by baking soda (NaHCO3) and the latter by charcoal tablets, according to the investigator cited. Röhmann12 holds that soldiers' black bread is preferable to white bread; it is good for the teeth and cheaper; it makes

The nutritive value of straw. v. Heide et al., Bioch. Zt., 73, 161.

8 Concealing the use of blood in bread. Droste, Chem. Ztg., 39, 634.

'Influence on the development of staleness in bread. Katz, Zt. physiol. Chem., 96, 288 and 314.

10 Changes in bread on aging. Neumann, Zt. ges. Getreiden., 6, 119.

11 War literature. v. Noorden, Ber. kl. Woch., 53, 141.

12 Concerning the value of whole grain bread. Röhmann, Ber. kl. Woch., 53, 105.

possible the use of German grown rye in the place of foreign wheat. He quotes experiments in which dogs and mice have died on white bread but have lived on this plus the hulls of the grains or on soldiers' black bread. The difference he claims is due not to essential accessories in the cortex but to amino acids present there and absent from the endosperm. The use of fine sieves in milling results in the loss of 20 per cent of dry substance and of 45 per cent of the protein of the whole grain.

The use of yeast in bread has for years been much criticized in Germany because of the loss of food value involved in its use, but now it is found to be a valuable food in itself. One strain has been cultivated that is rich in fat: 17 per cent instead of the 4 per cent in ordinary yeast; another strain is rich in protein: 54 per cent of the dry plant.13 Of this latter, 1 mark will buy 904 calories as compared with 623 calories of beef for the same money. The plant grows with great rapidity, 28 grams dry yeast (100 grams of pressed yeast) forming 88 grams dry substance in two days when grown in peptone and sugar. This it was that inspired the astounding newspaper stories of an organism discovered in the trenches that would change sugar into fat and something equivalent to meat. The yeast is described as a bright brown powder of indifferent taste and caramel-like odor. It is made into two sorts of tablets, one of yeast and salt only, to be eaten dry, and the other mixed with potato flour to be combined with hot water making a palatable and nourishing soup. Schottelius fed it to his own family and to prisoners with favorable results, and von Noorden and others have confirmed his work.

Determann in Freiburg has published A Critical Study of Vegetarian and Meat-poor Diets which is critically reviewed in the Deutsches Archiv für klinische Medicin. The diet is recommended in a number of dis ases -gout, diabetes arterio-sclerosis, ophthalmic goitre, and others, for most of which the suggestion is surprising.

A great deal of information concerning dietary conditions and dietary problems in Germany is contained in a study of school luncheons in Berlin.15 The number of luncheons served each month has increased since the war began from 150,000 to over 500,000 and the price, to those

13 Investigations of food yeast. Schottelius, Deut. med. Woch., 41, no. 28. See also Pure Products 11, 459, 486, 564, and Bokorny, Pf. Ar., 89, 473.

14 Review of the book in Deut. Ar. f. kl. Med., 180, 335.

15 Studies of Berlin school luncheons. Fendler et al., Ar. f. Hyg., 85, 1.

who could pay, from 10 to 15 Pf. partly because of increased cost of materials but partly also because a larger meal is now given. The plan is to give the child 40 to 50 per cent of the day's ration, that is, 23 grams protein, 14 to 24 grams fat, and 114-92 grams carbohydrate, but both fat and protein are hard to get. Legumes are scarce and yeast is the best source of nitrogen.

STUDENTS' CONTRIBUTIONS

SEEING MOLDS GROW

A SIMPLE EXPERIMENT THAT MAY BE TRIED IN THE HOUSEHOLD OR IN THE SCHOOL

MARTHA B. JUDD

Simmons College

This paper was suggested by Professor Buchanan's valuable article on Molds in the Home in a former issue of the JOURNAL.

We all know that molds appear and we are familiar with the fact that they seem to thrive best in dark damp places. What some of us want to know is how they get all over everything.

If one has a reading glass which magnifies three to five times, this interesting experiment may be tried.

Experiment: Cut two thicknesses of heavy brown wrapping paper to fit the bottom of a soup plate. Moisten the papers by dipping once in cold water. Keep them moist by adding one tablespoonful of water at a time under the edge of the paper. Place a piece of bread on the paper and set the dish on the kitchen table while preparing a meal; after an hour or so, cover it with another soup plate and put it in a dark cupboard. Look at it two or three times a day to be sure that it is kept moist. Soon a few little patches will appear, some with white fuzz, some dull green, and others brown, or even salmon colored. Wherever there is a spot a mold spore has fallen and is beginning to grow. After twenty-four hours, or sometimes even after twelve hours, the spots will have changed much in extent, in height, and perhaps in color.